I’ll Just Leave This Here, I Think
She’s tired of catering to your feelings.
You see, when you appear to be female, and sound female, and are objectively female, and you visit a restaurant with a group of women, and the stranger taking your order fails to pre-emptively ask, as one does, whether anyone present has serious mental health issues, and instead simply says, “Hi, ladies”… Well, clearly, this is an outrage.
Update, via the comments:
Nikw211 adds,
I am not responsible for the state of someone else’s mental health. This is not because I lack compassion, but because anyone who makes the state of their confidence and sanity dependent on random strangers is going to be forever disappointed. It would be like bursting into tears every time you buy a lottery ticket and find your numbers didn’t come up.
It does seem an unpromising path to contentment. As noted here recently,
This, I think, is what makes trans activism different from that of other groups with which transgender people are often equated. Someone being gay, for instance, doesn’t generally entail a demand that everyone else either hallucinate or pretend to hallucinate. Which is to say, trans activism often includes a belief that the rest of us should pretend that the physical reality we can see is somehow not the case. And unsurprisingly, people may object to being told that they should lie on demand.
A concession that would leave those so inclined at the mercy of any poseur, or prankster, or unpleasable neurotic.
Some will likewise not welcome being told to indulge, wholesale, a bundle of phenomena that includes not only actual gender dysphoria, whether the result of neurological anomalies or childhood molestation, but also autogynephilia, serious personality disorders, and assorted exhibitionist and unsavoury compulsions. The expectation seems to be that we should take these different phenomena, with very different moral connotations, as being one and the same thing, and then defer to them. Which is asking rather more than can readily be agreed to.
Update 2:
Our Queen of Sorrow says,
Every time I go to the grocery store and ignore being called ‘miss’ or ‘ma’am’… it’s not okay.
And so, one has to wonder what the imagined solution is, the one to which we aren’t made privy. Are checkout staff everywhere supposed to ignore the obvious fact that Arthur is female, and presents herself as female, with female clothing and hair? Should checkout staff and waitresses, and everyone working in retail, everywhere, somehow just know to pretend that Arthur is something she isn’t? Do checkout staff and waitresses really have the time and wherewithal to fathom and indulge every single customer’s psychological quirks in advance of any interaction, even a routine greeting? Exactly how much of this lady’s psychological dissonance should be foisted on everyone else?
And would such an accommodation set us on a path we want to be travelling down? Pretending can lead to some strange terrain.
In person, I’m generally polite by default and don’t go out of my way to needlessly put a kink in someone else’s day. I’ve had perfectly civil chats with people who regard themselves as trans or gender-non-conforming or whatever. Nobody got upset. But what is being asked – or demanded – is not a small thing, not in its implications. Some insist that not indulging psychodrama is a violation of human rights and a basis for severe legal consequences. One might think that coercively eroding the probity of other people, demanding that they lie and pretend to hallucinate, is a pretty bad thing too. At best, a recipe for grim farce.
But there we are.
Update 3, via the comments, more fits of unrealism:
When you’ve been severely educated.
Being precocious, we’re told, is just “white supremacy” and therefore something to atone for.
Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Note that Bari and spouse were forced out of the uni. The risk is real.
Of course it is. Even Abbot confesses to keeping his head down as not to be a target. But the Red Guard has no limit and the definition of what is allowed today will change to be forbidden tomorrow. At what point does one fight back?
At what point does one fight back?
Existing higher ed institutions are not salvageable and will remain unsalvageable as long as they receive the firehose of government cash. They have become warehouses for the unemployable, students, faculty and admin alike.
Private colleges are going out of business at the rate of 1-2/week, but there are a lot of private colleges. There’s certainly a niche for all these professors to start their own private college dedicated to actual study, but O’Sullivan’s First Law ensures that, Matrix Revolutions-style, we’ll just be back here in a decade or two.
Note that Bari and spouse were forced out of the uni. The risk is real.
Note that they weren’t stripped of everything they own, nor physically beaten and/or tortured, nor were their relatives/family shot for being associated with them, nor loaded into cattle cars and taken to extinction facilities. Yet.
Nor are they expected to cross open beaches to attack Japanese pill boxes, nor fly bombing missions into heavy AAA, nor go over-the-top into No Man’s Land.
Meant to add…note that Dorian Abbot is one of the “smart” people. Probably top 1% in the world. He’s just figuring this out now. Something I saw going on 25+ years ago. Sometimes I fear I might be some sort of f****g genius or something. It’s precisely the sort of f*****g uck I have.
Forgive me. The Stupid is weighing very heavily on me today. Well, weighing on the wife mostly. We’ve been wanting to visit her mother in the memory care unit for about two weeks now but they keep getting positive Covid tests. Even though they’re all vaccinated…we’re both now vaccinated…but hey, best these old people die alone wondering if their children have abandoned them. F*** this f****g world.
but hey, best these old people die alone wondering if their children have abandoned them.
Think of all the elderly people who want to die at home rather than in a nursing facility.
“… but hey, best these old people die alone wondering if their children have abandoned them. F*** this f****g world.”
I can only sympathise. My mother passed away in July, and my brother and I were absolutely determined she was staying at home if at all possible. For about nine months, I slept in the afternoons and evenings to look after her overnight. It wasn’t easy, especially the last couple of weeks when it began to become apparent she was going. In normal times, we might have given in and accepted she was better off in a hospice or nursing home. But not now.
So she died at home, we were with her, and her friends got to say their goodbyes. Unlike far too many over the last couple of years.
Afghan “migrant” raped a cow – now he is expected to be granted asylum:
“On telephones belonging to arrested illegal immigrants who had invaded from Belarus, Polish authorities identified not only execution and terror videos but also pedophile abuses and bestiality, writes Polish TVP. Several of the immigrants may have been on their way to Sweden to be granted asylum by the Swedish Migration Board.”
“The pictures show photographs from immigrant phones that may indicate that they are suffering from serious sexual disorders.”
It seems that those are not regarded as disorders in Afghanistan, but rather are extremely common. Maybe a good reason to reject the dogma that all cultures are equal and diversity is an unqualified good.
Think of all the elderly people who want to die at home…
Don’t know if I’ve shared this before, but it seems on-topic. I read an article in a sailing magazine some time ago showing that sailing becomes progressively more dangerous as one gets older. The chart in the article showed the rate of accidents spiking among sailors age 70 and older. The authors talked about strength, balance, flexibility, fatigue, reflexes, maintenance lapses, and a dozen other factors behind the statistics. They interviewed old salts in their 80s who were still sailing, asking for tips and tricks to staying safe. ‘Twas a good article, all told.
Following month, the editors published a couple of letters which were “representative of the hundreds of messages we received.” The examples boiled down to:
Ever since I read that, I knew that I had my end-of-life plan sorted out. Go out doing what I love, and try not to leave a mess. Apologies in advance to the poor swabbie that has to fish me out. With luck I’ll just be fish food.
So, on that cheerful note, who wants to talk about puppies and rainbows?
Another adventure in the religion of diversity: France: “Allah Akbar” – Muslim steals and damages firefighters’ equipment when they are on the job and films himself while doing so: “he was released after less than 24 hours in police custody and the requirement to complete a ‘naturalisation course’. In his videos, however, he had also insulted firefighters and threatened to kill police officers.”
What in God’s name is this?
“Like The Last Jedi was made by someone who hates Star Wars, Lower Decks is made by someone who hates Star Trek.”
So, on that cheerful note, who wants to talk about puppies and rainbows?
At the end of the rainbow, will I find puppies eating SJW’s alive?
Some lives don’t matter: The moment this worthless life ended. All my liberal friends back then pointed to that photo as proof of how evil the South Vietnamese government was. They didn’t care about the context, just as they didn’t care about the fact that terror and atrocities were the routine policy of the Vietcong.
Now parents with the audacity to criticize their own school board will be summarily canceled.
@Cap’n Squidly
I do rather like the idea of sailing off into the sunset that one last time. As long as it doesn’t end in drowning – I’ve never fancied that much.
I’ve done my fair share of ashes-scattering from the sugar scoop, but most of the sailing deaths I’ve known happened during races, in which being old is a definite handicap. If you’re not decrepit it’s surprisingly hard to fuck up badly enough to die when you’re surrounded by other boats and race RIBs.
And on that cheerful note…
“I am not responsible for the state of someone else’s mental health. ”
Indeed. I’ve embraced MYOB as a way of life. On occasion it’s MYOFB, but YMMV.
“Football Australia to investigate allegations of sexual harassment, indecent assault in women’s football.”
I never thought I would read such a headline about sport for women given how loving and caring the sisters are toward each other – according to Feminists:
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/football-australia-to-investigate-allegations-of-sexual-harassment-indecent-assault-in-women-s-football-20211005-p58xj0.html
It seems that lesbians are more prone to commit sexual assault than heterosexual women.
For example.
Lesbian couples have higher domestic violence cases than hetero couples.
You’re going to have to speak up and speak out eventually. Why kick the can down the road to the point where you will only have made it even harder on yourself?
I hope to be dead before things get that bad.
Why “hysterical authoritarian” is “sexist”.
According to the folks at Merriam-Webster:
History and Etymology for hysteria
New Latin, from English hysteric, adjective, from Latin hystericus, from Greek hysterikos, from hystera womb; from the Greek notion that hysteria was peculiar to women and caused by disturbances of the uterus
Lower Decks is made by someone who hates Star Trek
I find that Lower Decks, like Chuck and Leverage, is one of those “is the main character’s painfully transparent psychopathy intentional, or did the writers really just not notice?” shows. And if it is intentional…did the writers really think we’d sympathize with that?
Exactly how much of this lady’s psychological dissonance should be foisted on everyone else?
That.
I find that Lower Decks… is one of those “is the main character’s painfully transparent psychopathy intentional, or did the writers really just not notice?” shows.
Heh.
[ Slides free straw along bar to Daniel. ]
That.
Well, in person, I’m generally polite by default and don’t go out of my way to needlessly put a kink in someone else’s day. I’ve had perfectly civil chats with people who regard themselves as trans or gender-non-conforming or whatever. Nobody got upset. But what is being asked – or demanded – is not a small thing, not in its implications.
Some insist that not indulging psychodrama is a violation of human rights and a basis for severe legal consequences. One might think that coercively eroding the probity of other people, demanding that they lie and pretend to hallucinate, is a pretty bad thing too. But there we are.
… violation of human rights…
If it is someone’s right to have a bespoke pronoun used, it is incumbent upon those afflicted to make those known unequivocally, so it must be law they wear rotating amber warning lights on hats and sandwich boards with said “pronouns” in several languages (to include sign and braille) so that normal people’s right not to suffer undue anxiety by inadvertently mispronouning, or worse, misgendering, is not violated.
It is only
fairequitable.Seems fair.
Lesbian couples have higher domestic violence cases than hetero couples.
This has been known for some time now, in spite of the efforts of feminists and leftists to stigmatize and silence those who report this.
I find that Lower Decks, like Chuck and Leverage, is one of those “is the main character’s painfully transparent psychopathy intentional, or did the writers really just not notice?” shows.
I suspect that a little research would reveal that the writers and producers tend to have various psychological disorders.
hysteria…from the Greek notion that hysteria was peculiar to women and caused by disturbances of the uterus
Perhaps Gloria Allred’s uterus really is “disturbed”. I certainly maintain that wearing a pussy hat is a clear sign of hysteria.
…from the Greek notion that hysteria was peculiar to women and caused by disturbances of the uterus
Why, thank you! I always go back in time 2000 years to determine the moral value of modern-day words:
Authoritarian from authority from the Latin auctoritatem Gender: feminine.
Also sexist.
Why, thank you! I always go back in time 2000 years to determine the moral value of modern-day words
To be fair, the medical theory of hysteria as a uniquely female disease, caused by some sort of unsettling of the uterus, persisted into the 18th Century and its popular application primarily or exclusively to women persisted into the 20th Century. Still, the term is applied to, for example, male SJW’s. And more seriously, it has been used clinically to describe psychological trauma from combat. The fundamental fact, of course, is that feminazis like Gloria Allred use their pseudo-scholarship to bully people who resist tyranny.
More violations of human rights…
…what has your location done to be transcompetent…
Hiring mindreaders is an option, I suppose, but I am sticking with these twits wearing RAWL kits and sandwich boards.
…what has your location done to be transcompetent…
Part 2 to this saga.
Hiring mindreaders is an option, I suppose, but I am sticking with these twits wearing RAWL kits and sandwich boards.
Perhaps we need a return to the ancient cultural tradition that bullies deserve militant intolerance.
Speaking crazy women with pussy hats, how about this?
Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom has been permanently banned from Twitter for publishing COVID vaccine heresy.
Heh. By sheer coincidence, Mark Steyn has this 1911 quote from a German doctor in his Song of the Week bit (Alexander’s Ragtime Band, if you’re interested):
The odd thing is, 110 years later, much as I love the American popular music of the last century, I’m actually beginning to wonder if he wasn’t on to something.
the writers and producers tend to have various psychological disorders
Let’s take Lower Decks as an example. The main character, whose name I cannot be arsed to remember, is presented as both supremely competent (she’s been promoted repeatedly, knows powerful people everywhere) and a massive fuckup (she’s been demoted just as often, has powerful enemies everywhere). She explains this by claiming that she’s still figuring out what she wants to do, like (hairflip), does she want to be a captain just because both her parents were? Maybe she wants a different path, okay, and she doesn’t want to be straitjacketed into this career by someone else. So she deliberately screws up every time she gets promoted so she ends up back as an ensign at the bottom of the hierarchy.
If you remember the movie Real Genius you know where I’m going with this.
What’s actually going on is that the main character is legitimately bright and talented – it’s actually really, really hard to get into Starfleet and even harder to get a ship posting – but has overachieving parents. She’s spent her entire life both being told she’s exceptional and trying to live up to their example, and she can’t handle the stress. She doesn’t know how to fail gracefully and recover because she never has. She subconsciously self-sabotages so she can’t ever be put in a situation where she tries her absolute hardest at something and fails anyway.
This is a ridiculously common psychopathology among bright kids, especially ones with bright parents. The Big Bang Theory has played around with the trope repeatedly through the Sheldon character. What I can’t figure out is if the writers are conscious of this and are writing the character that way, or if they’re just mashing up a bunch of people they already know (or are) because it’s a personality type they’re familiar with and are just accepting the psychopathology’s justifications at face value.
Hilariously ironically, it’s the (white, male, earnest) comic sidekick who exemplifies all of the traditional Starfleet values who, in the episode where the captain cracks down on loafing off on the job and the Scotty-esque padding of time estimates, is the only crew member who doesn’t have a nervous breakdown from having to get their shift duties done in the time allotted. He doesn’t notice the difference because he’s always gotten everything done by deadline. And yet the episode is presented as a moral fable that loafing off on the job is vitally important to employee morale and productivity.
Again, I can’t tell if the writers are subtly red-pilling their audience or legitimately believe their own messaging. It’s probably the latter, this blog is full of examples of terminally un-self-aware people.
Let’s take Lower Decks as an example
Wow, you really dug into it. Personally I’m just happy with:
“Guess I’m done with Star Wars”
“So that’s Doctor Who ruined”
“Oh well, that’s it for me and Rambo”
“No more Terminators for me, thanks”
“Thank God I’ll never have to watch another Marvel product”
“Oh no, I guess it’s over for James Bond”
“Stop ruining Alien”
“There is only ONE Matrix”
“Star Trek is dead to me now.”
etc…
…what has your location done to be transcompetent…
and he just happened to have his smartphone ready to film this, too.
I smell a rat.
“Speaking of crazy women with pussy hats, how about this?”
To quote the article’s subhead:
Supplement designed to suppose women’s sexual desire”
So, not a typo?
I smell a rat.
But enough of the “gender reveal” in Part 2…
There was a time when clothing revealed your sex. Women wore a dress and men pants. Now the woke object to stereotypes while at the same time expecting us to pick up on pretend sex from minimal cues. And how does a “gender nonconforming” or “nonbinary” person dress and look? What are you supposed to guess in such a case?
And how does a “gender nonconforming” or “nonbinary” person dress and look?
Sackcloth and ashes would be a good start.
Self-flagellation?
I suppose you have to give them credit for consistency.
Wow, you really dug into it.
In this particular case, it happened to align nicely with the earlier thread about high-IQ kids. I’ve known about a dozen people who were precocious kids who have exactly this psychopathology; once you know the behaviours it’s easy to spot.
Personally I’m just happy with:
I’m old enough to remember the George Lazenby Bond, and the Roger Moore/Sheriff J. W. Pepper Bond films. It’s why I don’t get too exercised over a franchise shooting itself in the foot occasionally. Hell, my favourite movie is still the 1978 Superman; not only is the original a gloriously conflicted mess of 1963 Batman combined with Mario Puzo’s messianic mythmaking, that’s a canon that includes Superman III and IV>. The kids’ll be all right, is all I’m saying.
It probably helps that I tend to think most SF media franchises, especially the TV-centric ones, were steaming piles of shit from the get-go.
how does a “gender nonconforming” or “nonbinary” person dress and look?
Oh, there’s a uniform.
Seems fair. – link from Muldoon at 11:20.
Hmmm – “This page no longer exists” at 17:22 – that was a fast memory-holing!
What blasphemy was posted at the link?
The uniform again. Interesting threat. Would turnabout be fair play?
That uniform again.
The Far Side nailed it years ago:
What blasphemy was posted at the link?
A link from a reputable twitter to a story about one of those Insulate Britain nitwits who was beaten by POed delayed motorists and hauled away in an ambulance that was delayed by his tovariches.
Addison gives a lesson about they/them pronouns.
An all-too-common story from last year:
Stranded motorist, angry because he has to pay for a tow, pulls a gun on tow truck driver. Gun jams and tow truck driver escapes.
Highway Patrol officer sees stranded motorist and pulls up to help. Stranded motorist shoots and kills the officer.
Second officer witnesses shooting and kills the killer.
Killer’s family “wants answers”.
The “he dindu nuffin”/”he was a good boy” disease seems to spread further with each passing year.
Dang, comment is caught in the spam filter.
Seems fair.
Original tweet deleted. Here’s the Wayback copy.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211006054416/https://twitter.com/lporiginalg/status/1445623470730084358
It appears to be a screen capture of a Grauniad article titled “Ambulance carrying Insulate Britain protestor – who was beaten up by angry motorists – is caught in traffic jam caused by another Insulate Britain protest”.
However, a web search couldn’t find that article, so it was just a joke, which must be why the tweet was deleted. Here’s a copy.
https://ifunny.co/picture/support-the-guardian-sign-available-for-everyone-funded-by-readers-l3RZifoy8
Private colleges are going out of business at the rate of 1-2/week, but there are a lot of private colleges. There’s certainly a niche for all these professors to start their own private college dedicated to actual study
Guess who runs the accreditation system?
Guess who runs the accreditation system?
Not relevant. A private pedagogy-over-ideology institution isn’t a space heater. As long as it eschews public funding – which it must, to avoid being co-opted by O’Sullivan’s Law – it can offer whatever courses it likes and issue whatever degrees it sees fit. Whether its degrees will be taken seriously by the world at large is, again, irrelevant: the students are paying for a specific type of education, and will get one, and as long as the college isn’t engaging in outright fraud that’s not any one else’s business.
The notion that post-secondary academics is a form of job training, and therefore everyone must go to college so they can get a job, is part of the corrupted environment any such private college needs to sever itself from.
“Should gyms be able to kick transgender people out of the women’s bathroom? Should rape crisis centres be able to bar entry to transgender people. Should sporting bodies be able to stop transgender people from competing in women’s divisions? These are the questions on which the debate centres. You can acknowledge all the “facts and nuance” you want, but at the end of the day, you have to take a position one way or the other. If you take the “pro-trans” position, you’ll end up enraging a lot of women. And if you take the “anti-trans” position, you’ll end up enraging a lot of transgender people…
Unfortunately for these people [moderate liberals], and for the Labour MP who didn’t “even know how to start” deciding whether men have a cervix, we can’t respect both groups wishes. The issue of who counts as a woman for the purpose of things like using bathrooms, accessing rape crisis centres, and competing in sports is strictly zero-sum. And it’s not going away any time soon.”
https://noahcarl.substack.com/p/what-moderates-get-wrong-in-the-trans?justPublished=true
Dang, comment is caught in the spam filter.
Freed.
It probably helps that I tend to think most SF media franchises, especially the TV-centric ones, were steaming piles of shit from the get-go.
Heh. And we’ve touched on the odd moral assumptions of certain franchises more than once or twice.
[ Saves this week’s Ephemera. Considers toast. ]
Considers Toast
Here’s to early morning drinkin’ – Cheers!
[ Hic* ]
Thanks, David.
and he just happened to have his smartphone ready to film this, too.
“All I want is them to hire a trans led org to train every single employee on how to properly affirm us.”
Somethings shaking on Shakedown Street.
“Should gyms be able to kick transgender people out of the women’s bathroom?…
A few things stood out in that linked essay:
“they’ve become known as ‘TERFs’ “
No matter how hard someone works to present himself as moderate and reasonable, unironically labeling people as “TERFs” is a good sign that he’s faking it.
“Kaufman states: ‘scientists who attempt to explain their findings on biological sex should at least state at the outset that they believe in trans rights (protecting trans people from discrimination and harm), and explain how nothing in their findings dispute that humanitarian position.’ “
You cannot claim to be a reasonable person, or a friend of honest scientific inquiry, and simultaneously expect scientists to state allegiance to your preferred ideology.
“Again, I don’t mean to single out Kaufman (whom I like and respect).”
Based on the above quote, I do not respect Kaufman and regard him as being at best a mush-head–but then many PhD’s are.
Something’s shaking on Shakedown Street.
Demanding to be affirmed – by everyone, all the time – is not a good look. Likewise, framing practically any kind of demurral or hesitation as “transphobia” – and grounds for ideological reprogramming – doesn’t elicit sympathy, except perhaps from fools. The problem in this case, and doubtless many others, is that Mr Torres is unlikely ever to be “liberated,” as he puts it, since his struggle is ultimately with reality and his own physical self.
As we saw recently, even if you can bully and cajole those around you to mouth the expected noises and pretend the preferred things, there may still be that nagging doubt that you aren’t what you say you are and that that’s why others see it.
I think it’s generally best to avoid being dragged into someone else’s psychodrama. Little good can come of it.
“they’ve become known as ‘TERFs’ “
I’ve known a number of people who have admonished me that “most trans people just want to be left alone” but who also called me a TERF for objecting to trans people in the wrong bathrooms, locker rooms, etc.
So, once again, there is a lot of political bullsh*t being promulgated by extremists. To assess someone’s character it’s always useful to pay close attention to everything they say…and to what they never say.
his struggle is ultimately with reality and his own physical self.
When your trauma is so severe that you’re facing a 40-50% suicide rate, your self-destructive coping mechanisms become the only thing keeping you alive. This is where the hyperbole over “your transphobia is killing people” comes from – they’re sorta-kinda correct, they’re just projecting. Refusing to affirm the delusion they’re using to stave off their suicidal impulses threatens their ability to maintain the delusion.
I think it’s generally best to avoid being dragged into someone else’s psychodrama
I’ve been pretty much ostracized from the local indie tabletop/video gaming community for saying, repeatedly, that playing/designing games about mental illness isn’t fun or healthy for the designer or the player.
The notion that post-secondary academics is a form of job training, and therefore everyone must go to college so they can get a job, is part of the corrupted environment any such private college needs to sever itself from.
I’ve been getting into woodworking, mostly due to an older neighbor who has been doing it for decades. He was a metal machinist before that but got into wood in retirement. We were discussing adult education type classes which were more prevalent 20 years ago. Up here in MAGA country you used to be able to just take a class in any of the technical trade-related classes at the local technical college. But you cannot do that anymore. He said shortly after he took such classes the colleges stopped that and would not let you take them unless you were enrolled in a full 2 or 4 year program with all the related math and such. The high schools don’t offer adult education like they did in the past either. I’ll be joining a woodworking club when I get back to FL in a month or so but my point isn’t just about woodworking. Seems there now should be developing a market people with good business knowledge or trade skills or whatever who are now enslaved to these private and such colleges. Trade-school type approach to education. The software business has been doing something similar for quite some time now. Some of that is good but much of it is missing the fundamentals. Either way, this 4-year (now 6, 7, 8) college BS before you can productively contribute to society thing has got to go. It’s not just bad for the economy but socially it is extremely destructive in ways no one seems to want to acknowledge.
playing/designing games about mental illness
👀
…the colleges stopped that and would not let you take them unless you were enrolled in a full 2 or 4 year program with all the related math and such.
A scam. I encountered that at a well known university, although after I pushed back I did get a verbal concession that all that math might not really be demanded of me.
Should gyms be able to kick transgender people out of the women’s bathroom? Should rape crisis centres be able to bar entry to transgender people. Should sporting bodies be able to stop transgender people from competing in women’s divisions?
Notice the unspoken assumption that rape crisis centres are exclusively women’s spaces.
“She’s spent her entire life both being told she’s exceptional and trying to live up to their example, and she can’t handle the stress. She doesn’t know how to fail gracefully and recover because she never has. She subconsciously self-sabotages so she can’t ever be put in a situation where she tries her absolute hardest at something and fails anyway.”
Oof. Not to blow my own trumpet on the “legitimately bright and talented” bit (and it was really only one of my parents), but that cuts uncomfortably close to home.
Which is probably why I’m here hanging out with you bozos instead of, I don’t know, having a stab at being Prime Minister or something.
If you take the “pro-trans” position, you’ll end up enraging a lot of women. And if you take the “anti-trans” position, you’ll end up enraging a lot of transgender people…
Question: How many real women and how many pretend women (or men)are there in the world?
I supect the answer to that may be a deciding factor.
I self-identify as Napoleon Bonaparte. I am not French.
I self-identify as the world’s greatest musician
I self-identify as an Admiral
and so on…
At best I guess I would be told not to be so bloody stupid.
As an afterthought, why is it that trans-mania has become a Western phenomenon? Thailand and other SE Asian societies have successfully co-existed with trans people for a very long time with little problem.
She’s spent her entire life both being told she’s exceptional and trying to live up to their example, and she can’t handle the stress. She doesn’t know how to fail gracefully and recover because she never has.
I believe a touch of this also comes from the opposite end of the socio-economic spectrum. Coming from an environment where the parents lived very close to the poverty line, especially as this effected so many people immigrating to the US with little money and especially due to the Great Depression, there is little room for failure and recovery. People with a sufficient amount of financial support can afford such things as failure. Raised by a mother whose father died in 1932 leaving grandma with three hungry kids to feed and a father whose father was a coal miner and eventual farmer the acceptability of risk was a very measured, careful thing. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my father had combat war experience and was not so averse to risk. But he was still damn careful. As I accumulated wealth, my risk factor, and thus my ability to accumulate more wealth, increased. But growing up, failure was not an option.
that cuts uncomfortably close to home
Don’t take it as criticism – it’s not the kids’ fault, it’s the parents and teachers who squee over their little prodigy without realizing that you have to instill a work ethic and persistence in your kids no matter how smart they are.
If I may offer a bit of advice, pick up a hobby that requires skill but doesn’t matter very much, like playing an instrument or painting, and try to commit to practicing it several hours a week. If you plateau, pay someone to give you lessons, but psychologically commit to getting better every week. The knock-on effects of this in the rest of your life will be significant.
Have I told the story of how Sweet Child Of Mine was composed yet?
Lest we think everything is going to hell in a handbasket, a hopeful thread.
societies have successfully co-existed with trans people for a very long time with little problem
It’s the problem of Schrödinger’s transsexuals – if nobody looks too closely everyone can get along. But as soon as you demand the defining of boundaries, everybody gets hostile and territorial.
Demanding to be affirmed – by everyone, all the time – is not a good look… The problem in this case, and doubtless many others, is that Mr Torres is unlikely ever to be “liberated,” as he puts it, since his struggle is ultimately with reality and his own physical self.
That.
Heh!
Demanding to be affirmed – by everyone, all the time – is not a good look..
That is a general problem in the internet age. People get the mistaken idea that everyone can be famous and that likes on FB=love. Hint: no. In fact the world doesn’t even notice you. Doesn’t care.
That is a general problem in the internet age
I can’t remember where I first read it (probably here), but the quote goes “Vanity. It really is the defining sin of our age.”
“Vanity. It really is the defining sin of our age.”
Yes. Also the belief that the idea of sin is obsolete.
In all the snark about feminist hysteria about the concept of hysteria, I forgot to mention that one of the traditionally postulated causes was a lack of sex. This is not completely unreasonable because men and women do tend to become…irritable…if deprived of sex.
And that is a good excuse to post this meme
But just to add one more item likely to infuriate feminists, who hate the idea that men might have anything that women need, I have read that there is some credible research showing that women report a noticeably better emotional state if their partners do not wear condoms. One should not put too much credence in any study until it has been replicated many times, but I don’t know where David’s readers should go to volunteer.
Pissing off radical feminists is a semi-guilty pleasure.