Everybody’s favorite Veronica Rachel winning hearts and minds some more.

Gotta love an academic who calls people “dumbass” on Twitter.

You’d think this was satire but apparently it isn’t. Hold the presses: facial recognition technology “misgenders” trans and nonbinary people. You don’t say! How very shocking!

Yet, for all its advances, facial recognition technology—created by training computer vision algorithms on massive datasets of photographs of faces—might have a critical shortcoming: only being able to “see” two genders.

Sexes, you mean. The average differences in male and female faces aren’t a matter of gender but of sex. They’re physical. Vision algorithms don’t know from people’s inner feeling.

New research by Jed Brubaker, Jacob Paul, and Morgan Klaus Scheuerman (lead author) in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Information Science department reveals that many major facial recognition services misclassify the gender of trans and non-binary people.

Because they can’t see the magic gender, they can see only the sex. If you asked them to classify people’s politics or taste in food they would get that wrong too. If you want to check people’s invisible attributes, you don’t send facial recognition technology to do the job.

“We found that facial analysis services performed consistently worse on transgender individuals, and were universally unable to classify non-binary genders,” said Scheuerman, who is also a PhD student in Information Science at CU Boulder, in a statement.

Oh for god’s sake! How would they be able to? How would anyone? Do you feel confident that you can pick the non-binary people out of a crowd? Of course not! It’s a self-applied label, not a concrete recognizable specifiable category.

At a minimum, this miscategorization has the potential to result in social discomfort and exclusion, reinforcing stereotypes that serve to “other” those who do not identify with the traditional gender binary.

“When you walk down the street you might look at someone and presume that you know what their gender is, but that is a really quaint idea from the ‘90s and it is not what the world is like anymore,” Brubaker said. “As our vision and our cultural understanding of what gender is has evolved, the algorithms driving our technological future have not. That’s deeply problematic.”

Oh yes, so quaint, from those stupid ’90s, which might as well be the 4th century. It’s like corsets, or crucifying rebels, or living in a pleasant villa in Pompeii.

Oh please.

New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet and Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron agreed that both of their papers have to do a better job of covering President Donald Trump’s supporters.

Not this crap again. They do cover Trump’s supporters. We hear endlessly about forgotten people in forgotten small towns and their forgotten hatred of immigrants; we hear far more about forgotten small town Murika than we do about big city Murika, where a vastly larger percentage of people live.

Baquet and Baron joined NBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday to talk about how the Trump administration has waged war on fact-based reporting, and what news outlets should do to push back against disinformation. When asked about why people support Trump despite his numerous falsehoods, Baquet said “I’m not convinced people want to be lied to,” but journalists have a job to report the truth even when its counter to the lies that “bad politicians” offer their supporters.

“I don’t want to be dismissive of people that support our president. They’re owed our respect they certainly have mine,” Baron said as he jumped in. “They feel the so-called elites in Washington have not paid attention to them, that they don’t understand their lives…They feel that the president is actually listening to them and addressing their concerns and so they tend to believe him.”

Blah blah blah blah. They have no right to “feel” that the president is actually listening to them and addressing their concerns, because he isn’t, and it’s obvious that he isn’t, and there’s zero reason to think he is or ever would be. We don’t need to “respect” people who think that because Trump is a racist and a pussy-grabbing pig and a hater of immigrants and a mean shithead who publicly insults everyone who stands up to him, therefore he cares about them and will make their lives better. Trump is a greedy profiteering law-breaking exploitative real estate hustler, and he has no interest whatsoever in farmers and workers. None. We do not have to respect people who are mindless or mean or both enough to think Trump is a friend to working stiffs.

I am so tired of this bullshit.

Cute.

Festive Xmas message from the Coalition Against Trans Antagonism:

2019 CATA community Transmas

“Pin the tail on the TERF / SWERF fascists!”

Haw haw obliterate their eyes, geddit?

Oh those people. Yes, I remember them.

Scrolling down the Facebook page I get the feeling the “group” is one very angry person. Possibly as many as two.

Trump is ratcheting up the crazy and disgusting.

Which they should be able to do very easily – oh yes it’s dead easy to provide abundant housing for non-rich people in a week or two, especially in a system that is categorically hostile to all forms of public housing.

Yeah! Why haven’t you replied to my tweet where I called you Crazy Nancy? Are you playing golf or something?

Hmm. Science! And skepticism! Science and skepticism! Together! Jonathan Jarry’s Twitter profile:

Science + skepticism for the public. Podcasting, writing & talks.
@McGillOSS
. One half of The Body of Evidence (w/
@DrLabos
). Feelings don’t care about facts.

Sounds good. Yay science, yay skepticism, yay for the public. The slogan makes more sense as “facts don’t care about feelings” but maybe he’s being playful.

Any trends to talk about?

How much time do you have?

Uhhh…denialists? Seriously? It’s “denialism” to say that people can’t change sex? (And it’s the opposite of denialism to say that men are not men if they say they are not men?)

What did happen to Ockham’s razor?

Psychology Today:

Here’s what really happened: On November 21, Kayum Ahmed, a South African and an adjunct member of the Columbia University Law School faculty, spoke at Fieldston about apartheid. In the Q & A, which was recorded on video, in response to a student’s question, he said that “xenophobic attacks are a shameful part of South African history, but in some ways it reflects the fluidity between those who are victims becoming perpetrators,” and that he uses the same example in talking about the Holocaust. “Jews who suffered in the Holocaust and established the State of Israel,” he told them, “today perpetuate violences against Palestinians that are unthinkable.”^*

If a speaker had made comments such as these about any historically marginalized group in the U.S. other than Jewish people, it is hard to believe that an official from the school wouldn’t have condemned it long before the students left the room. Apologies would have flooded parents’ in-boxes. Counselors would have been on hand.^**

I can think of another historically marginalized group that is an exception in that way. Women. (The author is a woman – Pamela Paresky PhD.)

I suppose it can happen to any (or almost any) historically marginalized group. People who are dominant in one context can be marginalized in another, and vice versa. That’s part of what “intersectionalism” is about.

To be clear, I do not have a problem with schools allowing speakers to say things like this in front of students. I think it’s important for students to see that words do not equal violence, to learn about antisemitic conspiracy theories, and to see firsthand that antisemites don’t all announce their bigotry by looking like Nazis or a skinheads. If a school would allow similar ideas about any other group to be shared without condemnation, then allowing it to be said about Jews would not be a marker of antisemitic undercurrents at the school. But of course, they wouldn’t. And that’s the insidious nature of antisemitism. It’s the form of bigotry often embraced by those who claim to be enemies of bigotry and advocates of social justice. 

But so is “TERF” hatred. I think the two are at least matched.

Long before this incident, some Jewish parents expressed concern about the school’s mandatory “conversations about race” program for all third, fourth, and fifth graders. Despite research indicating that friendships between children from different backgrounds reliably diminish bias and discrimination, and that emphasizing differences is counterproductive to those ends, the curriculum requires each child to self-identify as part of a segregated, racial “affinity group.”

The mutually exclusive options are African American/Black; Asian or Pacific Islander; Latino; Multiracial; White; and Not Sure. Each child must pick one. “Jewish” is not among the identities from which children can choose.

God, what a muddle. “Asian” is geographic; “White” is racial; “Latino” is…what? Geographic, linguistic, racial, what? Is a Mayan the same as a Guatemalan of all-European descent? And then, what about the Irish? What about Italians? Eastern Europeans? The US slices and dices its prejudices and belittlings very fine.

Regardless of whether their ethnic backgrounds happen to include one of the non-white available categories, Jewish children (age 8 to 11) are forced to “self-identify” (a misnomer) as one of the available “affinity groups” even if their Jewishness is the more salient aspect of their identity. Jewish children who do not fit any of the non-white racial categories are required to choose “white” or “not sure” (which was renamed the “general discussion” group). 

They weren’t all that “white” in Warsaw in 1942.

Meryl Streep made an important point in this 2012 interview on Fresh Air:

GROSS: You gave a terrific commencement address at Barnard in 2010. And one of things you talked about was that the hardest thing in the world is to persuade a straight, male audience to identify with a woman character. It’s easier for women because we were brought up identifying with male characters in literature. It’s hard for straight boys to identify with Juliet or Wendy in “Peter Pan,” whereas girls identify with Romeo and with Peter Pan. What led you to that conclusion?

STREEP: What let me to that was I have never – I mean, I watch movies. And I don’t care who is the protagonist, I feel what that guy is feeling. You know, if it’s Tom Cruise leaping over a building – I want to make it, you know? And I’m going to – yes, I made it. And yeah, so I get that. And I’ve grown up, well, partly because there weren’t great girls’ literature – Nancy Drew, maybe – but there weren’t things.

So there was Huck Finn and “Spin And Marty.” The boys characters were interesting, and you’ve – you lived through them when you’re watching it. You know, you don’t – you’re not aware of it, but you’re following the action of the film through the body of the protagonist, you know? You feel what he feels when he jumps, when he leaps, when he wins, when he loses. But it became obvious to me that men don’t live through the female characters.

GROSS: Do you think that women have that kind of double consciousness and men, like, boys…

STREEP: I think it has to do with…

GROSS: …Don’t make that leap?

STREEP: Well, it has to do with very deep things, you know, because it might be that imagining yourself as a girl is a diminishment. But it is something that when I made “The Devil Wears Prada,” it was the first time in my life, 30 years of making movies, that a man came up and said, I know how you felt. I know how you felt. I have a job like that. People don’t understand.

GROSS: It’s the first time?

STREEP: First time. First time. And they say lots of things. I think they – this is what I was trying to say in that speech. It’s very hard point to make because I guess it’s hard to wrap your head around it. But for men, the most – usually the favorite character that I’ve ever played is Linda in “The Deer Hunter.”

Without question, of the heterosexual men that I’ve spoken to over the years, that’s usually – they say, you know, my favorite thing you’ve ever done was Linda or Sophie. And they were a particular kind of very feminine, recessive kind of personality. They – so they fell in love with her, but they didn’t feel the story through her body. And it took to “The Devil Wears Prada” to play someone tough, who had to make hard decisions, who was running an organization, and sometimes that takes making tough decisions for a certain kind of man to empathize. That’s the word – empathize. Feel the story through her. And that’s the first time anybody has ever said that they felt that way.

Can confirm. Growing up I identified with a thousand male characters – and a thousand female ones too.

The smug piece on CeCé Telfer was written by Dawn Ennis, who is

1. the editor-in-chief of Outsports
2. a trans woman

But of course.

So it’s an Outsports award, and Dawn (formerly Don) Ennis is the editor in chief of Outsports, and Dawn Ennis is trans, so a trans woman gives a woman’s award to a trans woman. Bros before hos am I right?

The Outsports Female Athlete of the Year is

you know this one already

not a female.

The LGBTQ sports world was blessed in 2019 with an abundance of choices for Female Athlete of the Year. Readers nominated several women, among them:

– USWNT icon Megan Rapinoe, who made an indelible mark during the Women’s World Cup.

But who cares about her, she’s just a boring commonplace woman. They’re a dime a dozen, yawn. Outsports can do better than that.

But in terms of making an indelible mark on sports history, CeCé Telfer of Franklin Pierce University sprinted to the top of the list with her groundbreaking victory at the May 2019 NCAA Division II National Championships. Telfer beat her closest competitor by a second and a half, winning the 400m hurdles at Javelina Stadium on the campus of Texas A&M University in Kingsville, Texas.

Groundbreaking!

As far as we know, she is the first track and field NCAA champion who is an out transgender woman.

Meaning, she’s a person with a male body who won by competing against women. That’s not something to celebrate or give an award because of which.

That achievement brought her fame as well as made her a target of detractors and opponents of transgender inclusion in sports, including Donald Trump, Jr.

Those critics focus on her victory and ignore the fact that she competed within NCAA rules and placed fifth in the 100m that same day.

Apparently it’s simply beyond the realm of possibility, even of imagining, that the NCAA rules could have this wrong.

“I try to lead by example,” Telfer told Outsports. “The one quote that has been with me my whole life is; ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ And I want to be that change, a step forward in making the world a more inclusive and safe place. It’s all starts with me.”

But what Telfer did doesn’t make the world more inclusive, let alone more safe. It makes women also-rans in their own sports, and in sports like rugby it puts them in danger too. Neither inclusive nor safe.

There’s a study, you see. A study. Be impressed.

Transgender children may start to identify with toys and clothes typical of their gender identity from a very young age, a recent study suggests.

Children identify with their clothes? I think not.

They mean, of course, something like “identify with the role that is purported to belong to this sex as opposed to that,” but hey, that would make everyone stop reading.

And their confidence in their gender identity is generally as strong as that of cisgender children, whose identity matches their sex assigned at birth, researchers found.

Except that doesn’t mean anything. What shirt you wear is not organically connected to what sex you are in the way that fatuous sentence implies. It’s back to front. Toys and clothes are just things, and it’s a matter of social rules – stupid social rules, mostly – that says girls play with this and boys play with that. Liking the “wrong” or “other” toy doesn’t make a kid The Other Sex.

The Reuters/NBC article never says what discipline the study is in. I had to Google the lead author to find out. The study was at the University of Washington (a few miles from where I’m sitting):

The study, published Nov. 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, followed more than 300 transgender children from across the United States, as well as nearly 200 of their cisgender siblings and about 300 unrelated cisgender children as a control group. It is the first study to report on all of the participants in the TransYouth Project, launched in 2013 by UW professor of psychology Kristina Olson.

The transgender children in this study, all of whom enrolled between the ages of 3 and 12, had socially — but not medically — transitioned when they participated: They had changed their pronouns and often their first names, as well as dress and play in ways associated with a gender other than their sex at birth.

So what are we talking about here? Apparently about children who prefer the toys and clothes associated with The Other Sex…but does that really make them a magical thing called Transgender, or does it just make them kids who have their own preferences in clothes and toys?

In other words why are we interpreting preferences of that kind as a profound and meaningful difference as opposed to just part of the variety of people in general? It’s as if we’d decided pears are for boys and apples are for girls so anybody who likes pears more than apples is a boy.

Humans being dumb. Oh oh girls and boys must wear and play with radically different things; we must enforce these rules with all the advertising and discipline we can; if a child despite all the advertising and discipline fails to conform to even one of these rules, that must mean the child is In The Wrong Body.

“Trans kids are showing strong identities and preferences that are different from their assigned sex,” said lead author Selin Gülgöz, who did the work as a postdoctoral researcher at the UW and will start a new position this winter as an assistant professor at Fordham University. “There is almost no difference between these trans- and cisgender kids of the same gender identity — both in how, and the extent to which, they identify with their gender or express that gender.”

And that’s innate! It’s biological! They were born with it! It’s nothing to do with social rules, and simply choosing different social rules, no no, it’s an overpowering biological imperative which overrules what’s actually between the legs.

Hey, it’s a Study, what more do you need to know.

One of these is not like the other, one of these doesn’t belong.

Can YOU see it?

The BBC is reporting on it.

The RSPCA is looking into claims made by a prominent lawyer that he killed a fox with a baseball bat.

Jolyon Maugham posted on Twitter on Thursday morning: “Already this morning I have killed a fox with a baseball bat. How’s your Boxing Day going?”

The animal welfare charity tweeted that the claim was “distressing”.

Which is so sad because he meant it to be funny. Jokes are such a personal thing.

Government guidelines state you can use cage traps and snares to catch foxes and you must “humanely kill any fox you catch while it’s in the trap or snare”.

Humanely doesn’t mean “with a baseball bat.”

Jolyon Maugham QC’s fox-smashing exploit has garnered him considerable attention, and not the good kind. Maybe being a preening sadist isn’t such a great marketing ploy after all?

So I smashed it with a club.

Odd thing to brag about.

A great many people have pointed out that the RSPCA has a 24-hour hotline for exactly this purpose. The RSPCA have pointed out that what Maugham claims to have done is not lawful.

In case you’ve forgotten, that was Maugham’s tweeted advice to women who pointed out the potential for male people to harass or abuse women in “inclusive” changing rooms.

The Guardian even did a story on it.