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.
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.