Who has most disappointed you?

[Calistano]

I'd say Russell T Davies when he had his drunken rant. I get his concern that lgbt is being fractured. But his absent concern for Women and their rights was palpable. I honestly thought he had more sense.

'I do admire him for dressing in a GNC way and not thinking this makes him female'

He does think it makes him 'non binary' though, which is bullshit. I used to really enjoy seeing him on Queer Eye in his little vest tops and swishy skirts with his full beard - it was a fun look and clearly something he enjoyed. None of it made him any less of a man

That's the thing Delurking, he is being treated as an authority when I can't remember the last time he came out with anything that wasn't complete disinformation.

And when challenged, even in the slightest, he's now resorting to crocodile tears to immediately shut down conversation like a teenager wailing in their car on Tik Tok.

Dax can only flounder, apologise, shut it down and defer, the media denounces his 'anti trans' questioning, job done.

Morons repeat JNV's nonsense as gospel and #nodebate lives another day.

I have wondered if that’s a definitional thing - when he says “non binary” does he in fact mean what we would call “gender non conforming” or does he mean “I am neither male nor female” (which I agree is crap). If he’s going to start sobbing about his need to protect trans kids every time anyone ask him the simplest question, I guess we’ll never know.

I am yet to encounter a non binary person who can actually explain what they think non binary means.

'If he’s going to start sobbing about his need to protect trans kids every time anyone ask him the simplest question, I guess we’ll never know.'

Well, indeed. But he's just so exhausted from all the caring about kids 🙄

I can’t do quotes on my phone, sorry.

I think that's a very good point. Some people just jump on every passing bandwagon because they like the virtuous glow they get from it. No thinking involved at all
Maybe some people just like to give a good kicking to others and they need an “in” cause to give them the opportunity.

Re Dawkins and these beardy blokes: a lot of the problem with being «fans» of atheism is that in itself became their New religion. The fervour was disturbing to say the least. So that they jumped on the trans-religion is no surprise; they profoundly misunderstood Dawkins’ scientific standpoint in the first place.

I actually like beards. They are Nice and soft.

I am glad this thread now reminded me of Dawkins and his thoroughly logical mind.

I feel unable to ask the nonbinary people i know to explain because i am certain my disbelief in the entire concept would immediately become obvious however neutral i tried to make my voice. A bit like a conversation i had with a friend's dad when I was retraining in a health profession, I said what I was doing and he answered 'oh they give degrees in that now do they?' Nasty old man.

I'm hoping to overhear them explaining to someone else. I'm not sure I will be any the wiser unfortunately. I've never found explanations of eg transubstantiation believable either.

We’re all non-binary, judging by that silly gender spectrum diagram showing Barbie in pink on one end, and a muscle-bound GI Joe on the other. Everyone will fall somewhere in between those two extremes.

A friend of mine joined a woke firm (hate the word but you know what I mean) that had trans/NB employee they were always encouraging to give patronising little lectures training. My friend had their consciousness raised (this was about 2017-18) and started going on about NB identity. I asked her what that was and after a lot of flannelling and terrible easily debunked explanations she said that the NB employee had said they woke up one day wanting to use the men’s and another day wanting to use the ladies. At this juncture I laughed rather rudely for rather a long period of time. After that I said I felt the same when the queues for the ladies were ginormous and was I therefore NB. My friend said “I know you’re wrong. I don’t know why you’re wrong but I know your arguments are wrong.”

That was the first time it really came home to me that the whole ideology collapsed at the slightest pressure. BTW friend saw the light after several years of me saying “erm, prisons, then?” and is now 100% paid up GC.

Yep. It's a misogynists wet dream at the moment!

Yes, now I come to think of it, Richard Dawkins' style of atheism was quite unpleasant. Dismissing people with faith as gullible idiots seemed to feature quite a lot. Perhaps the former Dawkins fans who now mansplain gender to women just really like telling other people that they are stupid and wrong.

Dawkins also landed in hot water when he tried to put rape on a spectrum of badness, claiming stranger-rape at knifepoint is ‘worse’ than date-rape. I remember at the time thinking he needed to stay in his lane and stick to talking about atheism. Rape is rape, and it’s irresponsible and inappropriate for a man to put a crime of male violence against women on a sliding scale of perceived awfulness. He tried to clarify that it absolutely didn’t mean he was excusing or condoning date-rape… and I understand the point he was trying to make, but to be honest it was not his finest hour. It’s like saying being kicked unconscious by someone you know, in the comfort of your own home, is better than being kicked unconscious by a stranger while on a rainy street miles from home. You’ve still been kicked unconscious.

Yes, now I come to think of it, Richard Dawkins' style of atheism was quite unpleasant. Dismissing people with faith as gullible idiots seemed to feature quite a lot.

For somebody who thinks that all kinds of religion and theism is a complete load of rubbish, Dawkins sure does like to spend a huge amount of his time discussing it.

It's not even as though he's railing against the majority or being dictated by the authorities that he must commit himself to it - if this were, say, Iran, I'd understand his obsession an awful lot more.

I think for Dawkins it’s his focus in a similar way to KJK and Glinner being so focused on women’s rights. The truth is so stark and must be fought for.

But the massive, massive difference - in the UK at least - is that nobody is trying to force people to affirm their devout, unquestioning belief in any religious faith, much less threaten violence and try to destroy your reputation or livelihood if you don't.

Nobody is screaming "Islamophobe!" and seeking to get you cancelled, sacked from your job and made into a public disgrace if you don't believe.

It's like the old days, where one person could believe one thing, another could believe another (or nothing) and people would respectfully live and let live.

Absolutely spot on.

I would go for religious extremism being more dangerous than TRA extremism all over the Western world, in terms of the level of violence.

I would go for religious extremism being more dangerous than TRA extremism all over the Western world, in terms of the level of violence.

I was specifically talking about the UK only - as I made clear - and about the official attitude to the beliefs and whether or not people were freely allowed to/justified in holding to those beliefs. Obviously, no official (i.e. governmental or in a position of authority) body is going to condone threatened/actual violence.

Official attitude to a certain religion, didn't require you accept it, but it did require I think that you believe something reality-denying, or shut up, or risk vilification. Debate was largely suppressed because of political and media attitudes.

This x 1000. I get on great with my local Jehovah Witness lady. She gives me her little pamphlet and we chat about life in general. She sent me handwritten letters during lockdown! Can't remember the last time anyone did that?

I'm sure she worries that I am eternally damned. But she isn't trying to get my friends to avoid me. She isn't trying to wreck my livelihood. Same with the parish priest here. How did it come to this? It's the old 'power corrupts ' I suppose.

I'm not sure I would necessarily put gender ideology and religion on the same page in terms of intellectual merit, either.

Obviously there are some kookie religions and people with odd random belief systems, and particularly some of the New Age type stuff can be pretty airy-fairy. But most of the major religions have long philosophical traditions that include deep dives into metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and psychology, and many of their adherents are serious people who demand a lot of intellectual rigour. One of the greatest errors of people like Dawkins was dismissing this without understanding, or even making an effort to understand, the systems he was criticizing, with an extremely primitive understanding of their philosophical their basis - or indeed, with a primitive understanding of the philosophy of science, the system he proposed as the appropriate replacement.

Gender ideology, and ID politics more generally, despite being espoused by a certain number of people who should know better, has nothing like that intellectual credibility. And it might be that the rise of the kind of thinking that can't distinguish what the difference is has something to do with why are are so subject to that kind of low level thinking.

I am gutted to read this. I'm currently on episode 1850 and speeding towards the end and I really enjoy their style. They've alluded to twaw a few times over the years but I've ignored it thinking they'll understand it better in years to come, as I did. I almost want to skip this episode if you know which one it is? American's are in so deep.

Completely agree.

I watched the YouTube conversation between writer Paul Kingsnorth and Rowan Williams, about Kingsnorth's recent conversion to Orthodox Christianity. It's reasoned and thoughtful, full of emotional intelligence.

Interestingly, Kingsnorth has emerged as gender-critical too. Clearly, becoming part of an intellectual tradition with deep roots has helped him spot and critique loopy cultural fads such as gender ideology...

But most of the major religions have long philosophical traditions that include deep dives into metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and psychology, and many of their adherents are serious people who demand a lot of intellectual rigour. One of the greatest errors of people like Dawkins was dismissing this without understanding

I have some sympathy for this, and I have previously defended the reasonableness of metaphysical beliefs.

My point is more along the lines of, if you said that Christianity doesn't believe in a Trinity God it's just obvious nonsense. Many Christians may not believe. Various heretical sects or other versions of Christianity may not have believed. But historical mainstream Christianity in our tradition has believed in a Trinity God.

The thing with gender ideology is the nonsense may be easily known to everyone. With some statements about religion, it's just as silly, but you may need to know a little of the history etc. to recognise it.