I am so utterly disappointment by so many of my friends for their wilful avoidance of these issues. I’m finding it genuinely depressing and overwhelming how dull people are willing to be, that they’re not even curious enough to wonder if they might have missed something. I’ve lost friends and friends have lost me, but I’ve found some great, lovely caring people too, through discussion of these issues.
That the library stood up for you, and you were allowed to give your talk, gives me hope that folks may start to act a little more reasonably. And I'm pretty sure your talk did not kill any bug or human offspring.
Apparently the protesters were so afraid of exposure to your ideas that they couldn't even allow themselves a moment of curiosity about them. Their need to insulate themselves from everything except simplistic, rigidly embraced slogans suggests that the protesters feel unable to defend their beliefs, even to themselves. This is a realistic position, considering how untenable their beliefs are. Beyond that, however, these individuals present themselves as "existentially threatened" by exposure to ideas that differ from the dogmas they have been taught. Such a sense of fragility they must have, to make them cling to a crackpot idea as if it were a life raft in a storm!
they are displaying all the basic signs of cult membership: rigid binary thinking (pun maybe intended), refusal to address or even acknowledge alternate facts or reality, refusal to grant that anyone may have a good-faith disagreement, but instead hatred and rage toward all non-believers, and this weird form of apocalyptic hysteria, where either their beliefs and program are accepted unconditionally or else genocide or some other disaster is inevitable.
colin is a brave and smart man, but (as im sure he knows) people cannot be reasoned out of things they weren't reasoned into in the first place, and trying to have a constructive conversation w a cult member is as futile as trying to have one w an infant.
The freedom to speak is oddly censored by the freedom of speech. It seems any rational disagreement is offset by claims of anti this or that when in fact one doesn’t have to be anti-people to fundamentally oppose any idea or practice. If truth is the goal, then sitting at the discussion table needs no signs nor protest. It requires presence of body and mind and a willingness to start a conversation. We are in a time where the intellect cowers behind cursory feelings that admittedly alter with mood, time, place, circumstance, experience, and influence.
Nasha, you have stated what I have been thinking so eloquently. Thank you. Sadly, we are seeing these types of patterns in various spaces and places in our society. The Gordian knot thickens.
Blanchard, Bailey, Zucker and Cantor, the 4 "sexologist" promoters of "normalcy" for cross-dressing men, all operated on the assumption that their goal was to make the wives stay in the marriages and prove this was "just a variation" in sexual practices. They did not come clean about the freakish fantasies of their subjects, who typically were middle-aged family men, fathers of children. They coerced and pressured the wives, women like me, to "try it out." In a 2002 Atlantic Monthly article (now scrubbed from its archives, but preserved at childrenoftransition.org) Blanchard says, (oh so casually) "They have a disconnect between reality and their fantasy. It's too disruptive to acknowledge that you wish your penis was part of your wife's body and not yours. It's too disruptive to acknowledge that this is a sexual compulsion." Then the 4 Musketeers of Sex went on to formulate several different categories of this fetish, while not calling it a fetish, "homosexual transsexual, transvestite, autogynophile," &etc, making money with books having titles like "The Man Who Would Be Queen." The Judith Butlers of the world decided to add their own spin with their own incomprehensible "gender studies" books, which oddly promote sex stereotypes. I have no problem with leaving the Left, which I grew up in during my Madison Wisconsin childhood. In the 1970s political meetings, the Leftist men would send out "the girls" for sandwiches and more beer. They are walking on a sea of their own petards, like mystics tiptoeing over the bed of coals. For the real deal, from an ex escort:
"I find it difficult to comprehend how a discussion on the connection between sex and gametes could result in fatalities, but perhaps my imagination is lacking"
It's simple, really, Colin. You're a warlock, you have sold your soul to transphobic satan, so when you say the words "sex and gametes" the words become black magic that awakens the gender demons.
How can you expect real questions from cultists who rely on “feelings” rather than facts.If they really looked at facts and their ideology were based on those, there would be no reason to react with emotional outbursts and rage.
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time ... when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."
Though, sadly or not, it's not just the proverbial "woke" who are "guilty" of that crime. For instance, far too many -- including Colin -- seem desperately committed to the idea that sex is immutable, even in humans; that everyone has to have a sex. And largely because of feelings since the facts are that, by definition, to have a sex is to have FUNCTIONAL gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexLESS. See the Glossary here:
"Amen" to that. Quite a fellow; in case you've never read that book of his, there's a fairly readable copy at the Internet Archive, at least I've found the PDF version to be so:
You might also have some interest in a review of it by Richard Lewontin, the concluding paragraph in particular:
"Conscientious and wholly admirable popularizers of science like Carl Sagan use both rhetoric and expertise to form the mind of masses because they believe, like the Evangelist John, that the truth shall make you free. But they are wrong. It is not the truth that makes you free. It is your possession of the power to discover the truth. Our dilemma is that we do not know how to provide that power."
Thank you for those links! Though I wonder if Mr. Lewontin missed the fact that his own observation about what sets one free is in fact implied in the statement "the truth shall set you free." At least it is for me... the truth is a concept, and as such does not actively free anyone, it's the ability to discover truth that does so, as he rightly says.
Also struck by this paragraph from your second link:
"Sagan and I drew different conclusions from our experience. For me the confrontation between creationism and the science of evolution was an example of historical, regional, and class differences in culture that could only be understood in the context of American social history. For Carl it was a struggle between ignorance and knowledge, although it is not clear to me what he made of the unimpeachable scientific credentials of our opponent, except perhaps to see him as an example of the Devil quoting scripture."
I'd have to take Mr. Lewontin's position on this one. Not quite as simple as the b/w delta btwn ignorance and knowledge. Many of the people who support creationism are quite highly educated in fact, but it seems they interpret science with a different lens...
De nada; share the wealth; praise the lord and pass the ammunition ... 🙂
Birgitte: "Many of the people who support creationism are quite highly educated in fact ..."
Indeed. I remember reading "Darwin's Black Box" by "Michael J. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania" -- and a leading proponent of "intelligent design" -- probably some 20 years ago during the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial:
I had been quite impressed by Behe's exposition of various biochemical mechanisms, though I seem to recollect that he eventually snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by concluding "therefore Jesus". But not before broaching a more plausible candidate for alternatives to Darwinian evolution -- emergence in particular -- which isn't quite the slam-dunk that many insist is the case.
Apropos of which, another "nay-sayer" or at least skeptic of Darwinism, David Berlinski who's not exactly chopped liver himself:
Sigh. Yes. The painful irony is, to a significant degree it's technology that has brought us to this point—or to be more precise, it's the way we've chosen to use technology.
We should probably bring a little teleology into embryology. Just basic stuff, like the fact that all human embryos would be female if it weren't for testosterone. And given that Y chromosomes cause testosterone production, human embryos are 'supposed to' develop into male or female foetuses. And given the wonderful way that the same basic tubular structure can fold and close in different ways, the resulting Müllerian Ducts or Wolffian Ducts can occasionally make errors in the ways they develop and close up. And there you have it: embryological errors causing intersex presentations.
I would not suggest that any human be called an error, a mistake or anything like that. But we must recognise that sometimes the recipe does not come out of the oven quite right. Just as when your egg custard separates, or your soufflé doesn't rise, you have not made a third desirable dish, you have made a mistake. Same ingredients, slightly different proportions, very different intended results, but then it goes wrong. Any cook knows what I mean. So do embryologists.
There's a reason the demonstrators declined your invitation. In their post truth epistemology, facts and logic, indeed, an external reality are all the invention of the white European cis heteronormative patriarchal cultural colonialists erected to oppress everyone else. The modes of verbal disagreement favored by that regime must be discarded in favor of naked power exercised by the print and other media and by silencing any dissent by force when intimidation fails.
In his follow-up book "Fashionable Nonsense", Sokal describes hearing a paper by some postmodernist arguing that any text could be interpreted to mean anything. Sokal asked him if the letter turning down his next grant proposal said No, would he expect to get the money.
Thanks for this excellent article and for all you do. Note that you appear to have two different versions of this paragraph toward the bottom; I assume you intended to delete one. The phenomenon you identify is a huge problem everywhere. When Fox News tried to tell its audience that Biden had won the election legitimately, it lost viewers to more extreme outlets that would tell viewers what they wanted to hear.
I used to blame Left-wing media for depriving their viewers and listeners of a full spectrum of viewpoints. While they certainly deserve most of the blame, this event made me realize more than ever that many in their audience don’t even want to be exposed to other viewpoints. The protesters at my event drove miles to the venue, yet all decided to stop 10 feet before the entrance so they could protest views they didn’t even hear.
Initially, I was inclined to fault Left-wing media for depriving their audience of the full spectrum of viewpoints. While they certainly bear some responsibility, this event has convinced me that many members of their audience are not even open to hearing alternative perspectives. The protesters at my event traveled miles to attend, but chose to stop ten feet shy of the entrance to protest views they had not yet even heard.
Edit: This is actually Leslie. e-mail mixup at Substack.
Nobody talking about trans issues ever seems to want to talk about sexual attraction and relations. You know, actual fucking. Doesn't anybody do this anymore? Or even think about it?
Sure, transwomen should be kept out of women's prisons, sports, shelters and bathrooms, and they shouldn't be allowed to cause children to become confused about their bodies. Absolutely. But for most ordinary people, we look at a transwoman and our first thought is, "No way."
When people say "Transwomen are women", I want to ask them this (so here I am asking it):
If you are a woman-attracted person, i.e., a straight cis-man or a lesbian cis-woman*, would you be willing, in principle, to have sex with a transwoman? Of course you wouldn't. Because transwomen are men. Because they have a penis. And if you only like women you aren't going to have sex with a body with a penis. Even if you don't want to touch it or suck it or put it in you, *he's* going to want you to. This is just so obvious I don't know why people don't talk about it in any of these talks about reasonable restrictions on the rights of transgender people. It's not their rights that carry the day, it's the fact of total sexual incompatibility with people who like women.
If a man tries to say he *would* have sex with a transwoman, then he is saying he is at least somewhat bisexual (or truly gay). Fine, be who you are. But be honest that you are attracted to a man. If you would fuck a transwoman, you're not straight.
If a woman says she would have sex with a transwoman, then she is saying that she is really at least somewhat bisexual (or really straight.) Again, fine, but be honest about what you are attracted to.
I will bet that 95% of "women" who say they are attracted to transwomen are really transwomen themselves trying to hope that you didn't notice it when you asked them the question. Just like transwomen who claim that "real" lesbians (like them) embrace transwomen when of course "real" lesbians want nothing to do with them.
As soon as you get talking about actual sexual activity, the whole "transwomen are women, transmen are men" thing collapses like a cheap lawn chair. Only homosexuals are attracted to trans people, and transitioning was what the transitioners did to avoid having to be gay!
*I apologize for calling people cis because I think it's a slur to refer to perfectly normal people with made-up words like cis. It's like calling someone "Whitey". I just want to be absolutely clear that when I talk about "men" and "women" I don't mean that women need to be called cis in order not to have transwomen included therein.
The April 21st episode of Real Time with Bill Maher talked about a number of trans issues with Rep Katie Porter and Piers Morgan. It was an absolutely brilliant episode that I recommend anyone watch. Maher is definitely left-wing, although he's certainly not woke.
That said, I have trouble finding any other examples of mainstream media discussing trans issues. The closest I've see are recent Dr Phil episodes.
Think that one was an older show with Kara Dansky. Think I'd seen a more recent one with Muslim reformer Asra Nomani.
Seem to recollect a segment from the latter of an exchange between a man and a transman over who gets to call themselves a man. But neither of them said exactly what they think qualifies a person as such. The guy apparently thought that the word means an "adult human male" while the transman apparently thought it meant "anyone who has any sort of a passing resemblance to an adult human male". Entirely different kettles of fish; with such contradictory definitions it's little wonder there's so little progress on the issue.
Colin, what happened to your latest article on Reality's Last Stand, the one titled A Biologist Explains Why Sex is Binary with the subtitle "In an effort to confuse the issue, gender ideologues cite rare ambiguous ‘intersex’ cases" posted today, May 2nd? Did you take it down for some reason or did someone else remove it? I know the article exists because I still have it in my email.
It will be reposted on May 9th. I thought I retained the rights to it after 2 weeks, but apparently that changed to 30 days and I wasn't aware. They politely asked that I take it down until then. Sorry for the confusion!
No, you had nothing to do with it. I thought I retained the rights after 2 weeks, but apparently it's now after 30 days. So I had to temporarily unpublish it. It will be back up on the 9th.
It's very strange that that free speech can supposedly kill somebody. I've never seen that. I do see violence being done by those who want to censor biological truth, however. And killing too, like by that young adult female in Nashville.
Power to you Colin smart organised people like you and JK and Kathleen Stock are so effective, because you manage to stay so calm and nice. I find I go red and start crying when I get stressed and upset talking to people about this.
"Willful ignorance is a devastating affliction without a cure." Can I make a T-shirt out of this quote!
I am so utterly disappointment by so many of my friends for their wilful avoidance of these issues. I’m finding it genuinely depressing and overwhelming how dull people are willing to be, that they’re not even curious enough to wonder if they might have missed something. I’ve lost friends and friends have lost me, but I’ve found some great, lovely caring people too, through discussion of these issues.
Yes!
That the library stood up for you, and you were allowed to give your talk, gives me hope that folks may start to act a little more reasonably. And I'm pretty sure your talk did not kill any bug or human offspring.
though the library said it may be changing it's rules in the fall. will they cave to the Willfully Ignorant crowd?
No bugs killed!🤪
Apparently the protesters were so afraid of exposure to your ideas that they couldn't even allow themselves a moment of curiosity about them. Their need to insulate themselves from everything except simplistic, rigidly embraced slogans suggests that the protesters feel unable to defend their beliefs, even to themselves. This is a realistic position, considering how untenable their beliefs are. Beyond that, however, these individuals present themselves as "existentially threatened" by exposure to ideas that differ from the dogmas they have been taught. Such a sense of fragility they must have, to make them cling to a crackpot idea as if it were a life raft in a storm!
they are displaying all the basic signs of cult membership: rigid binary thinking (pun maybe intended), refusal to address or even acknowledge alternate facts or reality, refusal to grant that anyone may have a good-faith disagreement, but instead hatred and rage toward all non-believers, and this weird form of apocalyptic hysteria, where either their beliefs and program are accepted unconditionally or else genocide or some other disaster is inevitable.
colin is a brave and smart man, but (as im sure he knows) people cannot be reasoned out of things they weren't reasoned into in the first place, and trying to have a constructive conversation w a cult member is as futile as trying to have one w an infant.
Reminds me of the enviromental fanaticism on global warming.
John McWhorter has a similar take on the anti-racism crowd.
True believers all.
Thank you for making my point.
Most fanatics are poster children for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
IIRC your punishmnet for climate apostasy was that used by ISIS.
Not very enlightened!
I totally agree! I am trying to focus on the people who don't yet know they are in a cult, and even those are difficult to work with.
hey good luck, i guess change happens one brain at a time ;)
The freedom to speak is oddly censored by the freedom of speech. It seems any rational disagreement is offset by claims of anti this or that when in fact one doesn’t have to be anti-people to fundamentally oppose any idea or practice. If truth is the goal, then sitting at the discussion table needs no signs nor protest. It requires presence of body and mind and a willingness to start a conversation. We are in a time where the intellect cowers behind cursory feelings that admittedly alter with mood, time, place, circumstance, experience, and influence.
Nasha, you have stated what I have been thinking so eloquently. Thank you. Sadly, we are seeing these types of patterns in various spaces and places in our society. The Gordian knot thickens.
Blanchard, Bailey, Zucker and Cantor, the 4 "sexologist" promoters of "normalcy" for cross-dressing men, all operated on the assumption that their goal was to make the wives stay in the marriages and prove this was "just a variation" in sexual practices. They did not come clean about the freakish fantasies of their subjects, who typically were middle-aged family men, fathers of children. They coerced and pressured the wives, women like me, to "try it out." In a 2002 Atlantic Monthly article (now scrubbed from its archives, but preserved at childrenoftransition.org) Blanchard says, (oh so casually) "They have a disconnect between reality and their fantasy. It's too disruptive to acknowledge that you wish your penis was part of your wife's body and not yours. It's too disruptive to acknowledge that this is a sexual compulsion." Then the 4 Musketeers of Sex went on to formulate several different categories of this fetish, while not calling it a fetish, "homosexual transsexual, transvestite, autogynophile," &etc, making money with books having titles like "The Man Who Would Be Queen." The Judith Butlers of the world decided to add their own spin with their own incomprehensible "gender studies" books, which oddly promote sex stereotypes. I have no problem with leaving the Left, which I grew up in during my Madison Wisconsin childhood. In the 1970s political meetings, the Leftist men would send out "the girls" for sandwiches and more beer. They are walking on a sea of their own petards, like mystics tiptoeing over the bed of coals. For the real deal, from an ex escort:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB_Htt42Xeo&t=9s
"I find it difficult to comprehend how a discussion on the connection between sex and gametes could result in fatalities, but perhaps my imagination is lacking"
It's simple, really, Colin. You're a warlock, you have sold your soul to transphobic satan, so when you say the words "sex and gametes" the words become black magic that awakens the gender demons.
How can you expect real questions from cultists who rely on “feelings” rather than facts.If they really looked at facts and their ideology were based on those, there would be no reason to react with emotional outbursts and rage.
> who rely on “feelings” rather than facts ...
Indeed. A related quoted from Sagan:
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time ... when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Demon-Haunted_World_:_Science_as_a_Candle_in_the_Dark_(1995)
Though, sadly or not, it's not just the proverbial "woke" who are "guilty" of that crime. For instance, far too many -- including Colin -- seem desperately committed to the idea that sex is immutable, even in humans; that everyone has to have a sex. And largely because of feelings since the facts are that, by definition, to have a sex is to have FUNCTIONAL gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexLESS. See the Glossary here:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990
That quote by Carl Sagan is chilling.
"Amen" to that. Quite a fellow; in case you've never read that book of his, there's a fairly readable copy at the Internet Archive, at least I've found the PDF version to be so:
https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-709
You might also have some interest in a review of it by Richard Lewontin, the concluding paragraph in particular:
"Conscientious and wholly admirable popularizers of science like Carl Sagan use both rhetoric and expertise to form the mind of masses because they believe, like the Evangelist John, that the truth shall make you free. But they are wrong. It is not the truth that makes you free. It is your possession of the power to discover the truth. Our dilemma is that we do not know how to provide that power."
http://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_Review.htm
Bit of a "challenge" to get people to learn how to think using reason and logic, "feelings" apparently being trump for most of us.
Thank you for those links! Though I wonder if Mr. Lewontin missed the fact that his own observation about what sets one free is in fact implied in the statement "the truth shall set you free." At least it is for me... the truth is a concept, and as such does not actively free anyone, it's the ability to discover truth that does so, as he rightly says.
Also struck by this paragraph from your second link:
"Sagan and I drew different conclusions from our experience. For me the confrontation between creationism and the science of evolution was an example of historical, regional, and class differences in culture that could only be understood in the context of American social history. For Carl it was a struggle between ignorance and knowledge, although it is not clear to me what he made of the unimpeachable scientific credentials of our opponent, except perhaps to see him as an example of the Devil quoting scripture."
I'd have to take Mr. Lewontin's position on this one. Not quite as simple as the b/w delta btwn ignorance and knowledge. Many of the people who support creationism are quite highly educated in fact, but it seems they interpret science with a different lens...
De nada; share the wealth; praise the lord and pass the ammunition ... 🙂
Birgitte: "Many of the people who support creationism are quite highly educated in fact ..."
Indeed. I remember reading "Darwin's Black Box" by "Michael J. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania" -- and a leading proponent of "intelligent design" -- probably some 20 years ago during the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_Black_Box
I had been quite impressed by Behe's exposition of various biochemical mechanisms, though I seem to recollect that he eventually snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by concluding "therefore Jesus". But not before broaching a more plausible candidate for alternatives to Darwinian evolution -- emergence in particular -- which isn't quite the slam-dunk that many insist is the case.
Apropos of which, another "nay-sayer" or at least skeptic of Darwinism, David Berlinski who's not exactly chopped liver himself:
https://www.discovery.org/a/130/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berlinski
Sigh. Yes. The painful irony is, to a significant degree it's technology that has brought us to this point—or to be more precise, it's the way we've chosen to use technology.
That's exactly right—but even spears and axes and arrows are "technology".
We should probably bring a little teleology into embryology. Just basic stuff, like the fact that all human embryos would be female if it weren't for testosterone. And given that Y chromosomes cause testosterone production, human embryos are 'supposed to' develop into male or female foetuses. And given the wonderful way that the same basic tubular structure can fold and close in different ways, the resulting Müllerian Ducts or Wolffian Ducts can occasionally make errors in the ways they develop and close up. And there you have it: embryological errors causing intersex presentations.
I would not suggest that any human be called an error, a mistake or anything like that. But we must recognise that sometimes the recipe does not come out of the oven quite right. Just as when your egg custard separates, or your soufflé doesn't rise, you have not made a third desirable dish, you have made a mistake. Same ingredients, slightly different proportions, very different intended results, but then it goes wrong. Any cook knows what I mean. So do embryologists.
Chris: "We should probably bring a little teleology into embryology."
Apropos of which, you may recollect my quote of biologist-extraordinaire J.B.S. Haldane:
"Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public." 😉🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane#Quotations
But how's your health these days? Hope things are looking up for you. Had your full set of childhood re-vaccinations yet?
There's a reason the demonstrators declined your invitation. In their post truth epistemology, facts and logic, indeed, an external reality are all the invention of the white European cis heteronormative patriarchal cultural colonialists erected to oppress everyone else. The modes of verbal disagreement favored by that regime must be discarded in favor of naked power exercised by the print and other media and by silencing any dissent by force when intimidation fails.
To which nonsense should be the rejoinder: "Is that a fact?"
In his follow-up book "Fashionable Nonsense", Sokal describes hearing a paper by some postmodernist arguing that any text could be interpreted to mean anything. Sokal asked him if the letter turning down his next grant proposal said No, would he expect to get the money.
Even Postmodernists look both ways when crossing the street. It's either the bus, or you.
Well, your description is accurate. That's psychotic. "People are strange." - The Doors (& THEY should know!)
("...or are you just glad to see me?")
Thanks for this excellent article and for all you do. Note that you appear to have two different versions of this paragraph toward the bottom; I assume you intended to delete one. The phenomenon you identify is a huge problem everywhere. When Fox News tried to tell its audience that Biden had won the election legitimately, it lost viewers to more extreme outlets that would tell viewers what they wanted to hear.
I used to blame Left-wing media for depriving their viewers and listeners of a full spectrum of viewpoints. While they certainly deserve most of the blame, this event made me realize more than ever that many in their audience don’t even want to be exposed to other viewpoints. The protesters at my event drove miles to the venue, yet all decided to stop 10 feet before the entrance so they could protest views they didn’t even hear.
Initially, I was inclined to fault Left-wing media for depriving their audience of the full spectrum of viewpoints. While they certainly bear some responsibility, this event has convinced me that many members of their audience are not even open to hearing alternative perspectives. The protesters at my event traveled miles to attend, but chose to stop ten feet shy of the entrance to protest views they had not yet even heard.
Gah! Thanks for telling me. I've deleted the duplicate!
Yes, but I’m a conservative, so that doesn’t really work for me. :-)
Edit: This is actually Leslie. e-mail mixup at Substack.
Nobody talking about trans issues ever seems to want to talk about sexual attraction and relations. You know, actual fucking. Doesn't anybody do this anymore? Or even think about it?
Sure, transwomen should be kept out of women's prisons, sports, shelters and bathrooms, and they shouldn't be allowed to cause children to become confused about their bodies. Absolutely. But for most ordinary people, we look at a transwoman and our first thought is, "No way."
When people say "Transwomen are women", I want to ask them this (so here I am asking it):
If you are a woman-attracted person, i.e., a straight cis-man or a lesbian cis-woman*, would you be willing, in principle, to have sex with a transwoman? Of course you wouldn't. Because transwomen are men. Because they have a penis. And if you only like women you aren't going to have sex with a body with a penis. Even if you don't want to touch it or suck it or put it in you, *he's* going to want you to. This is just so obvious I don't know why people don't talk about it in any of these talks about reasonable restrictions on the rights of transgender people. It's not their rights that carry the day, it's the fact of total sexual incompatibility with people who like women.
If a man tries to say he *would* have sex with a transwoman, then he is saying he is at least somewhat bisexual (or truly gay). Fine, be who you are. But be honest that you are attracted to a man. If you would fuck a transwoman, you're not straight.
If a woman says she would have sex with a transwoman, then she is saying that she is really at least somewhat bisexual (or really straight.) Again, fine, but be honest about what you are attracted to.
I will bet that 95% of "women" who say they are attracted to transwomen are really transwomen themselves trying to hope that you didn't notice it when you asked them the question. Just like transwomen who claim that "real" lesbians (like them) embrace transwomen when of course "real" lesbians want nothing to do with them.
As soon as you get talking about actual sexual activity, the whole "transwomen are women, transmen are men" thing collapses like a cheap lawn chair. Only homosexuals are attracted to trans people, and transitioning was what the transitioners did to avoid having to be gay!
*I apologize for calling people cis because I think it's a slur to refer to perfectly normal people with made-up words like cis. It's like calling someone "Whitey". I just want to be absolutely clear that when I talk about "men" and "women" I don't mean that women need to be called cis in order not to have transwomen included therein.
The April 21st episode of Real Time with Bill Maher talked about a number of trans issues with Rep Katie Porter and Piers Morgan. It was an absolutely brilliant episode that I recommend anyone watch. Maher is definitely left-wing, although he's certainly not woke.
That said, I have trouble finding any other examples of mainstream media discussing trans issues. The closest I've see are recent Dr Phil episodes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTSE2C8E_5I&list=PLgCCULqQ1mqHbKMR7OgptTPgXUGR9dKmb
Think that one was an older show with Kara Dansky. Think I'd seen a more recent one with Muslim reformer Asra Nomani.
Seem to recollect a segment from the latter of an exchange between a man and a transman over who gets to call themselves a man. But neither of them said exactly what they think qualifies a person as such. The guy apparently thought that the word means an "adult human male" while the transman apparently thought it meant "anyone who has any sort of a passing resemblance to an adult human male". Entirely different kettles of fish; with such contradictory definitions it's little wonder there's so little progress on the issue.
The Dr Phil episode is from about 2 weeks ago. I wouldn't call that "old."
🙄 Relatively speaking. If it will make you happy I suppose I might edit my comment to say "older" ...
In fact, I did say "older".
Colin, what happened to your latest article on Reality's Last Stand, the one titled A Biologist Explains Why Sex is Binary with the subtitle "In an effort to confuse the issue, gender ideologues cite rare ambiguous ‘intersex’ cases" posted today, May 2nd? Did you take it down for some reason or did someone else remove it? I know the article exists because I still have it in my email.
It will be reposted on May 9th. I thought I retained the rights to it after 2 weeks, but apparently that changed to 30 days and I wasn't aware. They politely asked that I take it down until then. Sorry for the confusion!
Seems he may have objected to my many criticisms of his argument. See my Note for details -- including a PDF of the bulk of the conversation:
https://substack.com/profile/21792752-steersman/note/c-15536986
No, you had nothing to do with it. I thought I retained the rights after 2 weeks, but apparently it's now after 30 days. So I had to temporarily unpublish it. It will be back up on the 9th.
Thanks. But good thing then that I sort of qualified my "accusations" ... 😉🙂
Still seems useful to have posted the comments to a Note -- will they be republished too?
Are you sure you can still reach it? I have the original link from Colin's first email about the article. When I click on it, I get "Page not found."
Ima helper ... 😉
This is a NYT's article written 35 yrs ago which succinctly and definitively sums up just how different men and women are. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/14/magazine/body-and-mind-the-aggressors.html?smid=em-share
I don't see a sign that says:
"Speech that maims kids is free."
It's very strange that that free speech can supposedly kill somebody. I've never seen that. I do see violence being done by those who want to censor biological truth, however. And killing too, like by that young adult female in Nashville.
Power to you Colin smart organised people like you and JK and Kathleen Stock are so effective, because you manage to stay so calm and nice. I find I go red and start crying when I get stressed and upset talking to people about this.