Originally a comment by Papito on Well ask yourself.

“As with any identity…”

It’s like this Wight is speaking backwards and inside out. He’s reifying a peculiar and uncommon interpretation of “identity.” Most of the other features he wants to conflate with gender identity lack this characteristic of having to be expressed and therefore signaled. Nobody has to express and signal their nationality unless they happen to be passing through immigration and customs at the airport, and we have passports for that. Likewise, nobody has to express and signal their actual sex – it’s still there whether they want to swing it around or not.

Wight’s concept that the trans-identifying male expresses himself through female gender stereotypes because that’s the language people use to communicate the fact that they’re really women inside is precisely backwards. They’re never women inside, but they’re infatuated with the symbolic language of normative gender stereotypes itself – from the outside in, not from the inside out. Maybe the key difference is between the words “identity” and “identification.” The latter is an action, not a quality, and the action is the entire process, a (hopeless) attempt to secure or claim the quality.

Let’s bring class back into it. With apologies to the English – for whom I understand there is a difference between class and wealth – if one is very wealthy one doesn’t run around trying to prove it to people. The very wealthy (and I know my share) don’t act like caricatures of the wealthy (e.g. Trump), covering themselves in gold and always driven about in limousines. That is identification as wealthy. Those who have the actual identity of wealth strive not to be identifiable as wealthy, because it would crimp their lifestyle. They drive modest cars, and I meet them at our local tavern dressed like everybody else.

You don’t become wealthy by expressing and signaling that you’re wealthy – in fact, quite the opposite, you can go broke doing that. Likewise, nobody becomes a woman by expressing and signaling that they are a woman – that just produces caricatures like Dylan Mulvaney.

No abaya in the state schools.

The French education minister has said that nearly 300 pupils arrived at school on Monday wearing the abaya, the long Muslim robe which was banned in schools last week.

Not just pupils; female pupils. It’s so BBC to omit that from the lede.

Most of the girls agreed to change into other clothes.

According to official figures, 298 girls – mainly aged 15 or more – turned up at school in the banned garment. Under instructions laid down by the ministry, there followed in each case a period of dialogue with school staff.

67 girls refused and were sent home. Next step is dialogue with the families; if that fails the girls will be excluded.

It’s difficult, because that’s bad for the excluded girls, and there’s always the worry about xenophobia, religious freedom, all that. On the other hand the whole idea that post-puberty female humans have to be treated as a dangerous contaminant is bad for every girl and woman in France and for that matter the world.

France has a strict ban on religious signs in state schools and government buildings, arguing that they violate secular laws. Wearing a headscarf has been banned since 2004 in state-run schools.

The move comes after months of debate over the wearing of abayas in French schools. The garment is being increasingly worn in schools, leading to a political divide over them, with right-wing parties pushing for a ban while those on the left have voiced concerns for the rights of Muslim women and girls.

But it’s a peculiar kind of “right” of women and girls to be extinguished like a candle just because they’re women and girls.

In 2010, France banned the wearing of full-face veils in public, provoking anger in France’s five million-strong Muslim community.

As usual, the BBC words it in such a way as to nudge us into thinking all French Muslims are Islamists.

And yet, does Peter ever post matching tweets telling us men and trans men are two different kinds of men? Does he ever say “Unite to defend ALL men, including trans”?

I’m finding this “identity” discussion Colin Wight is curating quite frustrating, because I can’t figure out what he means by “identity” and he keeps elaborating on it without saying what he means by it. I gather we’re all supposed to know, but I’m kind of allergic to things we’re all supposed to know (and act on, and respect, and so on) that can’t be defined.

Well ask yourself what a class identity is, or a National identity? It’s the same thing with gender. It can only mean you identify with/as the word proceeding it. So it would mean they identify with gender not sex. And gender is; the norms, values, expectations, roles, practices, and beliefs a society places on the sexes. So gender identity would be to identify with the norms, values, expectations, practices, and beliefs a society has placed on the sexes. Some people identify intensely with gender; some not at all. And that’s exactly what we observe; trans people adopt the gender norms associated with the opposite sex. They identify with an image of the opposite sex they’ve constructed in their heads on the basis of their understanding of those gender norms. Re your questions, we tend to see. 1; some do actually believe they are the sex they identify with, some don’t. 2. Some do want to become the opposite sex and undergo surgery etc, some just dress and act as if they’re the opposite sex. 3. Most, I would suspect do want to be seen and recognised “as if” they were the opposite sex. The way this is mostly attempted is through gender expression and performance. 4. Since it’s gender identity, the way they mostly achieve this (3) can only be by adopting the gender norms (stereotypes) of the society they’re in. As with any identity to express it to the world we have to signal it. Punks wear particular clothes. Nationalists fly flags. Women (according to the gender norms)…wear make-up, dresses, act feminine, can’t drive, dance around, are ditz. See Dylan Mulvaney, he’s a perfect example of someone who thinks being a girl is to conform with the gender norms we associate with the female sex. He can’t demonstrate how he’s a girl by acting like a large gamete (that would be sex identity), he can only signal it using signs that society will understand. That’s gender.

Like that. “Well ask yourself what a class identity is, or a National identity.” I have no idea! That’s my point! I do not know what you’re talking about. I don’t see what “identity” adds to “National” there. Nationality is a crisp, official, simple fact.

I don’t have a “class identity” or a “National identity.” I don’t normally capitalize “national,” either. I have a nationality: it’s just a fact. My class is less factual, more complicated, more open to debate, as is the case with many people, so using the two together as examples is unhelpful.

I’ve written about this puzzle of what people mean when they blather about “identity” before. One of my columns for Free Inquiry was about it. As we all know, trans “identity” is a very big and obtrusive subject – but that’s because it’s so ridiculous and counter-factual.

Maybe this bit will help clarify?

As with any identity to express it to the world we have to signal it.

So identity is something we want to express to the world?

But what if we don’t? What if we don’t want to express it to the world? What if we wouldn’t dream of flouncing around in the world expressing our idenninies all the time?

I’m stumped. I cannot figure out what he’s talking about.

I don’t get this. I don’t think “identity” is real, and I don’t really get why other people do.

I don’t think I can describe myself as gender critical anymore (if I ever did). Gender identity is real. It’s as real as national identity, class identity, ethnic identity; any group identity you can think of. People identify with all sorts of things; their careers, their families, their football clubs, types of music, even their cars (yes, I have friends who identity with being only BMW drivers; sad I know). And the things they identify with are important to them. The thing is, though, saying gender identity is real, doesn’t mean everyone has a little gender man/woman/NB inside their head before they’re born. You can only identify “with/as” something once you become conscious of it. Identity is an on-going process of human development and it’s not something innate. And some of our identities are quite fixed, others are constantly changing. If I was born in Liverpool I’d probably be a Liverpool supporter (what a thought).

But how is national identity “real”? There are facts (real facts, if you like) about people’s nationality; what is added by labeling that “national identity”? There is the clear, factual sense of “identity” as in “identity card,” but that’s a different thing from this abstract idea of having a national or class “identity.” You just are whatever nationality you are. You just have the history you have, and it may be clear what class you are or it may not. You just have a sex; what a “gender identity” is is shrouded in mystery.

And is “identifying with” things “real”? What does it mean? It doesn’t mean you are the things – it seems to mean you are someone who likes the things, or spends time doing the things, or paid a lot of money for the things. Why bring “identity” into it?

I, for one, don’t think I do “identify with” things that way. I have likes and passions, yes, but when I need to talk about them I just say that, I don’t bother with identifying with them.

I don’t think we need to take this idea with such seriousness. Leave it to the sociologists.

What fresh hell is this?

Sure, chum, the fact that you say You Are A Safe Person means you absolutely are one and definitely not just saying you are one for nefarious purposes. This is a very excellent idea.

Also, notice that as usual women have no need of safety. Women are the people everyone else needs protection from.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on No worries.

…“by the end of the century, nearly every country on earth will have a shrinking population, and economic systems dependent on reliable growth will collapse”…

Well maybe they should have tought of that, hmmm? Aren’t there other economic systems not reliable on “reliable growth?” “Supply and demand” isn’t nearly as robust a law as “You can’t eat if there is no supply. Or drink. Or breathe.” You’d think we’d have a bit more sense than a mat of bacteria in a Petri dish that thinks it’s got a limitless supply of growth medium at their disposal. Or not.

Our current economic regime represents a tiny fraction of the time that humans have been on Earth. We’ve never had it so good; we’ve never made it so bad. We haven’t yet realized that these two are cause and effect. It doesn’t have to be this way. We could do fine with less stuff; better still if there were fewer of us putting pressure on the planet. There’s a bare minimum required to sustain our numbers, but our impact goes way beyond that. How much of what we’ve done has been the result of industrialized liesure and entertainment, mechanized, motorized, mass-produced – and consumed- pleasure and distraction? Ophelia’s comments on cruise ships hit this on the head. Yet stopping this would be seen as a restriction on “freedom.” But our freedom to be irresponsible is costing the world. Shifting gears to change this would cut into too many profit margins for it to be permitted. So much easier, and cheaper, to continue with business as usual for as long as possible than to disrupt everything and retool how we do things to forestall disaster. Which will be a good deal more disruptive, but whatever. So the ones selling us the tickets will keep telling us that there is a free lunch, things are just fine, and that this rollercoaster will keep going up-up-up forever. As long as there is money yet to be made from the Cruise to Hell, they’ll keep offering passage and an all-you-can-eat buffet. Mustn’t alarm the bacteria paying customers, right?

Huh. So they want to exile us now.

He wants to “exile” us as “sick”; he wants to boycott us and banish us.

But don’t worry, this is a very healthy and progressive ideology and movement.

The Guardian tells us:

A high-end hotel in the liberal Texan enclave of Austin is playing host to a conference whose theme is boosting global birth rates, but which will in fact feature racist and eugenicist internet personalities and far-right media figures.

Boosting global birth rates – brilliant. That’s like throwing bottles of gasoline onto a house fire.

The Natal conference – whose website warns that “by the end of the century, nearly every country on earth will have a shrinking population, and economic systems dependent on reliable growth will collapse” – is scheduled to be held on 1 December at the Line Hotel.

Somebody should tell them about the other systems that are going to collapse, long before the end of the century.

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project on Hate and Extremism, said the meeting will cement links between the far right and influential rightwing opinion-makers. “It’s not surprising to see far-right folks, eugenicist types and white nationalists joining forces at a conference like this. They have become bedfellows,” she said.

She added: “The far right has long fretted about a demographic winter, and though they don’t necessarily say it openly, what they are referring to most often is a fall in white birthrates.”

If only they knew they can just stop fretting because global warming is going to make their concerns irrelevant.

Billy Bragg is unapologetic and determined: he knows which views are unpopular and To Be Avoided. Whether they’re any good or not is entirely beside the point.

Come on, Suzanne. Can he be any clearer??? The views in question are frowned upon. What more is there to say? We all know that no true claim is ever unpopular, right? Well then.

Her views are contentious! And divisive! And therefore obviously wrong. No true or reasonable or useful view is ever contentious or divisive, so why is Hadley even trying?

Nobody must ever say anything contentious!! How is this so contentious? Why is everyone not agreeing with my assertion that contentious views are automatically wrong and forbidden?!!

People can see! They won’t sit next to you in the cafeteria! They won’t ask you to their parties! They’ll point at you and laugh!

Batshit crazy godbotherer or droll parodist? You be the judge.

Has to be parody, doesn’t it?

Besides, who the hell wants canned peaches for anything? In fact who keeps a big stock of canned foods, so many that you need a code if the labels are gone? Canned foods are mostly bad foods. Why isn’t he instead getting all theological up in there with demanding fresh vegetables and pasta sauce in a glass jar?

Ok has to be parody.

Ooh I know this one, I can help.

Let me explain. Those are two different people, saying different things. So, to offer an analogy, you might like the novels of Natalie Haynes but not the novels of Lionel Shriver, or vice versa, because those are two different people writing different books. Do you see how that works? It’s quite a common occurrence, so it’s a good idea to get used to it.

LOVE the macramé bracelet.

Click on the image to see the classic Keds, too.

Aw look at the plucky lads overcoming the handicap of being male.

Aw, sad.

Vox has details:

[Last] Sunday was not a fun day for the thousands of people on their way to Burning Man. In the days leading up to the bacchanal, traffic is typically a nightmare on the two-lane highway that leads to the barren former lake bed in the Black Rock Desert, a national conservation area that, for a week every year, becomes known as Black Rock City, population 80,000.

But this year, a small group of climate protesters parked a 28-foot trailer across the road, causing miles of gridlock. Seven Circles, a coalition of organizations that includes Extinction Rebellion and Rave Revolution, made some simple demands of the Burning Man Organization, which hosts the annual desert party: “Ban private jets, single-use plastics, unnecessary propane burning, and unlimited generator use per capita at the nine day event in Black Rock City, Nevada.” There were also calls for the organization to mobilize its members “to initiate systemic change.” But the ban on private jets — that seems pretty straightforward.

Oh come on, how is all that not worth it for the sake of a great party?

The protesters, it deserves to be said, had a point: Burning Man is famously bad for the planet.

The many tens of thousands of people the event attracts must travel through some of the most remote parts of the country to a destination where there are few natural resources, where everything gets trucked in, and where vast structures are lit ablaze on the last night of the festival, pumping carbon-filled smoke into the atmosphere. But over 90 percent of the event’s carbon footprint comes not from the fires themselves but from travel to and from Black Rock City, according to a 2020 environmental sustainability report from the Burning Man Organization. Another 5 percent comes from gas- and diesel-burning generators that keep lights and air conditioners on during the festival.

Air conditioners. Ya gotta love it. “Let’s go spend a week in the desert, don’t forget to bring the generator and the portable air conditioner!”

All things told, each Burning Man generates about 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide. That’s more than about 22,000 gas-powered cars produce in a year.

Well, ok, but after all, Burning Man is an essential service, like hospitals and, uh, fire departments.

The explosive growth and popularity of the festival in the past three decades mirrors an entire history of humans favoring their own version of progress over the consequences it produces. What started out as a gathering on a beach in San Francisco has grown into a destination for celebrities and the ultra rich, especially tech billionaires. That’s why private jets have become an issue. There are now fancy camps, meals prepared by private chefs, and VIP parties. Bear in mind, all of this is built just for the weeklong festival at the end of the summer, and it all has to be disassembled and taken away after. One of the founding principles of Burning Man is “leave no trace,” but even the event’s organizers were stunned by how much trash got left behind in the desert last year.

Jeez, what a grouch. Some people just don’t like parties.

Men must be protected, but women are fair game.

I doubt I’ll ever understand why the blatant absurdity doesn’t make them stop and think again. Why keep the men’s toilet for men but say “come on in!” on the women’s? And while we’re at it, why label the women’s the women’s, and then add a smaller sign underneath that says “Both”?

Also, the iconography is interesting. In the original pair, the man straddles boldly while the woman balances dangerously on her one tiny leg. Men R strong, women R dainty. That’s why it’s so much safer to invade the women’s toilets than the men’s.

Alabama Republicans are still battling Reconstruction.

Just a few months ago, the US supreme court issued one of its most surprising rulings in recent memory.

In a 5-4 decision in Allen v Milligan, the court said Alabama’s congressional map violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act because it diluted the influence of Black voters, who make up about a quarter of the state’s population, but comprise a majority in just one of Alabama’s congressional districts. The justices upheld a lower court’s decision ordering Alabama to redraw its map “to include two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it”.

It was widely seen as a major win for the Voting Rights Act, a statute that the US supreme court has significantly hollowed out over the last decade. It was a victory that was supposed to give the Black belt, a historically Black region in the state that is among the poorest in the US, better representation in Washington.

In sharp contrast to the Shelby ruling, which was supposed to give Black voters worse representation.

But when Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature convened just a few weeks later, they ignored the mandate. Their new map still included just one majority Black district. It increased the percentage of Black voters in a second district to be around 41% Black, but continued to crack the Black belt, a historically Black region that stretches across the middle of Alabama, into multiple districts. Now, it is asking a federal court to approve that map and, if they don’t, the case will probably return to the supreme court.

Alabama Republicans would restore slavery if they could.

Hmmmmmmmmmmno.

No gender idenniny isn’t “real” any more than the “soul” is real. Feelings about what sex one is can be real. Intense unhappiness about what sex one is can be real. Unhappiness of that kind can be both real and as it were manufactured – it can be a product of social manipulation or contagion, while still being an intense feeling. But our feelings don’t necessarily mirror reality – in fact they very often don’t. It’s even possible to change one’s feelings by tweaking one’s description of them. We can talk ourselves out of feeling angry or miserable, and we can also talk ourselves into feeling angry or miserable. The feelings can be real but they can be based on very mistaken ideas, interpretations, beliefs. Trans ideology is strikingly prone to whipping up desperate feelings on the basis of total bullshit.

Sex is real: it’s a given, it’s something we’re born with and can’t change. Our feelings about what sex we are are real in the sense that we feel them (those of us who do), but they’re not real in the way sex is real. It’s like a lot of things that way. We can feel we are pretty much anything, but that doesn’t mean we can be whatever we can imagine ourselves being.

Then of course Tatchell cheats in the way this ideology always does, by changing the wording. “Real” suddenly switches to “valid,” without explanation or justification. The two are not the same.

Hm. Interesting.

An unsafe environment, Comerford says. So unsafe that there is no choice: it is imperative that such an environment be prevented by canceling the entire gig in every case.

This is a big part of the pathology of this kind of “politics.” It’s pathological to be so extremely fragile that merely being in the presence of people who don’t share your delusions is “unsafe.”

But they’re not actually that fragile, are they. Hardly anyone is. It’s the ideology that’s fragile, and it’s the ideology that’s pathological.

It’s stupid and bad to keep telling people, over and over and in all-caps, that they are as fragile as a spider web, so fragile that they will drop dead or commit suicide if they even share a large space with people who don’t endorse their luxury false “identities.”

This is not a thing. We don’t do this. We don’t tell children their fantasies are real and anyone who doesn’t agree that their fantasies are real is a lethal threat.

Yet here is Comerford saying the opposite. It’s grotesque.

Sigh.

The Telegraph:

Cricket is facing mounting criticism for failing to follow other sports in tightening women’s sport protections after it emerged a transgender player will make her international debut.

Danielle McGahey, an Australian-born player, is set to become the first transgender cricketer to play an official Twenty20 international, representing Canada.

That is, the first man to play on a women’s team.

Sharron Davies, the Olympic medallist swimmer who has been at the forefront of campaigns to protect the integrity of women’s sport, says the situation is “outrageously irresponsible”.

“We’ve been pushing the England and Wales Cricket Board for years to protect females from male biological advantage,” she told Telegraph Sport of campaigns in England to toughen rules. “There are trans-identifying males in the English game right now that have caused damage to young female cricketers. Canada is particularly discriminatory toward their female athletes by allowing males into sports like rugby even against international governing bodies’ safety-first policies.”

And safety of course is not the only issue. Fairness is another.

McGahey detailed how she had undergone the required medical transition in order to meet existing ICC eligibility regulations.

“I am absolutely honoured,” McGahey told the BBC. “To be able to represent my community is something I never dreamt I would be able to do.

He shouldn’t be. He should be absolutely embarrassed and ashamed and crawling with remorse.

An ICC statement said: “We can confirm that Danielle went through the process as required under the ICC’s player eligibility regulations and as a result has been deemed eligible to participate in international women’s cricket on the basis that she satisfies the MTF transgender eligibility criteria.”

Oh go soak your head. Fuck “eligibility regulations” and fuck “deemed eligible” and fuck “she satisfies the male to female criteria.” Fuck all of it. It’s insulting theft of women’s sports so stop pretending it’s anything else.