political correctness gone mad

[fixed_truth]

The context of that is pointing out that it's the marginalized sub groups that it's really effecting. Those well off in society will continue to access healthcare.

But anyway I think critics of transgender rights would still be upset if the line was women and men who give birth.

[Ab]

No, they’d sit back with popcorn while the lefties started knifing each other at the suggestion that human sex is a binary. Which, of course, it is. Then they’d pass whatever laws they like.

[Lightspeed]

You make it out like it's only about ideology, rather than a genuine struggle to get needs met. Just because you lump a group of people together as lefties doesn't mean that the people you've jammed together won't have competing interests.

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by Ab

Which, of course, it is.

Just out of curiosity, what's your basis for this belief? What does that basis have to say about the existence of intersex people?

[fixed_truth]

Informative video from SciShow on it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT0HJkr1jj4

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

You make it out like it's only about ideology, rather than a genuine struggle to get needs met. Just because you lump a group of people together as lefties doesn't mean that the people you've jammed together won't have competing interests.

I agree with you. I really do. I think what we're seeing is the slowing of the music in the game of musical chairs that is the American experiment, and the haves want to make sure that society ends up in the form that benefits them the most when the music stops. But like I said, the Right likes to win and it will eat dead rats with a smile if it has to in order to achieve that. The Left likes to purge unbelievers and punish those that use words that the group doesn't approve of.

Just look at the recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Gorsuch, Kavanagh, and Barratt all shook their heads and said "nooooooo, Roe v Wade is the law of the land and the precedent is settled, I'm not an activist and won't support a challenge to it" and then did exactly that. A bunch of judges sat there and flat out lied under oath to get what they wanted, knowing that once they had it nothing could be done about the lying.

Meanwhile the Left is running a race with a concrete block tied around its leg - "there's no such thing as a woman" - and it refuses to take the block off because its goal is ideological purity. Random observation from following stats nerds: poll respondents overwhelmingly respond more positively to liberal-leaning statements about abortion when the words "woman" and "women" are used. "Birthing people" and "persons with uteruses" "humans with childbearing capacity" are fucking cancer when it comes to persuading people to support a cause. Using those phrases means losing the debate. Saying "women" wins the debate. But to the ideologues of the Left, policing language is more important than winning.

I was a Piketty skeptic when I first read him, but I've slowly come around to agree with most of it. The only upside is that wealth inequality is a self-correcting problem. It never lasts. The downside is that the mechanisms by which it fixes itself are things like famine and violent revolution.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Ab

(human sex is binary)

Originally Posted by Nothing

Just out of curiosity, what's your basis for this belief? What does that basis have to say about the existence of intersex people?

Because we're mammals, and mammals are sexually anisogamous.

The mammal species homo sapiens comes in two forms: male and female. 9998 times out of 10000 a human is instantly identifiable as one or the other. It's not a spectrum; if it were a graph with 10000 samples, there'd be a column of just under 5000 (males), a column of probably just over 5000 (females), and if you zoomed in really close, a little column of 2 (people with disorders of sexual development for whom sex is ambiguous, like people with ovotesticular disorder). The shape of that graph shows a binary.

The binary basis of human sexuality has no more or less to say about the existence of the ambiguous 2 than a coin having two sides has something to say about its edge. A tossed coin can, and very very rarely does, come to rest on its edge. That doesn't mean that the position of a coin lies somewhere on a spectrum.

[fixed_truth]

New Zealand Cricket closes pay equity gap with 'landmark' agreement

New Zealand Cricket has closed the pay equity gap for women’s cricketers, with both men and women receiving the same pay for the same work, on the same day.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

Meanwhile the Left is running a race with a concrete block tied around its leg - "there's no such thing as a woman" - and it refuses to take the block off because its goal is ideological purity.

How do you use oppression to fight oppression? How do you expect people wounded by oppression to not react against it? Where does that fantasy that these people make a coherent bloc come from? Because they've had similar experiences with similar responses, that makes them the same?

We're evolved organisms before we're moral agents.

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by Ab

9998 times out of 10000 a human is instantly identifiable as one or the other.

It seems like your numbers are a little off there. There are a few quibbles over definition, but even if you take the more restrictive definition, the rate of people with ambiguous genitalia is around 1 in 1500, or at lowest 1 in 2000. If you take the definitions that intersex organisations representing the interests of the wider intersex community would like you to use, then the rate of occurrence of intersex people is closer to 1.7%. That's pretty substantially different from your number.

Of course, I have my doubts about whether this sort of information would do anything to shift your opinion. Maybe you're even already aware of it and have some other definition you're operating on to get to your figure of one or two in ten thousand. But even if it really is only one or two in 10,000, I don't see how that's a good reason to erase the identities of those people. In a country of 5 million people like NZ, that's still 500 people who you're basically declaring aren't real people. Is the binary notion of sex really so important to us that we have to do that to them?

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Nothing

I have my doubts about whether this sort of information would do anything to shift your opinion.

To say "homo sapiens is sexually anisogamous" isn't a matter of opinion. It's just a statement of empirical fact. Every human on earth right now and every human who has ever lived happened as the result of a male sex cell meeting a female sex cell, falling in love, and deciding to make a baby. All the babies who have ever been born grew only inside female homo sapiens. Every human. Ever.

Originally Posted by Nothing

the rate of occurrence of intersex people is closer to 1.7%.

That number is (in)famously that asserted by sexologist Anne Fausto-Sterling in her 2000 political book Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. It's a meme now; a lot of gender activists just proclaim "1.7%" because they read a tweet that quoted an article that quoted a blog that quoted a book that quoted Fausto-Sterling. The moment you hear "1.7%" you know it's quoting her.

That number is, simply, bollocks. For example Fausto-Sterling claims the higher number by asserting that intersex people who don't fit in a sex binary must include people who aren't chromosomally XX or XY, such as those born with Klinefelter Syndrome (aka XXY) and Turner Syndrome (aka X or X0). The problem is, Klinefelter Syndrome is only experienced by males, and Turner Syndrome is only experienced by females. There are no females with Klinefelter Syndrome; there are no males with Turner Syndrome. To experience one of those disorders of sexual development you have to be male or female. They literally prove the phenotypic binary, yet Fausto-Sterling claims them as "intersex" to get those numbers up.

And here's the thing: even if that number were true, and it isn't, it would still prove that human sex is binary. 98.3% of humanity being obviously male or female is still a sex stat that any sane person would agree proves a binary.

you're basically declaring (they) aren't real people

can you point to the bit where I do that because I must have missed it.

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by Ab

can you point to the bit where I do that because I must have missed it.

Well, if I'm understanding you correctly, they must be either male or female, right? No other options are available. So what are these people?

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Nothing

Well, if I'm understanding you correctly, they must be either male or female, right? No other options are available. So what are these people?

You're not.

They are people who have experienced some form of developmental disorder. It shouldn't be too hard a concept to grasp. Take a different aspect of biology as an example.

Homo sapiens, as well as being a species that exhibits sexual anisogamy, is a species that exhibits bipedalism. A human who develops normally will be born with two legs. In very rare cases and for a variety of reasons a human may experience a disorder of physical development and be born without two legs. When that happens it neither moves the person in question out of the category "human", nor does it move homo sapiens out of the category "biped".

Noting that someone has been born without the two legs that would normally be part of human development is neither a declaration that the individual is not a real person, nor is it erasing their identity, whatever the fuck that means.

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by Ab

chromosomally XX or XY, such as those born with Klinefelter Syndrome (aka XXY) and Turner Syndrome (aka X or X0). The problem is, Klinefelter Syndrome is only experienced by males, and Turner Syndrome is only experienced by females.

{...}

They are people who have experienced some form of developmental disorder.

So it need not be the case that you're trying to erase their identities for that to be something that you're effectively doing. You're reducing the lives they live to a medical disorder, something broken to be treated or fixed, when they don't necessarily see themselves that way. On some level, if you make the claim that there are only men and women and nothing else, you're promoting a view of the world which gets used to stigmatise those people, whether you mean for that to happen or not.

[Ab]

You give me a lot more credit for caring about other people and their lives than I probably deserve.

You're also claiming that I:

Am effectively trying to erase some people's identities (I'm not)
Am reducing the lives they live to a medical disorder (I'm not)

You're hypothesising that I:

Claim that there are only men and women and nothing else (I don't)

Anyone who reads just the posts on this page can see those things aren't true. Seriously. Find some words, posted by me, in which I erase some people's identities, reduce their lives, or claim that there's no such thing as people who aren't adult human males or females.

It's like you've decided to be angry about something, you've chosen my posts, and in the absence of nasty things in my posts you're imagining a world in which there are nasty things in my posts and you're being angry at those imaginary things.

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by Ab

Am effectively trying to erase some people's identities (I'm not)

Read this again, more carefully:

Originally Posted by Nothing

it need not be the case that you're trying to erase their identities for that to be something that you're effectively doing.

Note that I specifically excluded the need for it to be something you were trying to do.

Originally Posted by Ab

Find some words, posted by me, in which I erase some people's identities, reduce their lives, or claim that there's no such thing as people who aren't adult human males or females.

It seems like you're trying to tell me that I'm not interpreting these as you intended. Feel free to clarify.

Originally Posted by Ab

It's like you've decided to be angry about something, you've chosen my posts, and in the absence of nasty things in my posts you're imagining a world in which there are nasty things in my posts and you're being angry at those imaginary things.

I don't think it's correct to characterise me as angry here.

Originally Posted by Ab

You give me a lot more credit for caring about other people and their lives than I probably deserve.

I honestly have no clue how much you, individually, do or don't care. I only assume that in general, on average, human beings tend towards empathising with one another.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

To say "homo sapiens is sexually anisogamous" isn't a matter of opinion. It's just a statement of empirical fact

That's some weak epistemology. Who did you learn that from, your granddad? I'm sure he was a top bloke, but we've learnt so much more since his time.

[Ab]

Ironically sex differences in humans is one of the scientific fields that we’ve learned more about, more recently, than just about any other. It’s one of the few fields of study in the social sciences that appears immune to the replication crisis.

[Lightspeed]

But we still know better now than to impose our empirical frameworks on people just because we're really impressed by them. Our frameworks aren't truth. They're tools.

[Ab]

Ah got yer tool right here

https://news.yahoo.com/trans-skatebo...175805580.html

29-year-old former serviceman and father of two defeats 13-year old girl to take 1st-place cash prize in the women's division of the Boardr Open skateboarding competition. But he identifies as a woman now and asserts that he doesn't think he has an advantage and that he wants to be happy. Of course nobody wanted to be accused of negating his identity by pointing out that fuck your feelings you dick it's not fair.

[Lightspeed]

Oh la-di-da, fair is it? That so nice for you, being privileged enough that fairness is such a consideration for you. Many of us are just trying to avoid being completely fucked.

[Ab]

The correct answer is perhaps the 2nd-place getter just identifies as a 13-year-old girl.

[Lightspeed]

Problems of the privileged. We wouldn't be dealing with this is if fairness was for everyone, rather than the lucky few.

[Ab]

Maya Forstater won her case, if anyone is interested:

https://mforstater.medium.com/press-...d-99365009baa1

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by Ab

Ah got yer tool right here

https://news.yahoo.com/trans-skatebo...175805580.html

29-year-old former serviceman and father of two defeats 13-year old girl to take 1st-place cash prize in the women's division of the Boardr Open skateboarding competition. But he identifies as a woman now and asserts that he doesn't think he has an advantage and that he wants to be happy. Of course nobody wanted to be accused of negating his identity by pointing out that fuck your feelings you dick it's not fair.

I'm a 40 year old guy, I'm pretty sure a lot of 13 year old girls can skateboard better than me, though I doubt (m)any of them would be likely to bench more.

I guess it's an 'open' competition, so they can't say that you have to be under any particular age to participate, but it seems to me unsurprising that someone who has probably been a skateboarder for longer than they person they are competing against has been alive would win.

Admittedly, I don't know the actual criteria on which the competition was judged, nonetheless it wouldn't surprise me to find that the strength of the contestant was not among the criteria. Strength probably does allow a skater to do larger jumps, but doing larger jumps alone does not guarantee a superior performance, since much of what makes a skater good has to do with technical factors not directly influenced by jump height.

Had Tres been a genetic female 29 year old skater, I imagine she would still have easily enough beaten a 13 year old girl, and I don't imagine we would call a skating competition between a 13 year old girl and a 13 year old boy an unfair competition on the grounds of the fact that their genders were different.

[Ab]

German University Cancels Lecture on Biological Sex after Protests from Trans Activists

Student activists successfully pressured administrators to call off a public lecture on the evolution of sexual dimorphism, which was due to take place at Berlin’s Humboldt University at the weekend. The lecture was programmed as part of “Long Night of the Sciences”, an established public science event that has taken place in Germany since 2000.

Though the agenda for the event had been available online since May, left-wing activists began to apply pressure on the organisers just two days before Marie-Luise Vollbrecht, a PhD student and research associate, was due to give her talk. She had planned a 30-minute “basic school textbook biology lesson,” intended for a young and non-expert audience.

But a group of students led the call for the event to be scrapped, saying Ms Vollbrecht’s views were outdated and unscientific, as well as “inhuman and anti-queer and anti-trans.” They claimed that the institution was turning a blind eye to her transphobic assertion that there are only two biological sexes.

https://4w.pub/german-uni-cancels-lecture/

This is fine

[Nothing]

You know, I think there probably are some cases in which a trans person is at an advantage or a disadvantage when they're competing against cis men or women. A woman who has transitioned to being a man is probably at a disadvantage in a weight lifting competition, just as a man who has transitioned to being a woman is probably at an advantage. The size of the advantage/disadvantage probably changes with the length of time since the transition, but it may be the case that some residual advantage/disadvantage persists indefinitely.

Part of the issue is that trans athletes aren't super common. If we had a 'trans' category, or even multiple trans categories, as I think would probably be required, then it's a possibility that there wouldn't be a large enough field of competitors for it to be described as a competition. And yet, trans athletes do want to compete with *someone*. So who are they to benchmark themselves against? Perhaps the problem is more with how we recognise achievement, rather than with whether trans people are allowed to participate. For example, perhaps there could be a category of prizes specifically for trans competitors that recognises their achievements, but does not result in the loss of prizes for cis gender people competing against them?

[StN]

Has the "Male assaults female" charge ever been challenged with regards to Trans people in either role? Or its the very existence of such a charge offensive?

Is there an issue with pay parity between Male/Female/Trans?

This subject leaves me somewhat confused - and I thought I understood Alien³.

[Cyberbob]

Any law which refers to gender is likely to be challenged. “Rape” is restricted to cases of a male penetrating a female's vagina with his penis.

[Nothing]

Biologist explains why sex is not binary.

[Ab]

There are biologists out there who literally claim that there's no difference between male and female bodies. The thing about religion is it requires you to say and believe things that aren't true. I notice that the presenter in that video specifically refers to the Klinefelter and Turner syndromes that can only be experienced by males and females respectively as somehow being evidence of nonbinary sex, so I presume he's bought into Fausto-Sterling's thesis. That said, I know nothing about this guy and some of his videos look interesting.

[ChaosWulf]

Originally Posted by Ab

Maya Forstater won her case, if anyone is interested:

https://mforstater.medium.com/press-...d-99365009baa1

GG

[Ab]

Originally Posted by ChaosWulf

GG

very gg!

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by Ab

There are biologists out there who literally claim that there's no difference between male and female bodies. The thing about religion is it requires you to say and believe things that aren't true. I notice that the presenter in that video specifically refers to the Klinefelter and Turner syndromes that can only be experienced by males and females respectively as somehow being evidence of nonbinary sex, so I presume he's bought into Fausto-Sterling's thesis.

I dunno, I guess you didn't watch the whole thing. There are well over 200 references he provides at the end of the video, so it's hardly a case of relying solely on Fausto-Sterling.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Nothing

I dunno, I guess you didn't watch the whole thing. There are well over 200 references he provides at the end of the video, so it's hardly a case of relying solely on Fausto-Sterling.

Yeah, as I added in a followup edit, I don't know anything about this guy and some of his other videos look interesting. I have no problem with being entertained or enlightened by people that I disagree with.

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by Ab

Yeah, as I added in a followup edit, I don't know anything about this guy and some of his other videos look interesting. I have no problem with being entertained or enlightened by people that I disagree with.

[Ab]

There's some interesting stuff going on regarding Self-ID here in Oz this week. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released numbers that show the Aboriginal population of Australia has increased by 25% in three years. Either there's an Aboriginal Elon Musk somewhere making babies every other day, or a lot of people who didn't previously are now deciding to identify as Aboriginal by ticking a box.

This has some Aboriginal community/political/activist groups very very concerned. Because for a lot of urban white people, the way one feels inside is a reality not open to debate. And if enough urban white people decide that they feel like they really really identify as Aboriginal people, and that can't be questioned, then that means their voices have to be included in discussions of things like reparations and treaties and native land title. And there are a lot more urban white people in Australia than there are country blak people.

https://theconversation.com/aborigin...s-lives-185692

[StN]

You mean if I suggested to my kids that perhaps they should identify as a certain group, entry into Med School would have been less stressful? But that's part of the character building! It prepares them for running up against nonsense bureaucratic decisions!

[Lightspeed]

Or we could address inequality so there weren't all these battles going on for access to resources or fairness. Or at least they wouldn't need be so pitched.

Yeah, nah, tho right?

[Cyberbob]

What's the process for qualifying for Maori scholarships in NZ? Do you have to prove bloodline affiliation to a particular Iwi, or just self report as such?