Posie Parker on Triggernometry

[Childrenofthestones]

Posie in discussion titled "Trans women are men" with Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin on their YT show Triggernometry.
This is a promo clip, the full show goes out Sunday evening.

Sophie Scott's TED talk on humour: www.ted.com/talks/sophie_scott_why_we_laugh?language=en

I'm actually happy for brains and behaviours to be different biologically between the sexes, but it still doesn't follow that it's somehow possible that someone gets the "wrong one". Could a man have a women's heart? Get a set of female kidneys by accident? Not really as there is make DNA inside every cell.

It also doesn't follow or that we just "know" our sex or gender as a result of something in our brain whatever shape it is.

I always wonder why if the brain IS in the wrong body then why not do a brain transplant...I know why, because that is a ridiculous and dangerous and unnecessary surgery and it would not pass the ethics board. So why go with puberty blockers and/or hormones and surgeries on breast and genitals are fine.

I'll never be able to understand this, especially when even if the patient escapes botched surgeries they are a lifelong patient with many, many issues. I don't know why someone would do this to themselves let alone a child with no ability to consent to a future of infertility and pain, physical, mental and emotional.

I watched India W's trig video and I noticed this was not mentioned, in fact the 'bob becoming Barbara' comment almost made light of the numbers of children being referred to gender clinics.

It would be really useful to have some actual medical experts on to explain the brain thing and the 'intersex' thing too seeing as India mentioned Caster Semenya and didn't refer to Caster's chromosomes. There's a hell of a lot of material to unpack from both India and Posie's interviews.

Good lord, I should have finished reading this thread before searching for the interview on Spotify (downloading the app on my phone!) because of course that was just audio.
Great that the whole thing is on YouTube again. I had watched half of it before it was deleted so I needed to catch up.
I love Posie's categorical "No."

I don't believe in ladybrain, but I do think there are inherent psychological differences between men and women, connected to our physiology. It seems obvious to me that women would be "gifted" more with nurturing skills, men more with skills that need strength and, yes, aggression. I know it's an unpopular, perhaps unfeminist, opinion, but it's mine; and this is a free speech area, not true?

I enjoyed that I do love Posie's no nonsense approach.

I crossed out gender on a form today and replaced it with sex and explained to the woman why. She understood perfectly and has a colleague who does the same.

Sorry if this is a tangent - I was thinking earlier about Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument where if I remember correctly, he argues you can't define anything independently because in that case nothing is corroborated. You wouldn't, for example know if you had used a word in the same way the second time so your private language is essentially meaningless.

There's a correlation possibly to how it could be argued that we can't "know" our gender inherently, it's something that depends on how other people treat us, use expressions, define things etc. So there may be a discord in how we feel vs the roles we are allocated but it's something that's a consequence of society, not our own brains.

Which is why there's an argument for shaking up societal expectations as opposed to changing our bodies to crowbar ourselves into roles we don't want.

Sorry - "as opposed to changing our bodies to crowbar ourselves OUT OF roles we don't want."

Konstantin, I found it very interesting that you really hammered Posie with loads of hard-nosed questions, whereas for example, Laurence Fox who I watched a few hours earlier it was like watching 3 blokes down the pub having a chat and then you've all had so much to drink one of them found a guitar and started singing.....

Now, I know Posie can stand her own, so I'm not complaining about you questioning her, but I am complaining about the lack of robust questioning of other interviewees compared to her. And I def think you should have a think about that and why you were harder on Posie than male guests (BIG clue there - women aren't allowed to object!).

I also found it very interesting how you took the normal male view of "what if a trans person has spent a long time / effort in their transition, doesn't that make a difference." line of questions to her.

If you were interviewing someone who was black and was saying white people can't identify their way into being black, would you say to them: "but what if a white person really feels that they were born in the wrong body and anyway, they've spent loads of time and effort at the tanning shop/taking tanning pills in order to make themselves look more black".

You wouldn't ask them that would you? Because it's ridiculous. So why is it different with gender?

@fidgetspinner555 And I def think you should have a think about that and why you were harder on Posie than male guests (BIG clue there - women aren't allowed to object!).

I questioned her more than others because I disagree with her more than with others.

This is the problem with identity politics, it leads you to assume that everything that happens because of your membership of an identity group.

It's like me saying that you're only challenging me and not Francis because I'm Jewish (when in facts it's simply because I was the one playing "bad cop" in that interview and also I'm here talking to you and he isn't).

I couldn't care any less about what's between Posie's legs.

Well you'd be a minority of just about one, in that case. Most people are subject to unconscious bias. Everyone is socialised according to their sex. And everyone is raised in a patriarchy.

I'm not sure how you personally think you've managed to evade all that.

You only have to listen to interviews, which include people like India Willoughby. India is given the same air time as any other male individual. It's stark when you actually start adding up the minutes. Nobody treats India like a woman. Women are talked over, and given less time to put their point across. I realise, obviously, that if you are interviewing one person at a time, that doesn't happen.

Wasn't it Posie who phoned in to the James O'Brien show? And said she and her daughter didn't want to share changing rooms with men. And he took a dim view. Got very defensive and said what the hell do you think we're going to do to you, for goodness sake.

And then in the next breath, talking to a transwoman on the phone, lowered his voice and completely agreed that they shouldn't have to share a changing room with men!

Extraordinary to listen to. And yet the two men who were listening to it with me, didn't notice.

Do you have any evidence that male transpeople have female brains? If it were possible to test with any certainty, why isnt that used in diagnosis?

So much this. Let’s just move on to only give GRCs to people whose brain scans evidence their bring borne in ‘wrong body’.

That will put the whole problem to bed.

I'm only challenging you, because you are the one posting on here, not Francis. If it was Francis, I'd be asking what was going through his mind for most of the interview because he literally looked at Posie as though he was going to murder her....Paddington Bear has nothing on Francis's stare....but then he'd say he agreed with her....he'd make a good bad cop just for the looks he gives and wouldn't have to say anything.

If you are going to play bad cop again, use a Russian accent, it's much more Bond film-esque.

So much this. Let’s just move on to only give GRCs to people whose brain scans evidence their bring borne in ‘wrong body’.

I'd be completely in favour of that.

Funny how I've never heard a transactivist ever advocate for it.

Datun has a point. I watched Triggernometry Reasons people voted for Brexit - edited to be about 27 mins long I think, 4 people: 3 men, 1 woman. 5 minutes for the woman, at least 7 mins each for the men (yes I was counting).

Now I know you probably didn't mean to be biased like that, much of it isn't intentional, but it's everywhere. I blame Caroline Criado-Perez for enlightening me on this. And this is why female only spaces are so important: men take over.

Another example: I went to a Crime author talk at a library couple of weeks ago:

Another example: Meghan Murphy talking about press censorship and free speech on a panel talk I watched recently : two women one man. The man spoke way more than the women in the end the audience told him to shut up and let the women speak.

Another example: I went to a Crime author talk at a library couple of weeks ago: One man 3 women - man spoke at least half the time...

I questioned her more than others because I disagree with her more than with others

I think that this is fair, TBH. You didn't attack her personally. You challenged her on her opinions and gave her plenty of time to respond. That's a healthy way to engage.

The fact that you disagree with her didn't come across either. You were both pretty neutral.

@resistsexism Thank you - that's the point of TRIGGERnometry.

I sound like I'm moaning a lot at you, but I do enjoy your YT channel. You said you've been lurking on here to learn and unless you're told/challenged you don't know...

You should also know, in real life, every woman I know agrees with Posie's views about trans women.

"This is the problem with identity politics, it leads you to assume that everything that happens because of your membership of an identity group."

Being a woman, like being black, is not an identity but an unyielding physical truth. Jewishness, like being gay or vegan, is a behavioral identity.

Nationalism is an arbitrary identification humans have for the made-up lines on maps enforced by social custom, but the physical truth of being Chinese, Native American, or Scandinavian doesn't change like the map lines do.

May be late to tthe party but it looks to be back on youtube

@Triggerpod - you say male and female brains are different. As a working scientist (and one with a fair number of citations to my name) - can I have your peer reviewed sources for that, please? (Ideally open source, so that everyone can have a look at them).

Then get Gina Rippon or someone of similar stature on Triggernometry to discuss it. In fact ideally two - maybe one neuroscientist who agrees with you, one neuroscientist who disagrees.

From what I have read, for aspects of cognitive performance where there are measurable differences in the means of the male and female population, the d values (difference in means divided by product of standard deviations) is tiny, much smaller than for height, for example. And furthermore, this is a difference which can be explained by brain plasticity as easily as by innate characteristics.

Even with a difference on average in brain performance/structures on an MRI (hell, even that most obviously sexually dimorphic feature of all, brain weight, much beloved of the Victorians as an explanation of why women were suited to home and hearth), that wouldn't establish that there were "male brains" and "female brains".

Consider being asked to bet a tenner on someone of height 5'10" being male. Done repeatedly, you'd be quids in - that's what the statistics tell us. But you might not want to do it as a one-off and that tenner was your train fare home. And it would be clearly absurd to suggest that that difference in averages in overlapping populations meant there was such a thing as a "male height" or a "female height".

Insofar as any cognitive differences are measurable, you'd probably not want to bet more than about 10p on brain differences.

It's as an argument for transgenderism that I find so weird. Sexism, yes I can understand that. Transgenderism absolutely not.

It relies on the brain of a female somehow ending up in the body of a male. Like some kind of Freaky Friday, sci-fi film.

It also discounts how so many men with the apparent brain of a woman, can't stand women, have no affinity for women, and don't have the slightest comprehension of what it's like to actually be one.

Not to mention your autogynephile, arguably one of the people who most wants to be a woman, displaying behaviour that is, statistically, confined 100 percent to males.

As an argument for gender dysphoria, or transgenderism, it's the weakest one. No logic, no rationale, no evidence.

"Post posy live stream " on Triggernometry now

Nobody treats India like a woman. Women are talked over, and given less time to put their point across
Thanks for this line Datun
India is a Trans woman that's given a lot of TV air time, I wonder why nobody treats India like a woman?
No prizes cause most of us know the answer.

Given the current rates of suicide in the male population I think what you mean is "men have more money and repressed feelings"

Ooof.

Anyway, I'm not going to engage further on this issue as I doubt we'll ever agree on it.

The grin at the end suggests a joke, Triggerpod, but if you’re serious, you’re rather defeating the spirit of free speech and debate.

I’ll be checking out more of your show, by the way. Never heard of it before, but intrigued.