I know many are sceptical re: Matt Walsh but this is so worth watching...

[AnotherDayAnotherView]

Matt Walsh stumps a trans EMT:

"A trans EMT tried to use his medical training to prove that sex is not binary. He ran into trouble when I asked him how he’d respond to a patient with a penis who claims he’s having a miscarriage." https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1643450523235028995?cxt=HHwWhsDUteTi2s4tAAAA

It's hard to imagine a sense of self that entirely relies on the agreement of those around you. Like a kind of real life 'AIBU?'.
Desperately walking round at constant risk of being misgendered, and vanishing in a puff of outrage.

As far as I was aware, they have yet to find actual differences between "female" and "male" brains that cannot simply be put down to the normal size differences between men and women.

Certainly that is what Professor Sophie Scott (Prof of neuroscience at UCL) was saying in 2016 on this episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage The Infinite Monkey Cage - Series 14 - Battle of the Sexes - BBC Sounds

As for why GI has been able to perpetuate, particularly among younger folk, I do think a lot of it is due to lack of critical thinking. Whether it can be traced back to a failing in global education systems, or if it is just general apathy among the population I don't know. Social media alogorithims mean it's very easy to end up in an echo chamber and if people don't know (or can't be arsed) to fact check and look for primary sources/actual peer reviewed science rather than relying on opinion pieces or the hearsay of others then it's easy to see why so many people can fall down a rabbit hole.

It's interesting that the episode of IMC I linked to above is from 2016, before much of the current nonsense started, and that both Robin Ince and Sara Pascoe are perfectly happy discussing biological differences between the sexes back then, but are both firmly TWAW now, though in both their cases I imagine it's a case of "career induced" backtracking rather than actual belief.

I'd really like to hear a conversation on that topic between Brian Cox and Robin Ince tho.

Eurgh, Sara pascoe manages to shoehorn in TWAW every time she's on monkey cage. sanctimonious pillock

*I am glad he can do it. But it doesn't make it less galling to know that If women's opinions were respected, we could have punctured this ideology years ago.

Yes it's a complicated place to be.*

Kara Dansky says that if we could be heard we would win. That's how I feel and I agree it's galling that a right wing man talks and everyone listens. The problem for US feminists is we're also fighting for abortion rights, which Walsh opposes. So if less critical minded viewers of Matt find his GC arguments compelling, which they are, it stands to reason we will LOSE support for abortion rights from the easily swayed.

I do appreciate that TRAs spoke at this event because every time they do, the sunlight show the truth.

The sheer misogyny of it makes me seethe. Women shouted down, assaulted and attacked for doing the same as a man.

OMG - kind of new here and didn’t get OP’s health warning about Matt Walsh now I get it!!

I think this means that half the sexual encounters in his life have been sexual assault.

Is he a convert to Catholicism then? Surely if he were a life long catholic he should have only had sex with his wife?!

He also thinks 12 year old girls who have been raped don't deserve an abortion.

OMG 🥲that’s terrible.

It could just mean something like he was drunk, and the girl was drunk, and he doesn't think that is really "taking advantage".

I disagree with Matt Walsh, but I think that's just the Catholic position, so it's not surprising.

Apparently it's a fake tweet anyway:

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-walsh-tweet-idUSL1N32W2K9

The Catholic position is pretty straightforward, all human life counts as a person at the same level, so killing someone deliberately at any stage, or in any condition, carries the same moral implications. As far as I know that's Walsh's position.

But this idea that a Walsh is listened to when women aren't - I don't really agree. I think that Walsh is reviled on the left. Just like JKR or PP. Any difference in vitriol IMO is because he was never on the left himself. Men on the left or even in the center who have spoken out to any significant degree are largely now considered right wing baddies too, GL for example, or Jordan Peterson for that matter. People on the right or even in the middle seem happy enough to listen to all of these people.

The part where he listened to a transwoman and realised he shared all their thoughts and feelings, so he too must be a..... transwoman.

I thought that was an interesting admission of social contagion - a thing that is desperately denied by TRAs.

Right-wing and centre-right men (and women) will listen to Matt Walsh, whereas they wouldn't (at least until recently) listen to left wing women, like JKR or any feminist trying to bring this subject to a wider audience.

So there is an element of a pincer movement in trying to get the left to listen to certain people with a profile, and getting the right to listen to the same messages but from someone else.

In these polarised times, with people applying purity tests to people before they are deemed listenable, I think it's the only way to drive momentum across politically and ideologically diverse audiences.

But men on the right/center right do listen to PP when she appears in the media, and even to JKR though she is seen somewhat on the right as a person who has in the past accused the right of being bad people, so isn't likely to be as popular.

Someone like Candace Owens might be a more popular female voice on the right, being right wing herself. She talks more about id politics than gender, but she's a popular pundit even though she's a woman.

That makes sense. That tweet did not seem consistent with his Catholicism or other things I have heard him say.

This.

When he was younger he was trying to be a shock jock, so I'm not sure he always cared about the Catholic stuff.

An awful lot of people are hesitant about full abortion rights. In my view 'as soon as possible, as late as necessary' is completely rational, but emotionally difficult.

Not everyone is comfortable with abortion.

That's not the same as being anti abortion, obviously, and the American shit show is appalling.

In response to people like this trans dude, has anyone ever asked the quite simple counter-question of if animals are also trans? Anyone ever seen a trans golden retriever? Can we pick up a rabbit and say "it looks male but it's actually female"? If not then by implication the only reason it is "complicated" for this one single species known as Homo Sapiens, has to be based on gender stereotypes. Which is regressive to a shocking degree.

Also, big downvote for the trans dude saying "I might be intersex". 90% sure he just wants to claim some kind of "privileged" status by doing so. Which is insulting beyond belief to actual intersex people, the only one of which I've actually known hated being used by the trans lobby as part of the "spectrum" argument.

It's been a while since I read up on this deeply but my general take away is that there are some differences in the general case between male and female brains but they're (a) slight size differences due to different size of the brain casing and (b) developmental rather than intrinsic. By the latter I mean that brains will develop in mildly different ways in different hormone environments. Wash a young girls brain in male sex hormones as she grows it will develop slightly more male. I don't know that it's useful to consider either male or female brain a "default" state.

I once had someone argue to me that the brains are different because male brain cells have XY in them and female cells have XX so they really are different. That's meaningless in this context and no different to saying male and female eyes are different for the same reason or male and female fingers.

So yes to mild and developmental differences on average. What has never, ever been shown is that trans people have "the wrong brain". It was a popular belief amongst trans advocates for a while because it was useful to the argument that trans is an intrinsic characteristic - this being a vital belief for the trans movement to make sense. But I thought it had largely been quietly dropped as so easily refuted. Mildly surprised and disappointed to see it is still doing the rounds.

@OldGardinia thanks for that, that makes sense.

>>Right-wing and centre-right men (and women) will listen to Matt Walsh, whereas they wouldn't (at least until recently) listen to left wing women, like JKR or any feminist trying to bring this subject to a wider audience.

That's not my experience. I consider myself Right Wing and I move in Right Wing circles. JK and others were frequently quoted on the subject. I was first introduced to Magdalene Burns by friends who I would certainly describe as Right Wing to very Right Wing. And that was years ago.

In so far as there is difference there can be a bit of attitude of 'feminists brought this on themselves by championing Identity Politics and depowering men from dealing with trans women themselves" but that hasn't stopped gender critical women being quoted and referenced in Right Wing circles for as long as I've been in them.

>>So there is an element of a pincer movement in trying to get the left to listen to certain people with a profile, and getting the right to listen to the same messages but from someone else.

Again, I'm sorry but not my experience at all and I have moved in Left and Right circles a lot over the course of my life. I have always found the Conservative Right to have a better understanding of the Progressive Left than the other way around. In fact, there was an interesting study to this effect where Left and Right wing people were asked what the other would think about various matters and the Right usually were much more accurate about the other party than the Left were.