The rejection of science and common sense

[AntsInPenzance]

I'm currently engaged in a debate on trans issues and concepts around sex/gender on another forum (US based). I've been dealing with two main protaganists, one male, one female (neither of them trans people as faras I know), and so far I've had the following statements put to me by one or both of them which just boggle the mind:

^A transwomen is female and has always been female even before they identified as such.

DNA and chromosomes are not the deciding determinate of what differentiates male from female.

If the boxing heavyweight champion, Anthony Joshua, were to identify as a transwoman, he should be allowed to fight against a female heavyweight boxer and such a fight would be fair and evenly matched.

75% of all rapes occur by someone known to the victim, so a strange male in a woman's changing room is less of a threat.^

I'm not even angry, just dumbfounded.

They are adopting a wilful stupidity that is impossible to argue with. I would ignore.

I had a labour councillor do this to me once. Just repeated stupid phrases with a blank look on her face. I had to walk off in the end, it was like talking to a robot.

Those statements that have been put to you OP show why Genderism is a religion. I wonder how likely they would take to scientific answers. Humphrey may well be right

I always wonder where the new atheists are in any of this.

In the old days, you couldn't move for Richard Dawkins and his ilk for attacking creationism and intelligent design. I read his books at the time and as a Christian found them very difficult to read in some areas. I seem to remember that he considered teaching a child the doctrine of heaven and hell tantamount to child abuse.

And yet - here we see the science of biology being ripped to shreds. We also see children with healthy bodies being placed on a pathway to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery.

And yet not one of these new atheists who attacked the old religious beliefs with such vehemence says a word. And the protesters who shout about 'the science' when it comes to climate change seem to actively embrace this unscientific nonsense.

There's no arguing with stupid.

Especially not when it's wilful, deliberate stupidity.
They're just trying to redefine words to mean what they want. That's funny when it's Humpty Dumpty, but tedious in real life.

Richard Dawkins has had nothing to say about gender-woo?

Blimey!

I always wonder where the new atheists are in any of this.

As I understand it they had a bit of a schism where they had one of the earliest Woke infiltrations ("atheism plus"?) which basically broke the movement apart. Some of the people who claimed (and probably still do) to be atheists and skeptics have turned out to be mindbogglingly religious. It seems for them it wasn't really about enlightenment and rationality, it was just a culture war proxy. They only dislike the other side's religions.

Don't think Dawkins has got involved specifically in the gender stuff, but occasionally speaks up more generally. For example, he recently gave a bleurghb for Pluckrose and Lindsay's Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity-and Why This Harms Everybody.

"Is there a school of thought so empty, so vacuous, so pretentious, so wantonly obscurantist, so stupefyingly boring that even a full-frontal attack on it cannot be read without an exasperated yawn? Yes. It is called postmodernism. If you sincerely want to understand what postmodernism is, read this exceptionally well-informed book by two noble heroes of the enlightenment project. If you have better uses for your neurons and your time, stick to science. It’s the real deal."

Richard Dawkins is happy to insult Christians, secure in the knowledge that we will not issue death threats, tear him apart in online pile ons, or come after him with a baseball bat.
Insulting anti scientific TRA beliefs?
His silence is deafening.

Just ask for evidence. Actual evidence beyond ‘feel’.

It is the same old trope from twitter too.

For the sports ones, Fond ofbeetles and Ross Tucker are good for looking up come back and referencing. You can also include a link to dr Hilton’s and Tommy’s paper. It has 11 peer reviewed studies as a base and is about to be published itself soon I beloved.

Believe. Not. Beloved .

I try to respond with a brief factual statement, repeat it basically if they carry on and then try to judge whether it’s worth further engagement. Sometimes people are repeating ‘arguments’ they’ve heard elsewhere and there’s a hope of them seeing facts.

Also, if other people are reading your comments, they might start thinking and that’s positive too.

However, I do withdraw if I feel I’m not emotionally up to some people as a kind of self-preservation thing and that’s ok.

So I’d say something like:

“No - ‘female’ is a biological sex-based term and not related to gender identity” etc

For the boxing, I’d look on Twitter for some of Emma Hilton’s (?) factual charts re the differences between men and women.

I always try to keep concise and factual - and to remember that many of the people are often a lot younger than we’re assuming.

But yes, some of it is just dumbfounding.

There's no arguing with stupid.

haha that was my exact thought when reading this. As Fair says - evidence. I doubt you can make much difference to people with such an extreme lack of understanding of the world so think carefully about whether it is worth your time and effort.

As I understand it they had a bit of a schism where they had one of the earliest Woke infiltrations ("atheism plus"?) which basically broke the movement apart. Some of the people who claimed (and probably still do) to be atheists and skeptics have turned out to be mindbogglingly religious. It seems for them it wasn't really about enlightenment and rationality, it was just a culture war proxy. They only dislike the other side's religions.

This is a pretty good summary, in my opinion. I still can't get over people I once respected now regularly trotting out the kind of absolute nonsense they used to skewer.

Dawkins has dipped his toe in these waters (www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/27/richard-dawkins-taught-a-lesson-by-trans-women-_n_8397344.html) but I'm pretty sure basically every atheist/skeptic organisation is either captured or keeping their heads down.

I think Helen Pluckrose still openly calls herself a New Atheist (and Lindsay and Boghossian also had ties to the movement), but the grievance studies lot are more focussed on CRT, I think. And Colin Wright of Quillette was involved as well, if I remember rightly from his Triggernometry interview.

Story - that post seems to have got a bit muddled and strangely formatted.

I forgot Ophelia Benson (sorry!) who was chased off of "Freethought" Blogs for being Gender Critical.

The rejection of science by the mask-refusers worries me. Dumbfounding.

Most people do not change their minds on the basis of evidence or by someone simply quoting facts at them. Unfortunately, it's "feelings" and any underlying belief system that tends to sway people. So it's important to tactfully get them to engage in conversation with you, build common ground and get them to do some reflection and self-examination for their views and opinions.

Street Epistemology is one of several methods used to get people to engage with challenging topics, usually religion, but it can be applied to more secular issues.
There's lots of information online on how to implement this method. It's really hard to keep calm and not resort to 'debate' mode, but it's important to stay detached from the process and ask leading questions that gently nudge people into thinking through the analytical process themselves. It takes time, a lot of patience and practice to get good at figuring out an individual's underlying belief system and steering conversations towards that direction. But there is evidence that it works.

How you engage with a complete stranger or someone online, is different to how you discuss things with someone who is close to you.

streetepistemology.com/publications/the_belief_factory

Also, if you can crack a Jehovah's Witness in terms of getting them to question their underlying beliefs, then you can tackle almost anyone else.

streetepistemology.com/publications/new_light_opening_the_door_to_belief_revision_in_jehovah_s_witnesses

There's a lot of good info about engaging with people from high control religions. I think it can also be used successfully on gender ideology topics.

How to Have Impossible Conversations by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay is also a useful resource.

www.amazon.co.uk/How-Have-Impossible-Conversations-Practical-ebook/dp/B07NNPDR2J?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

If you're serious about engaging with people and changing their minds on this topic, then it's worth investing the time and effort on these sort of techniques.

Rationality Rules dipped his toe in the sport debate by making a video saying he thought it was obviously unfair and got ripped to shreds and denounced by The Atheist Experience. They did later apologise but only after RR took down his video and donated all the ad revenue from it to (I think) Mermaids. Matt Dilahunty commented briefly saying he agreed with RR and would make a full statement later, then deleted it and said nothing. He's been a real disappointment to me because it was watching his videos that gave me the grounding in formal logic needed to take the GC side of the debate! Tracy Harris (also from TAE) is full TWAW and has had trans guests on the show talking about how terrible medical "gatekeeping" is and how it's no one else's business which facilties trans people use. Then TJ Kirk ("the amazing Atheist", who spends exactly 0% of his time talking about atheism and 100% of his time shitting on feminism and BLM) made a response video saying that seperating sports by sex is the same as segregating them by race (worlds biggest eye role) and that even though he believes TW have an advantage over women in sports, female athletes should be grateful for them taking over because women are shit at sports and our sports are really boring and if we get some massive strong fast TW competing then it might finally become watchable and attract some funding. Yes, he's a total cunt in all his other videos as well. The funny thing it that within the skeptic/Atheist "community" most of the self styled "anti SJWs" (who, in practise are mostly just anti feminism) are as pro TWAW as the super wokies. The same people who are falling over themselves to "debunk" the sex pay gap and whine about the supposedly unfair treatment of men during divorce and custody hearings (I'm looking at you ShoeOnHead/Armoured Skeptic/Jacklyn Glenn), suddenly morph into committed "intersectional feminists" the second the subject of TW taking things away from women comes up. Who'd have guessed, huh? So you've got the Atheism+ crowd on one side who just want to take a certain side in a culture war they don't understand, and be seen as anti conservative/anti religion/pro social justice, and then the "anti SJWs" whose content is 99% racist mysogynistic Pro Trump garbage taking a TWAW approach because they love to see women getting shoved back in their box. I can think of 2 Atheist youtubers who I'm pretty sure are GC and I'm not going to say who they are in case they get piled on. The Atheist community has always been a hostile space for women (lots of reports of sexual assault and harrasment from places the various conventions) and its only getting worse sadly. I used to spend a lot of time on Atheist YouTube but now I hardly touch it.

DNA and chromosomes are not the deciding determinate of what differentiates male from female

So what DOES differentiate male and female if not the reality of our biology?

How is it that when people engage a surrogate, they always manage to choose the right kind of human to carry a baby for them?

DNA and chromosomes are not the deciding determinate of what differentiates male from female

Oh.

Dawkins and also Ben Goldacre are keeping their heads down because they don't want to be targeted.

I don't really want Dawkins on our side anyway, he's a prick. At least Piers Morgan is a prick with a big audience who reaches a lot of people.

Ask them why no trans woman has every been a surrogate?

My usual comment is well they know what a fucking woman is when they want to buy a baby.

@ErrolTheDragon

There's no arguing with stupid.

Especially not when it's wilful, deliberate stupidity.
They're just trying to redefine words to mean what they want. That's funny when it's Humpty Dumpty, but tedious in real life.

Fascinating thread - but Errol spells it out.

The atheist/skeptic movement has always been strangely Male-dominated, so maybe we don't need to look too much further than that?