Kellie Jay Keen and Tucker Carlson of Fox News

[concernedfriend500]

I used to admire Kellie Jay Keen for her staunch defence of women's rights and her refusal to bow down to the bullies. But I'm so over her now. Last night I watched one of her YouTube videos and she praised Tucker Carlson to the skies, saying what what a good guy he is. For those of you who don't know, Carlson is a right wing troll who has been accused of being a white supremacist. He presents an insanely popular talk show on US Fox News, on which KJL has appeared on several times. Carlson also pushes the "great replacement" theory and no-one with progressive principles should have anything to do with him, let alone normalise his racism. My guess is that KJK has swallowed the "my enemy's enemy is my friend" line and is going down a dangerous rabbit hole. But I'm out.

Which dictionary is that? It’s really misunderstood what “trans woman” means there I think. The whole point is that it’s a man with a psychological condition, living “as” a woman to help deal with its effects.

I suppose that dictionaries do reflect usage, right ow wrong (look what’s happened to “literally” in the OED), but popularising such a misunderstanding is going to really lead to confusion.

Not at all.

You are aware, I assume, that for some years Democrats have talked about the fact that immigration and birth rates in the US mean that soon white AMericans will be a minority. That of course is factual.

They say that this means that Republicans will struggle to get elected and Democrats will be able to sominate politics, because these people (they believe) will mostly vote Democrat. Naturally they see that as a good thing. But also some of these same people make a connection and go on to say, not onl that Ameriica becoming more Democrat voting is good, but that America becoming less white is good, and that they need to break up white hegemony which is inherently oppressive. THis ties into this idea that we see now on the American left that whiteness itself is a problem to be overcome.

When Republicans talk about Democrats wanting this and thinking this way they aren't imposing some weirdo ideas, they are taking what people like Joe Biden say at face value. You could argue that it's not clear that the Democrats are activly trying to facilitate an increase in non-white people in order to make this play out, but given some of the more lefty Democrat's rhetoric on immigration, it's not suprising people might suspect there is a connection.

Why that might be percieved as racist is pretty clear I think.

It's deja vu all over again - I'm sure I've seen a thread in the last month discussing the exact same issue of Posy and her decision to appear on Tucker Carlson's show.

I'm sure you're right that if we polled women in the US who vote for Democrats they'd say they don't trust anyone who has ever watched Tucker Carlson. But what if they held their noses and actually watched Posie's episode? Or Helena's? You've heard of Helena surely? Would they discount anything they say? Or might they think they're making sense?

I don't know who Helena is...do you mean Helen Joyce?

Hi OP

Shall I accuse you of being a white supremacist? Were I to do so should everyone ignore you on the basis of an accusation?

By the way - some pretty unsavoury people are picking up on the trans extremism and seem to be in the minority who will speak and out find the scientific research to support their claims. How do you feel about them gaining a claim to be the protectors of children and supporters of science?

Or you could just, you know, not impose the categories of "man" or "woman" on people who feel uncomfortable with those.

Language isn't some "absolute truth", it's by its very nature shaped by people. Why can't we shape it to accommodate trans people?

Or how about a small set of people dealing with a psychological issue try to stop insisting that the world changes to play along, and understand the implications of accepting a lie?

Saying that you agree that a man is a woman is like agreeing with an anorexic that they are overweight, so not to be recommended.

If you did decide to play along and “be nice” by pretending that a man was really a woman then some men may decide to use that agreement to mean that they get to start using women’s single-sex spaces, facilities, hostels etc.

I can even conceive of some men using this conceit to try to complete in women’s sports, get women’s scholarships, and so on.

I know that this may seem outrageous, the idea that a man would ever take things this far, but imagine where we would be as a society if we allowed women’s rights to be eroded like this, all because a tiny group of men demanded it.

So, can you articulate here now exactly what he has said that caused you to determine he is a "far right troll" or..... by any chance... do you believe that because "he's been accused of being a white supremacist"

?

@SlightlyGeordieJohn
> Or how about a small set of people dealing with a psychological issue try to stop insisting that the world changes to play along, and understand the implications of accepting a lie?

What I wish you'd understand is that it's not a "lie". We know what our physiology is like.

We just don't define those words the same way as you do, we believe we should be free to change our bodies, and that we don't need rigid binary categories to restrict us in every aspect of our lives.

You see rigid restrictions in categories because you have dysphoria.

We see definitions and categories that we need and are still using, for completely different reasons that relate to our bodies that we cannot opt out of.

Why would you need to change your body if a woman is anyone who says they are (or vice-versa)? If you are already a woman, and a woman can have a beard and penis, why the desire to change your body?

@SlightlyGeordieJohn
> Why would you need to change your body if a woman is anyone who says they are (or vice-versa)? If you are already a woman, and a woman can have a beard and penis, why the desire to change your body?

Do you actually care for the answer, or are you just trying to pull a gotcha and are going to argue against whatever I tell you?

The trouble with not defining words like everybody else is if enough people do that those words become meaningless.

And? What's the issue with that? Wouldn't rendering the words "man" and "woman" meaningless be a good thing?

Wouldn't that finally "abolish gender", something you claim to want?

We can’t abolish sex though can we, that remains.

The genuine differences between men and women won’t go away just because becomes taboo to acknowledge them and women will be the losers.

We can abolish the "sex-based" caste system youare upholding though. There is no reason to label people by "sex" other than to enforce rigid social norms.

Some of those social norms are there to protect the safety and dignity of women.

There are reasons to acknowledge a person’s sex in any context relating to physical bodies, health, sport, places where people will be naked or vulnerable or experiencing processes related to those specific physical bodies, such as any reproductive related process. This is not necessarily connected with social norms such as dress, tastes, hobbies or other preferences.

The central tenet seems not to make sense to me, it seems contradictory. So do the claims that it’s not a medical condition but that the NHS should be funding surgery and hormone treatments.

From the outside I see a psychological condition that should be treated as such, but then I see people arguing that despite presenting as one, and despite apparently being analogous with anorexia that for some unexplained reason it’s different.

I can’t think of any other condition where if someone claims to be something that they are ostensibly not others are supposed to go along with it.

The concept of an innate gender is also a-priori hard to accept. It seems like a modern-day return if the conceit of a non-corporeal soul; an unevidenced dualist proposition.

@TheBiologyStupid
> Some of those social norms are there to protect the safety and dignity of women.

Then quit telling the lie you fight to "abolish gender". In reality, you fight to uphold and enforce the aspects of gender that you like.

@SlightlyGeordieJohn
> So do the claims that it’s not a medical condition but that the NHS should be funding surgery and hormone treatments.

Different trans people experience physical dysphoria different. Not all trans people will require the same treatments, but those who do require specific treatments... do require them.

Why is that so difficult to accept?

It’s the contradictory claims. If it’s not a medical condition, as some claim, then why should the state provide what is therefore cosmetic surgery?

If as seems to me to be the case that it is a medical condition, so a trans man is a man with dysphoria, then why the claim that they are “really” a woman?