Cont: Transwomen are not women part XII (also merged)

[TomB]

I'm sure some people are. I don't think the demographic is big enough to explain the Bud Light boycott.

I'm not sure I agree with that.
I doubt most of the boycotters had a clue who Mulvaney was before the ad campaign.

I would think the boycotters would be made up of a combinatin of people:

• Those who saw the campaign and thought she was annoying (wihout prior knowledge of her).
• Those who listen to or watch media who informed them of who Mulvaney was and why she was offensive.
• Those whose objections are not specific to Mulvaney, but to trans figures in general.
• Those who are familiar with her and found her offensive before the ad campaign.

I could see the majority being any one of those, but think the last seems least likely. Most people don't spend their days debating trans issues.

 

[IsThisTheLife]

I suppose it might be gauche of me to quote The Babylon Bee;

[Dylan Mulvaney] the TikTok personality and trans activist has now begun blackmailing companies by threatening to publicly endorse their products.

 

[smartcooky]

Erm, all graphs are graphs.

Bzzzt! Wrong!

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?

These are all just ways of visualizing data. If you're saying you can create an unordered group of bars for 'male', 'female', and whatever other categories we need to be exhaustive, you are in fact saying we can graph sex.

Bzzzzt! Wrong again

Can you please explain what is being "graphed" here...

 

[Aber]

Higgs vs Farmor's school reappears at Employment Appeal Tribunal

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/648c209bb32b9e0012a9691c/Mrs_Kristie_Higgs_v_1__Farmor_s_School_2__Archbishops__Council_of_the_Church_of_England__2023__EAT_89.pdf

The claimant worked as a pastoral administrator and work experience manager in the respondent secondary school. After complaints were received relating to Facebook posts the claimant had made relating to relationships education in primary schools, she was suspended and, after a disciplinary investigation, subsequently dismissed from her employment. The claimant complained that these actions amounted to direct discrimination because of, or to harassment relating to, her protected beliefs.

The ET concluded, however, that the measures taken by the respondent had been due to its concerns that someone reading the claimant’s posts could reasonably consider she held homophobic and transphobic views (which she denied) and that the reason for its actions was, therefore, not because of, or related to, the claimant’s protected beliefs.

Appeal succeeds and sent back to Employment Tribunal for reconsideration.

Key point is guidance on what employers can do about employees public views

the foundational nature of the rights must be recognised: the freedom to manifest belief (religious or otherwise) and to express views relating to that belief are essential rights in any democracy, whether or not the belief in question is popular or mainstream and even if its expression may offend.

regard should be had to:
(i) the content of the manifestation;
(ii) the tone used;
(iii) the extent of the manifestation;
(iv) the worker’s understanding of the likely audience;
(v) the extent and nature of the intrusion on the rights of others, and any consequential impact on the employer’s ability to run its business;
(vi) whether the worker has made clear that the views expressed are personal, or whether they might be seen as representing the views of the employer, and whether that might present a reputational risk;
(vii) whether there is a potential power imbalance given the nature of the worker’s position or role and that of those whose rights are intruded upon; (viii) the nature of the employer’s business, in particular where there is a potential impact on vulnerable service users or clients;
(ix) whether the limitation imposed is the least intrusive measure open to the employer.

EDIT:
Original discussion here
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=346887&highlight=Farmor

 

[Paul2]

My point here was that it seemed like the diagnostic criteria were covertly advancing a different definition, but...


I'm now understanding you to be saying that the definition is something like the expectation of production of gametes, given a phenotype. (Which might have been mentioned already, but clearly didn't sink in). Is that correct? I suppose my hangup was that I was imagining that karyotype or genotype were relevant to expectations of gamete production, but it seems like that's not how biologists understand it.

Well, for sure, I am not a biologist, and I'm getting much of my posting about this from Jerry Coyne (who, at times, has not been ambiguous, like some have seen).

the biological definition of sex involves having the reproductive equipment to make either small mobile gametes or large immobile ones. This doesn’t require that your equipment is actually functional.

From the genes to the organs is all part of the pathway, and here's how Coyne puts them together:

There are in all animals and nearly all vascular plants just two sexes: males, who have the reproductive equipment to make small, mobile gametes (sperm), and females, who have the reproductive equipment to make large immobile gametes (eggs or ova). That’s all the sexes there are, friends, for nah, there is no third type of reproductive equipment nor any other class of gametes.

The key part is having the reproductive equipment whether it ever does so or not.

I dunno, I'm not sure I've added anything that hasn't already been said.

 

[Lplus]

Well, for sure, I am not a biologist, and I'm getting much of my posting about this from Jerry Coyne (who, at times, has not been ambiguous, like some have seen).

From the genes to the organs is all part of the pathway, and here's how Coyne puts them together:
The key part is having the reproductive equipment whether it ever does so or not.

I dunno, I'm not sure I've added anything that hasn't already been said.

It's worth repeating for the nth time, though those who seem desperate for some sort of middle ground to support their minority views will ignore it, the same way they have ignored all the previous statements.

 

[Paul2]

It's worth repeating for the nth time, though those who seem desperate for some sort of middle ground to support their minority views will ignore it, the same way they have ignored all the previous statements.

For my part, mumblethrax's most recent post does *not* fall into that, given the humility and self-analysis evident in that post

I'm now understanding you to be saying that the definition is something like the expectation of production of gametes, given a phenotype. (Which might have been mentioned already, but clearly didn't sink in). Is that correct? I suppose my hangup was that I was imagining that karyotype or genotype were relevant to expectations of gamete production, but it seems like that's not how biologists understand it.

 

[Lplus]

For my part, mumblethrax's most recent post does *not* fall into that, given the humility and self-analysis evident in that post

I was making a more general point rather than referring to a specific poster.

 

[Matthew Best]

The ACLU has protested the lack of gender-affirming care for Duane Owen, who was executed on Thursday. They tweeted:

The state of Florida never provided medically necessary gender-affirming care to Duane Owen — causing her enormous suffering and violating her right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment for the more than 30 years she was in state custody.

For some reason they failed to mention that Owen was convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl, and then going on to rape and murder another woman two months later, as well as attacking two other women who fortunately survived.

Looking back from this more-enlightened time, we can now see that these acts were just a cry for help, because obviously if someone tells you they are a woman, they must be believed and there's no possibility that they are just trying to get access to more victims.

 

[Paul2]

I was making a more general point rather than referring to a specific poster.

 

[mumblethrax]

Bzzzt! Wrong!

You are literally denying the law of identity. You probably shouldn't do that.

<obnoxious font punatively removed>

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

How does "all graphs are graphs" imply "all graphs are identical"? (It doesn't.)

Bzzzzt! Wrong again

Can you please explain what is being "graphed" here...

It will depend on what population you're representing, but something like "Things" or "Entities" (if you object to calling a cat a thing). If I go around my apartment counting all the things, I can plot a graph that looks something like this and label the x axis "Things in my apartment." Not a terribly useful exercise, but there's no reason you can't do it.

The x-axis doesn't need to be ordinal. I can create a bar graph with "Countries" on the x-axis, "Population" on the y, and label each individual bar with a country's name. That's a perfectly good frequency distribution.

It's being asserted by some that a bimodal distribution is necessarily ordered. That's not strictly true, it's just that if it isn't ordered, it's not really telling you much. The reason we call them bimodal distributions, despite the fact that the peaks aren't necessarily of the same frequency, is that a bimodal distribution generally reveals the existence of two distinct groups within a population. The peaks will roughly correspond to the modes of these two groups.

In an unordered categorical set of data, the mode will be whichever value occurs most frequently. If two values occur at the same frequency, you have two modes. If you categorize 100 individuals into "male", "female", and "other", and end up with 49, 49, and 2 members respectively, that's then a bimodal distribution, where the modes are "male" and "female".

Usually a random sample of human beings is going to be roughly bimodal in this sense, even if we treat it as a binary. What does this tell us? Nothing more than that the number of males and females is approximately the same (I think it's something like 51% female, 49% male. The present is female.)

 

[Cain]

If they aren't worse than hip-hop culture in general, I'm going to assume we're dealing with moral grandstanding rather than moral reasoning.

Agreed. It's opportunistic and unthinking. In a morally serious world, people would have a bigger problem with celebrities glorifying companies that sell alcohol.

Would you understand a boycott of Bud Light had they chosen a blackface actor who engaged in negative stereotypes about black people in the US?

Three important factors when evaluating cancel culture events (or non-events) are intention, proportion, and timing. Even assuming Mulvaney is engaged in "female-face" (or whatever), is it her intention to portray women in a negative light? I mean, there's always the real possibility that someone is just stupid. Though they might not have been sober, it was on this forum where posters argued Lauren Boebert would make publicly-coded messages to followers so that gay and transpeople would be murdered. A homicide whistle. If you're already inclined to dislike a political or cultural opponent, then you should pause and recognize that you're more susceptible to incorrectly ascribing nefarious motives.

In terms of proportion, a boycott seems pretty extreme for money thrown at an influencer for micro-targeting. On the other hand, the parent company makes many types of products, and protestors mostly seem concerned about Bud Light. A musician shooting up a bunch of cans seems, um, not well. Kid Rock should be remembered for what he's good at: creating the definitive soundtrack to copper theft.

In terms of timing, did the hypothetical blackface person do their thing in the distant past (especially at a time when it was generally accepted)? Did they apologize for it? The protest does not seem to be about Mulvaney specifically. They'd be apoplectic over almost any trans-endorsement, but an over-the-top camera sponge makes for an excellent villain.

 

[d4m10n]

Three important factors when evaluating cancel culture events (or non-events) are intention, proportion, and timing.

This is an important point, in my view. People who would ordinarily frown at viral outrage leading to cancellation are smiling about the hit that Budweiser has taken for partnering with a hypereffeminate & hyperactive TikTok influencer. It's not hateful cancel culture if I really hate the person being cancelled.

Mulvaney is about as silly and effeminate as Azzyland or a dozen other female phenoms gone viral on social. So what? She learned from the best.

 

[smartcooky]

You are literally denying the law of identity. You probably shouldn't do that.


How does "all graphs are graphs" imply "all graphs are identical"? (It doesn't.)


It will depend on what population you're representing, but something like "Things" or "Entities" (if you object to calling a cat a thing). If I go around my apartment counting all the things, I can plot a graph that looks something like this and label the x axis "Things in my apartment." Not a terribly useful exercise, but there's no reason you can't do it.

The x-axis doesn't need to be ordinal. I can create a bar graph with "Countries" on the x-axis, "Population" on the y, and label each individual bar with a country's name. That's a perfectly good frequency distribution.

It's being asserted by some that a bimodal distribution is necessarily ordered. That's not strictly true, it's just that if it isn't ordered, it's not really telling you much. The reason we call them bimodal distributions, despite the fact that the peaks aren't necessarily of the same frequency, is that a bimodal distribution generally reveals the existence of two distinct groups within a population. The peaks will roughly correspond to the modes of these two groups.

In an unordered categorical set of data, the mode will be whichever value occurs most frequently. If two values occur at the same frequency, you have two modes. If you categorize 100 individuals into "male", "female", and "other", and end up with 49, 49, and 2 members respectively, that's then a bimodal distribution, where the modes are "male" and "female".

Usually a random sample of human beings is going to be roughly bimodal in this sense, even if we treat it as a binary. What does this tell us? Nothing more than that the number of males and females is approximately the same (I think it's something like 51% female, 49% male. The present is female.)

A bar chart can be used to meaningfully to represent population numbers within defined groups. I can place any human individual in the world into one of those three bars.

A line graph cannot be used to meaningfully to represent relative population numbers within defined groups.

What are you going to label the X axis... <-- maleness : femaleness --> !!?

Where on this line graph you going to plot Brad Pitt, Dylan Mulvaney, Oscar Wilde, Muhammad Ali, John Wayne, Elle McPherson, Ronda Rousey, Marilyn Manson, Barry Humphries, Pete Buttigieg, David Bowie or anyone else you can think of?

Answer. You can't, because both the X-axis and the lines between the plot points are utterly meaningless. They cannot show a trend, a gradient or a spectrum. Anyone plotted anywhere other than one of the three coloured plot-points result in completely invalid data.

This has been my point all along... you cannot place sexual classification on a spectrum. But of course, you knew that!

 

[mumblethrax]

A line graph cannot be used to meaningfully to represent relative population numbers within defined groups.

It can, it's just not usually a good choice, because it implies a relationship that isn't there.

What are you going to label the X axis... <-- maleness : femaleness --> !!?

Sex.

Where on this line graph you going to plot Brad Pitt, Dylan Mulvaney, Oscar Wilde, Muhammad Ali, John Wayne, Elle McPherson, Ronda Rousey, Marilyn Manson, Barry Humphries, Pete Buttigieg, David Bowie or anyone else you can think of?

None of these people have/had an ambiguous reproductive phenotype as far as I'm aware, so this doesn't seem like a difficult task. The males in this population will be represented by the frequency of "human males", the females by "human females".

Answer. You can't, because both the X-axis and the lines between the plot points are utterly meaningless. They cannot show a trend, a gradient or a spectrum. Anyone plotted anywhere other than one of the three coloured plot-points result in completely invalid data.

You didn't describe a trend, gradient, or spectrum. You gave me exactly the same categorical data as is represented in the bar graph.

But if you don't want to use a line graph...don't use a line graph? I'm not telling you to do that.

This has been my point all along... you cannot place sexual classification on a spectrum. But of course, you knew that!

You can't treat any classification as a spectrum, because spectrums are definitionally continuous, and classifications are not. But this just begs the question...why do we have to treat sex as categorical? "Because there are only two kinds of gametes" is not a good answer to this question. If we can measure a phenotype at all, we can generate a continuous variable that represents that phenotype. Even Colin Wright doesn't argue against that point. He just thinks we have to classify the phenotypes as male or female first (for whatever reason).

 

[Samson]

The ACLU has protested the lack of gender-affirming care for Duane Owen, who was executed on Thursday. They tweeted:



For some reason they failed to mention that Owen was convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl, and then going on to rape and murder another woman two months later, as well as attacking two other women who fortunately survived.

Looking back from this more-enlightened time, we can now see that these acts were just a cry for help, because obviously if someone tells you they are a woman, they must be believed and there's no possibility that they are just trying to get access to more victims.

According the "her" pronoun is a feature of these cases, which many would consider a bug.
Clearly an opportunist, and the fake designation should do immeasurable harm to so called trans activists.

 

[smartcooky]

It can, it's just not a good choice, because it implies a relationship that isn't there.

Exactly!

Sex.

Not definitive enough

None of these people have/had an ambiguous reproductive phenotype as far as I'm aware

True but irrelevant. The point here is that sex classification cannot be plotted as points on a spectrum!

so this doesn't seem like a difficult task. The males in this population will be represented by the frequency of "human males", the females by "human females".

Yes, which is why you cannot put sexual classification on a spectrum. Sexual classification is binary with the exception of a a minuscule number of edge cases (and I will continue to use that term whether you like it or not, because it applies here)

You didn't describe a trend, gradient, or spectrum. You gave me exactly the same categorical data as is represented in the bar graph.

Because there isn't a trend, gradient or spectrum here. That was the bloody point FFS.

But if you don't want to use a line graph...don't use a line graph? I'm not telling you to do that.

Well, in effect, you have done exactly that throught your insistence that you can't classify an indidual into two different "bins".

You can't treat any classification as a spectrum, because spectrums are definitionally continuous, and classifications are not.

Finally!!!

But this just begs the question...why do we have to treat sex as categorical? "Because there are only two sexes" is not a good answer to this question.

On the contrary, it is not only a good answer, it is the correct and only possible answer.

Edge cases aside, there are TWO, and only TWO categories of Human Biological Sex... male and female. Any attempt to create other categories is doomed to failure because no individuals exists, have ever existed, or will ever exist, that could be placed into those other categories.

If we can measure a phenotype at all, we can generate a continuous variable that represents that phenotype. Even Colin Wright doesn't argue against that point. He just thinks we have to classify the phenotypes as male or female first (for whatever reason).

Regardless, it all comes down to whether the individual is classified as male or female, and that is what this thread is about. Transgender woman are biologically male. It does not matter about pheontypes because it is irrelevant to THIS thread. It doesn't matter how much they are pumped with female hormones, or whether they have had their breasts enlarged, their faces and arses pumped full of botox, or their dicks cut off... they are males, and they always will be.
‎
‎
‎

 

[mumblethrax]

Not definitive enough

Exactly as definitive as it needs to be.

True but irrelevant. The point here is that sex classification cannot be plotted as points on a spectrum!

Well then plotting sex classification categorically was an exceedingly bad way to illustrate that point.

Sexual classification is binary with the exception of a a minuscule number of edge cases

Sexual classification is binary(-ish) precisely because it's a classification with two(-ish) categories. This is just tautological.

(and I will continue to use that term whether you like it or not, because it applies here)

I genuinely do not care what you call it.

Because there isn't a trend, gradient or spectrum here. That was the bloody point FFS.

There is. There's a continuum of phenotypes.

Well, in effect, you have done exactly that throught your insistence that you can't classify an indidual into two different "bins".

? The fact that individuals cannot be counted twice in exclusive categories does not suggest the use of a line graph.

The existence of bins strongly implies the use of a bar graph. Because that's exactly what the bars are.

Finally!!!

Finally what?

On the contrary, it is not only a good answer, it is the correct and only possible answer.

No, it's not a good answer. The fact that our reproductive phenotype is about supporting gametes of exactly two kinds does not imply that the phenotype itself is binary. It just doesn't follow.

Just as an example...it is possible for there to be two different male phenotypes in the same species. You would then get phenotypes clustering together in three groups. These would not be three sexes (because two of them will still be directed towards the production and support of spermatozoa), but they would comprise three categories of reproductive phenotype.

You can, of course, classify individuals as male and female, and then classify the males as type 1 and type 2 (or whatever), but there's no reason you should have to.

Edge cases aside, there are TWO, and only TWO categories of Human Biological Sex... male and female. Any attempt to create other categories is doomed to failure because no individuals exists, have ever existed, or will ever exist, that could be placed into those other categories.

There are, in fact, sexually ambiguous individuals. This is just false.

Regardless, it all comes down to whether the individual is classified as male or female, and that is what this thread is about.

Well, no. Social classification is distinct from biological classification. That's kind of the point of keeping sex and gender separate.

 

[The Atheist]

Looking back from this more-enlightened time, we can now see that these acts were just a cry for help, because obviously if someone tells you they are a woman, they must be believed and there's no possibility that they are just trying to get access to more victims.

Seriously, because I think you're quite a reasonable bloke - do you think anything is actually served by quoting far outlier cases at this point?

It's established that some men will commit acts of extreme violence and cowardly hide behind the facade of transgenderism, but there are also unquestionably huge numbers of people who identify as trans and don't abuse the privilege [?] of women's rights they inherit with their gender change.

After 6 jillion posts in these threads, it's disappointing that an allegedly intelligent group of people discussing the subject has only got further and further from the middle ground as the years have passed. It does neatly mirror the wider backlash against the entire LGBT spectrum, though.

 

[Matthew Best]

Seriously, because I think you're quite a reasonable bloke - do you think anything is actually served by quoting far outlier cases at this point?

Yes. The point is to indicate how stupid and dangerous "self ID" is as a concept.