GC British guy debating US sceptic.

[Dadalus]

In case anyone finds it interesting...

twitter.com/lecanardnoir/status/1477004076877496328?t=wcSZsecghAvIRo2WozuheQ&s=19

It looks like the idea is to have a long exchange of letters between them, only the opening statements have been made so far.

There have been a few more letters back and forth. The guy attempts to answer 'What is a woman?' - first calling it a 'thought-terminating cliche' which is cringeingly incorrect, to the point where I am wondering if he is a native English speaker - by copy and pasting a Twitter bot which gives the nonsensical 'A woman is an adult human female, including trans women' which until today would have assumed to be a 'Poe's law' joke.

He then tries to "unpack" it by adding "Whether someone counts as a woman ultimately comes down to how they understand themselves, because there are no other essential features that determine who is and is not a woman".

So he's saying it's empirically indefinable, yet someone has an understanding of whether they are a woman (or an flubwud, or a prkaddd, which equally fit the non-definition he gives) from.... the outside world? Their proprioceptive feedback? A message from Allah? I don't know how someone has 'an understanding' that they are something without knowing what that thing is. And from the obfuscation it looks like he doesn't either but is too dishonest to admit it.

Andy's account of his time at the Samaritans aligns with what people have shared on old threads on here too.

Will read the new letters!

On the whole it's indirect, faux polite, obfuscate what saying cos fancy words important, self important snuggery.

Still the USA bloke is useless and needs to get to key points.

Sports not on table.
Prisons?

Has he always known gender > sex and sex is irrelevant, problematic and not defined?
If years ago, what skeptic analysis did he do on the new idea that sex was way more complicated than male female baby?
If in last few years, same question.
Gender> sex is a change with deep impact globally to the 8 billion humans or so on the planet.
Sex is not across humans as a whole just m/f also huge change to the most fundamental difference in humans. Has been understood by everyone everywhere since we evolved. Cock/fanny. Fanny ones grow babies.
How did he approach his analysis into discarding that wholesale?

We're mammals, does he believe human sex characteristics are more complex and different to other mammals? Or is all mammalian sex really tricky?

And

Has he told his mum/gran/aunt or similar.

That he can't know what sex they are, that having babies is nothing to do with your sex but how you feel inside. That unless she feels inside, as both male and female humans can, then she's not a woman.

That pregnancy childbirth are nothing to do with being a man or a woman. Men have babies too....

What did they say?!!!

Or even.

Are you male.
Assume yes v unlikely otherwise from man him writing like that.
How do you know???
have you had chromosomes etc checked.
If not then you can't know.
Wrong to say male if not proven via tests, evaluation of adherence to all masculine stereotypes (in which country?!).
And the other things he said make sex complicated.

Am I male? Your dad? Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is the Pope male? What about

Am i man?
You've never asked.
Which is good because may not want to come out.
Are Claudia schiffer, Hilary Clinton, the octo baby mother female? Women ???
How do you know?

Explain. Until explained no way I can really understand your stance on this.

USA fella- things should be as simple as poss, but not more simple than they are.

Also USA fella-

'. It also seems to me that providing gender affirming care that reduces the number of cases where individuals have to transition after puberty would significantly reduce the already tiny number of cases where there is even a risk of unfairness. '

And now his data science rationality has led him to quoting the Bible...

'so I wanted to share one of my favorite examples, which is the time in the Bible where Job is making some really cogent ethical arguments and God is basically like “were you there when I made the world?!” '

Erm. What sort of person made you, USA man? What sort of person brought every single human being into the world, all over the world, and since modern humans evolved?

Don't tell me. Not women and girls who had been through puberty irrespective of their age.

It's impossible to know if anyone is a woman or girl. Complicated, personal.

Nope. Was it female humans?
Nope. Sex is very complicated. The statement that every single person in the entire history of the human race was birthed by a female is lacking in data, peer reviewed studies, any reliable proof at all.
Men can have babies.
Sex is very complex.

Hello USA man you've just discarded essentially everything, globally and through the whole of history, any and all information about us. (And we were already erased, invisiblised, rewritten as male, ignored, ridiculed, demonised etc anyway...).

Oh and intelligent, ethical, articulate, awesome job...

Anyone interested can post tomorrow. Not a brilliant choice unless want to shout I'm a misognynist.

And what genuinly scientific people quote from the Bible????

USA man is an idiot.

Interesting that the guy from the USA cracked out ‘cognitive dissonance’ as a criticism of GC position. I’m pretty sure that thinking an adult human female is a woman is less cognitively dissonant than thinking a woman is ‘anyone who calls themselves a woman’.

I’m a bit surprised that US guy is allegedly a philosopher because so far his arguments have been exceptionally poor. And god, I hate the smug pseudo intellectual way that men debate… focusing on tiny irrelevant details, flinging around the names of logical fallacies. Anyway. I can’t believe he provided a Twitter bit definition of “woman”. Which is this: “A woman is an adult female human, including trans women. But why? "Woman" is a gender identity: the relationship between your understanding of yourself within society and the abstraction of sexed behavior and physical characteristics.”

This definition is incoherent gibberish. It starts out by saying that trans women are adult females. But what does “female” mean, then? It can’t mean “sex class that bears young” or “the sex class that produces eggs” because trans women do neither of these things. Furthermore if trans women are female, in what sense are they “trans”? The traditional concept of transness is that a male transitions to female. If trans women are already female what are they transitioning to? This seems to be bluntly saying there is no difference between trans women and women, which is ridiculous.

It then says that woman is a gender identity, which seems to be at odds with claiming that woman= adult female. The bot gives an entirely separate definition of gender identity, which is incompatible with “female”. So is woman a female or a gender identity? It can’t be both.

Gender identity is defined thusly: “ the relationship between your understanding of yourself within society and the abstraction of sexed behavior and physical characteristics.”
The impact of reading this is a bit like reading new age gobbledygook but I will try my best to parse it.

Gender identity is a relationship between two properties. The first is “your understanding of yourself within society”. This is a big concept. I’m not even sure if I have an understanding of myself within society - do I really have a grasp on my place in the wider social sphere? This is not something that one can intuit or feel but a very complicated result of prolonged reflection. It’s not a mental state a small child or cognitively deficient person could grasp.

The next property is “the abstraction of sexed behavior and physical characteristics.” I’m not sure what the word abstraction is doing here. Its pretty confusing. Sexed behaviour … what is that? Giving birth? Changing a tampon? Getting a smear test? If by sexed behaviour they mean wearing dresses or lipstick… well that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with gendered stereotypes. And now the concept of sex has entered into the mix, and that needs to be defined as well. “Physical characteristics” is so broad as to be meaningless. Let’s be generous and assume they mean to refer to the body’s physical characteristics. Which in particular? Hair colour? Height? Number of fingers?

Ok so a gender identity is a complex relationship between these two complex things. Well note that the bot hasn’t actually succeeded in defining woman. At best, it has told me what a gender identity is. We know that woman is supposedly a gender identity, but so is non binary, neutrois, male, gender queer etc. “Woman”isn’t the only gender identity in town. So we know what gender identity is , but not specifically what makes a gender “woman”.

Now the reality is the clue is already there in the definition. It’s to do with sexed behaviour and physical characteristics. Meaning if you wear dresses and lipstick and if you have boobs and long hair you’re a woman. But they can’t just come out and say that directly because it is pretty offensive and effectively reduces women to stereotypes and superficial appearance.

I know this has been tedious, but I have training in philosophy and I wanted to show how a curious philosopher might go about deconstructing that definition of “woman” , and questioning some of its oddities. The fact that the TRA guy just accepts this at face value makes me question his sceptical credentials.

My understanding of myself? If I were in a persistent vegetative state, I would still be a woman. As is proved by the number of male carers who rape and impregnate women in that situation.

And god, I hate the smug pseudo intellectual way that men debate… focusing on tiny irrelevant details, flinging around the names of logical fallacies.

Yes this. I have a couple of men I unfriended on Facebook as they were so smug and sure they were showing themselves to be extremely clever the way they argued over tiny little things to score points in this debate, while missing how very important this whole conversation is to women.

These letters just infuriated me. This issue was treated as some abstract philosophical debate. Where do little girls subjected to fgm fit in? What about highly vulnerable female prisoners? What about girls who will miss out on sports scholarships? I could go on and on. I am so angry, I can't bear it. All this bullshit about moral panic - it does not matter to me if not one single transwoman more ever behaves badly in what is supposed to be a private female space. Seriously, they could all behave impeccably on every occasion from this point onwards, all going about their business quietly, and I'd still feel encroached upon and unsafe and like I'd lost some dignity and privacy just to have a male body where they shouldn't be. Women who are saying no should be listened to.

It's just dick swinging.

For men who are certain they are vv intellectual, unbiased, superior in their abilities to do... Whatever they are pontificating about.

Tbh I loathe this.

Look chaps have an arm wrestle or a punch up or a round of dobble FFS.

Th incredibly common and infuriating number of men who take this approach to 'debating', compared to the amount of times I've seen women do it.

Makes me want to put forward some propositions...

Is this phenomenon because men have more free time?

Is it some kind of substitution to the very popular male approach of escalating rows/aggression/violence for those who are better than that?, More enlightened, further evolved from our ape ancestors... Deep thinkers, ponderers of the fundamental human state, etc etc...

I mean it's all a convoluted mess where clever sounding words, rambling incredibly long sentences, a devotion to avoiding making any clear direct points are instead of a clean punch?

Is it to disguise they are engaging in the popular male pastime of pontificating on things they don't actually know much at all about?

Is it because they belief the vast majority of readers will read a tiny bit and think wow. These guys are obv vv clever. Too clever for me.

...

Come on chaps!

Let's see which one of you can balance the most beermats on your forehead and let's call it a day, eh?

Sasketchewoo

I recommend putting the topic out of your mind and enjoying a very good example of this phenomenon.

I love that USA guy has tried to assert authority by name checking a man who taught him stuff I think at uni.

(I googled and spent an hour or so delving... Let's just say my conclusion on admittedly my brief foray was. USA man awesome prof views are... Questionable to say the least. And interestingly very very obviously related to a well known aspect of USA specific societal fundamentals. IE apparently not even aware that his views are totally USA. Bit of a blind spot!

Oh and. Favourite bit of Bible???????!!!!!! Yowzers!

Sorry to UK guy about the previous posts.

I am with you obv!

USA is giving the right runaround. Deflect, claim views not stated, switch around topics like mad to confuse, write in a way that is a teacher to a student, a parent to a child. In the position of an expert to a moderately talented amateur.

UK guy dunno if you're reading this. If it were me (and thank God it's not!) I would approach as learnt through years of internet exchanges on this topic.

Don't use anecdotes
Any data etc will be discarded with some waffle
Children situation still fairly new, different different countries etc. Any UK specific will not be familiar and he'll dig out something from somewhere else refuting.
Or try to bore you into submission in response.

If not anecdote, data then what?

The bleeding fucking obvious is what.

Repeat back most obvious bollocks.

I understand that while you see asking for definition of woman a divisive bad faith question.

You have given X definitions (quote his words). I understand you define words woman man boy girl as purely social roles that are performed according to which one/ or combination of, a person feels they are inside. Is that correct?

You said woman = female or anyone.

You also early on said ... Sex not easy at all no one knows what sex they are.

Given your views, and that what follows is either that the very idea that humans come (at a global population level) in two basic groups, as other mammals do. Ie the ones that impregnate and the ones who get impregnated. Is an error spanning human history globally. And so this entire concept should be discarded, and anything which references or relates to this binary categorisation be reworked accordingly.

Or that you have other words/phrases in mind to reference the approx 4 billion on earth who assumed to be in impregnator group based on visual assumption at birth? Even given you state that no one can know if for instance anyone is actually male, due to the complexities, overlaps and current lack of general scientific consensus around sexing humans.

And keep at him.

Don't be diverted. Ignore prods hoping to derail. He KNOWS that humans come in two sexes. And that they're vvv different in loads of ways so blindingly obvious that all humans know what's what and always have.

LOGIC him. Challenge his flimflam. Take aim on the fact that he doesn't believe any of this for a second. Because actually. As good as no one does.

UK guy dunno if you're reading this. If it were me (and thank God it's not!) I would approach as learnt through years of internet exchanges on this topic.

Andy (MN's @quackometer123 ) has approx. 30 years of internet activity combating quackery of one sort or another. He's won awards for it, won some very influential legal decisions etc.

if they use the word cis that already shows they have no interest in debate as it shows a lack of respect for those who dont believe in their ideology and a total lack of willingness to show good faith by using none ideological language. they know it is found insulting.

its like trying to negotiate with the taliban and having them keep referring to your side as infidels.

and the constant conflation of sex with gender needs to stop and should not be tolerated, you can not negotiate with people who refuse to stop moving the goal posts.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

UK guy dunno if you're reading this. If it were me (and thank God it's not!) I would approach as learnt through years of internet exchanges on this topic.

Andy (MN's @quackometer123 ) has approx. 30 years of internet activity combating quackery of one sort or another. He's won awards for it, won some very influential legal decisions etc.

Thanks I'll look him up!

In that case I think he must be just off his game at the mo.

I like his tweets.

I wonder if the topic they were discussing, he's read a lot as he raised a host of points and examples that are the key issues.

In the end I think the main problem here is, and as UK just experienced.

The sex> gender side have it's bleeding obvious and always has been.

And as it's bleeding obvious there's not been loads of research looking into studying publishing data/ results. And the go to is. Prove it. Show me evidence. And obviously because bleeding obvious, not much, usually not recent etc.

And of course the (majority) arguing sex irrelevant etc. Can say oho! Not objective, studied. Which is obv THE only way to know anything. But based in feelings, assertions about women and girls socialised behaviour... Can you prove that and what % of females behave like that and are there differences around the world and they do that all the time? And etc.

No. There isn't much data on things like-
Single sex spaces were always obviously gender based.

This idea that women/girls get uncomfortable when males do things which are hard to actually articulate? Sounds unlikely to me. Evidence!

Prove that all this stuff is going on all the time and men across the board don't usually know. Why not report? What do you mean sex offences not taken seriously? Why not tell people? Sounds unlikely.

Prove that men advantage physically. Thanks. Is there a dataset just for hurdles? What about 1000m, martial arts by each weight. Sorry. Not interested till data.

It's so interesting that with plenty things science is being turned away from.

While other things it's the be all and end all.

Interesting.

Oh USA guy said prove why all laws should be changed from Gender. To sex.

I mean. Really?

Anyway thanks to UK guy for that. It's like herding cats while balancing a jelly on your head and then having to run around in circles.

Bottom line is.

Trans ideology is a belief system. And faiths can't be dismantled by rational argument.

Oh USA guy said prove why all laws should be changed from Gender. To sex.

That is a reversal worthy of a TRA. I think the British guy should realise this other guy isn't ever going to do this in good faith and cut his losses. What a tool.

Quite a number of the original sceptic/athiest community of you tubers and bloggers have over time adopted gender identities. Zinnia Jones, Contrapoints, the British one - Ollie something.

It's not surprising it's taboo to question any of it because if you do no doubt you get flung out of the in group for heresy. It's utterly laughable that as a bunch they even consider themselves to still be sceptics in any form.

I see it all over sites like Reddit. They'll gleefully go to town on anyone who is religious, Qanon, Trumpist or antivaxxer, making lengthy analysis of all the ways those people hold irrational beliefs.

Often I can agree with their analysis when it pertains to the above but they have a massive blind spot about how the same can be said for some liberal beliefs, gender bollox being the most obvious.

I saw such a post not long ago from someone who was tearing into an antivaxxer whose social media also criticised men in women's sport so the first half of the post was all about this person being an anti science idiot (because vaccine refusal) and the second half the post refuting there was any evidence that men competing as women harms women. The cognitive dissonance of it blew my mind. I wish now I'd screenshot the post.