The full thing.
twitter.com/JaneFae/status/1246003788290408454?s=19
Scratch the surface of a gender crit blethering on about "science" or "stats" and you will rapidly discover an irrational, ascientific twerp.
A bit of a thread looking at the gender crit morbid take on #coronavirus mortality rates.
I guess i've known this a long time...first up, when looking at stats on what is (and what is not) happening wrt sex, sexuality and porn...
And more recently with the profusion of gc's in the supposed skeptic community....the Jarjar Blinkered tendency...
The main issue is correlation and, more subtly, covariance: the tendency of two quantities to exhibit correlated change or movement (positive or negative).
There are many real world quantities that can be seen to covary and...
...stats 101: because multiple factors tend to load onto one another, the key job for a statistician is to distinguish between carious scenarios:
A causes B
B causes A
C causes A and B
And...always possible...
...we've just picked up a temporary random fluctuation in the data
Which leads us to the gender crit stupid award of the week, which is their picking up on the single observation that more cis men than cis women seem to be dying of #coronavirus and therefore this is some tremendous "gotcha" for trans women...
Far, far too many stupid posts of the form that "#coronavirus won't be taken in" and even stupider, as i saw one or two commentators suggest this week "you'll have to admit your 'true' gender so you can be treated properly".
Let's dispose of that last one first. No you won't. There are some illnesses where personal characteristics matter: and in time we may develop specific targeted drugs matched to the genetic profile of the individual.
But that's not the case here.
When hospital facilities are swamped it is as much as clinicians and medical staff can do to triage and deal with the main symptoms presenting...let alone start playing stupid gender crit games about the "correct" gender of those presenting.
The leap from "men die differently" to "therefore men must be treated differently" is bonkers. And what sort of response would be implied anyway?
Do they mean that, as men are more likely to die of #coronavirus, resources should be channeled towards male patients?
Surely not
Though it would be a self-own similar to the one they managed with blood transfusion. "Trans women MUST declare their natal birth because getting blood from the wrong gender is a risk".
Nope. Though there is an elevated risk to men of blood transfused from pregnant cis women
The logic of their argument around blood is that all cis women volunteering blood should be forcibly tested for pregnancy first.
Yet somehow they are not too keen on that...
But back to #coronavirus. There are a host of reasons why more men die of a thing.
More men die of combat. This does not mean women are somehow invulnerable to bombs and bullets. Just more men tend to be involved in same.
What we do know of #coronavirus is...there are first and foremost risk factors related to pre-existing illness. Respiratory conditions for one, many of which, historically, have been more associated with men because they were clustered in certain industries.
Like mining.
Behaviours, also, play a part. Like smoking, which we know to be culturally highly skewed in some populations.
But also jobs. Again. Because in many cultures, those medical staff most involved with intimate care...intubation, f'rinstance...may be (male) doctors.
And attitude to risk. Like not stopping work when you feel ill. Or not alerting others to how you are feeling.
There is no single answer here. The actual numbers vary massively from culture to culture. And factors will covary....so picking out which one is prime is difficult.
But hey! Maybe one answer is that cis women are not pulling their weight in the crisis? Or they are being excluded from jobs and positions that put them in max danger? Who knows.
Certainly, at other times, such trends might be taken as evidence of workplace discrimination...
And that is even BEFORE you get on to biological factors. Which are rarely pure or singular, but usually interact with behavioural and environmental factors.
Perhaps there is something about "biological maleness" that counts. But what? Genes? Chromosomes? Hormones?
There is some evidence that hormonal mix changes how susceptible you are to some illnesses. Evidence, too, that oestrogen HRT may be more protective than natural
Oh my. Perhaps when all this is over it will turn out that trans women and menopausal cis women were the least susceptible to this illness.
Once more: who knows. A single data observation of gender difference tells you...next to nothing.
And one last point, for those commentators suggesting trans folk will "have to" declare their real gender. It is not clear how this would affect outcome...whereas one factor definitely does.
And that is age.
And who more often conceals "real age"?
Cis women.
And given how triage is likely to work, perhaps the real message is: time for anyone who ever goes all coy when talking about their age to start being honest.
That is all.
/fin