Chasing libel
Chase Strangio is just straight-up libeling people now.
I hope JKR has a word with Chase. She’s not bashful about introducing her lawyers to libelers.
Tip Jar
Chase Strangio is just straight-up libeling people now.
I hope JKR has a word with Chase. She’s not bashful about introducing her lawyers to libelers.
Speaking of strange alliances, you’re all aware of the claims that ‘TERFs’ have aligned themselves with Christians, and that said claims are oft repeated by the wokest professor in Wokedom. Well, in order to distance himself from silly Christian thinking, today PZ said this:
So, what is going on here? Either PZ is mocking Christians for their simple-mindedness in thinking that God is male because he says he’s male, thereby denying the core belief of the trans dogma that ‘I say, therefore I am’, or he’s agreeing with the conclusion of that essay, in which case he’s…erm…aligning himself with the beliefs of Ken Ham.
Oddly, he has yet to be called out either way in the comments. Predictably, though, Giliell has commented with more made-up truths about what TERFs have told her, such as gender critical fems have repeatedly assured her that GCFs do not have pronouns. She’s comment #12 if you want to laugh at a liar.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/02/05/sopronouns-make-the-man-or-woman/
AoS: oh lort, Giliell and her bizarre fantasy-world existence. It’s impressive how she never misses an opportunity to demonstrate her woke virtue, though, even if most of it does sound like it came directly out of something by the Brothers Grimm.
The reality is that people like Chase Strangio and all the rest of them are directly feeding into the conservatives in power because their false assertions, unwarranted demands, and overblown rhetoric is easily used to create the impression that the Democrats are crazy and the Republicans are sensible. Strangio et al should mobilize themselves to stop giving the Other Side credibility.
@Acolyte of Sagan;
Oh dear. I had a quick look and saw this:
Yes, that’s what’s left when you leave both biology and behavior out of how to tell if someone is a man, isn’t it?
Has Dennett weighed in on this shit yet? This seems like his baliwick…
Will wonders never cease, some common sense legislation proposed in Georgia. What’s next, a black senator? :P I’m glad they are provoking Chasio, it makes her look like more of a dipshit every day and of her own doing. The ACLU should fire the shit out of her, but it looks like they want to be dragged down this dead end road.
With apologies for the sidetrack:
James, #2, yep, she’s an odd’un. It used to be that Caine was agitator-in-chief among PZ’s beloved Horde and when she died Giliell was first to step into that role and to be joint ‘inheritor’ of Caine’s blog over there. Trouble is – and I say this as one who didn’t really care for Caine’s persona* – Giliell is no Caine, she’s just rude, abusive, self-important, dishonest and a dyed-in-the-wool hypocrite. ‘Tis why I usually refer to her as ‘the odious G’.
Sastra, #4, I can’t fathom what PZ’s trying to say with that post; he seems to be mocking some of the major parts of trans dogma such as one’s gender being an inate feeling rather than biological fact, and identifying as x makes one x. I cannot understand why nobody has pulled him up on it, but I suppose that his criticism is a touch ambiguous, and they’re all so busy laughing at the silly Christians and what-not they must have missed the obvious. Or, just maybe, they don’t want to see the obvious, which is pretty much a part of trans dogma anyway.
* I’ve heard it said that she was a nicer person in private but I never saw that side of her.
Odious is being too, too kind to Giliel.
I cannot recall Caine ever posting on TRA matters. Caine and I had an extensive private email correspondence right up until the time of her death. We shared a bit of common health history. Caine did much to raise my awareness of the plight of indigenous Americans, and I will always be grateful for that.
That said, she did not suffer those she deemed as fools lightly. I copped one of her lashings, but after calming down, had to admit I was in the wrong.
And PZ still won’t tell me how he knows the gender of his spider hordes.
(sigh) Ok, we’re doing this? Fine, I’ll be the wet blanket and say that this isn’t anywhere near a viable defamation case in the U.S. It’s all nonactionable opinion and rhetorical hyperbole. As many people have had to be told by numerous courts, someone calling you a racist/sexist/transphobe/whatever is not defamation.
(I doubt the result would be different even under U.K. law, but I don’t know enough to say. And even if it were, a UK judgment that doesn’t comply with U.S. free speech principles cannot be enforced in the U.S., so it would be worthless.)
I’m sure JK Rowling could find a lawyer — and a good one from a reputable firm — to write some pompous demand letter threatening to bring down hellfire on Strangio and the ACLU, but that doesn’t mean anything other than that JKR has enough money to hire good lawyers (who, if they are good, will be telling her “yeah, we’ll write this letter for you, but don’t expect this to go anywhere”). Neither Strangio nor the ACLU would be the least bit intimidated by such a threat. They litigate all the time, often against the U.S. government. They’re not going to be scared of a fight that would be this easy to win. I expect they’d enjoy it.
@Screechy Monkey:
The phrase “closely aligned with white supremacists” usually indicates either membership, financial support, or some kind of direct contact, but it’s technically open to interpretation. So yes, I don’t think it’s actionable.
My bad. I thought “closely aligned with white supremacists” would be.
Sastra,
I think it’s more than “technically open to interpretation.” I think your interpretation is flat-out wrong, not the “usual” interpretation if there is such a thing. I honestly don’t read Strangio’s tweet as stating or implying that JKR is a member or financial supporter of white supremacists. I think you would really have to strain to read it that way. (As for “some kind of direct contact,” that’s hopelessly vague. Saying “you talk to bad people” is not defamatory.)
And in any event, who’s a white supremacist? Is that an objectively true fact about someone? How would a court go about determining that? There are people who claim that you’re a white supremacist if you don’t support abolishing police and paying reparations; there are others who claim that you’re only a white supremacist if you literally walk around in a Klan outfit.
@Screechy Monkey #12;
Strangio is a spokesperson for the ACLU, and I’d assume a human rights organization would have clearer definitions and stricter criteria on what “close alignment” and “white supremacy” mean than an average person. Their judgment carries weight. I agree it’s probably a waste of time to file any lawsuit, though.
That’s it exactly, the ACLU has to deal with Chasio internally, but they won’t. Twitter rants are the very definition of frivolous, good luck with that. She is hurting her own credibility and respectability, but the ACLU obviously doesn’t care about that. The inmates have been running the asylum for too long now.
Yeah, the whole style of argument (and I’m sure there’s some name for it, but I don’t know it) whereby you say:
“You support Policy X. Policy X will have Bad Outcome Y. Therefore, you are objectively pro-Y.”
is dodgy as hell.
Trump Qultist: “you librulz accuse everyone of being a white supremacist for any tiny disagreement!”
Normal person: “no we don’t.”
Trump Qultist: *points at Chase Strangio*
Warning: Following post wound up riddled with TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms).
Actually, that’s not quite the illogic going on here, but it’s close. It’s not talking about outcomes, but associations.
Instead, “You support Policy X, which is also supported by Bad People Y. Therefore, you are objectively pro-Y.”
This has, unfortunately, been a difficulty for the GCF position all along; clearly, the religious right has totally different motives for opposing any and all trans issues*. But in order to keep the TRAs from using a superficial similarity against you, you end up having to spend half of every discussion drawing that distinction.
I’ve made the analogy before to my personal opposition to male infant circumcision. It’s a foolish practice, and in edge-cases can cause lasting damage–on the whole, the harm to society is about equivalent to the pressure put on young women to start douching, another odious practice that ideally would just die out. But the moment you speak out against MIC, you wind up with MRAs to one side, and Anti-Semites on the other, all cheering you on, and everyone sane immediately gives you the side-eye for that association.
*: The GCF position on sex/gender: Women are adult human females, girls are non-adult human females, where ‘female’ is determined by reproductive organs.
The Religious Right position: As above, but with the add-on of numerous other largely negative traits that are considered consequences of womanhood (FREX: subordinate to men, valued only for breeding purposes and free labor, etc, etc) and also adorned by necessity with performative femininity–wearing dresses, being housekeepers, etc.
The TRA position: As the immediate above, but without the GCF position: womanhood is now defined as solely performative.
Once you lay it out that way, of course, it becomes obvious why GCFs oppose both the Right and the TRAs–which is why most TRAs will never permit such a thing to occur in any sort of discussion.
I agree with Freemage regarding the correction of the syllogism. I will admit that I have been fond of the original version:
I like to employ this formulation in discussion of abortion.
This can get the righttolifies in a pother. How else to explain to them that Planned Parenthood (an organization I can no longer support because it supplies wrong-sex hormones to children) actually prevents more abortions than it performs, and driving the clinics out of your state will result in a higher, rather than a lower, abortion rate?
Anyway, back to the Religious Right position on transing children. I don’t think it’s as simple as all that. Some holy rollers are in favor of transing children because then their children will not be homosexual. Iran does it by the busload.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/why-are-religious-conservatives-embracing-transgender-rights/
So when the TRAs use the argument “If you are questioning trans ideology, and the religious right also questions trans ideology, then you are in league with the religious right,” we might reply with “Iran’s policy is to trans all gender non-conforming men so they can be redefined as normative women. Are you in support of a similar practice in the West?”
I came across Giliell on PZ’s site a few days ago insisting that some lesbians have a penis. It was on this eye-opening thread.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/02/01/the-christian-right-poisons-everything/#comments
She’s literally calling a lesbian transphobic and oppressive and comparing her with racists for stating she’d potentially date a transwoman – but only if they were post-op. That’s not good enough! In fact the entire comments section is some poor lesbian called Kathleen being abused by just about all the commentators because she doesn’t like dick. eg. “Yes, it is not unreasonable to assume that your “preference” is an expression of transphobia”.
It’s not science blogs, it’s religious fervour.
Freemage @17, yes, your version is the more precise formulation of this particular instance of the argument.
Papito@18, to be clear, I don’t have any problem with pointing out contradictions between people’s stated values and the actual consequences of the policies they support. I agree that if pro-lifers actually believed that abortion is murder, they would support wide availability of birth control, comprehensive sex education, etc. The fact that they don’t suggests that they don’t consider abortion as bad an outcome as “condoning and encouraging premarital sex,” and that should absolutely be shoved in their faces. But that’s different from saying “you WANT abortions to occur,” which even I don’t think is true of pro-lifers — I think some of them just don’t hate abortion as much as they hate sex, some are ignorant of the actual consequences of their policy preferences on the abortion rate, and some will acknowledge it but insist that it’s an unavoidable “side effect” and not something they affirmatively want.
Oh I did wonder about the defamation of that. Never mind that kind of hysterical accusation shouldn’t come from any serious organisation. But I did think “closely aligned with” meant more than shouty rhetoric or “take up a position that a white supremacist would take” on a certain issue. I’d have thought it would be writing articles that eg showed a tender understanding to those invaders of the Capitol.
I don’t know how my experiences in rural Nebraska (and urban Oklahoma) fit in the world as a whole, but it’s been my experience that this is the most common among the people I have known. But the hatred of sex is another, because if you point this out, they will say that they can’t encourage young women to have sex without consequences, and point out that if abortion were illegal, that would take care of the problem. No abortion and no birth control in their mind equals no sex out of wedlock.
Then I could spout statistics about illegal abortion, but by then their ears and their brains have closed off and wandered toward the Elysian fields…or somewhere else that I am not, so they don’t have to hear me.
Yeah, a lot of social conservatives see both unwanted pregnancy and STDs as features, not bugs — they act as “punishment” for sex and therefore discourage it, in their view.
Oh, lookee: there’s a monkey in my wheelhouse.
What you are expressing (that is, your intuition regarding the argument) is known as the doctrine of double effect. Basically, the idea that it is permissible to do X in order to bring about good thing Y (which you desire) even though it will possibly/certainly cause bad thing Z (which you do not desire). This can be cashed out in many ways and is at least prima facie consistent under most normative ethics. However, it is most easily associated with deontological ethical systems, which generally incorporate the concept of intrinsic normative value. Consequentialist systems have a comparitively easier time explaining situations where double effect would be relevant; e.g., by reference to the utility function U(X)=Y-Z.
Much of the debate rests on what it means to intend that an outcome occur. If one knowingly acts in a way that causes S, does one intend that S obtain? It seems odd to say that one could intend something that one does not in some way want to happen, but it seems equally odd to say that could not intend to do something that one consciously chooses to do.
The Stanford Encyclopedia entry on the topic is worth reading.
For completeness, I guess I should link to the Stanford entry on instrumental rationality, the deliberative relationship between means and ends.
Thanks for that.
I think the added complication here is that people are also using this argument in situations where the person advocating X does not agree that X will possibly or certainly bring about Z. As in, “by disagreeing with our definition of ‘woman,’ you’re causing trans people to commit suicide! Therefore you are pro-trans suicide!” To which the main response is “well no, I reject your claim that my statements have any causal relationship to any suicide.”
If someone neither wants nor has knowledge of claimed effect Z, then surely you cannot say that they “intend” for Z to occur?
You can if you have the trans-ally all-century pass!
Vila Restal, #19. It’s quite something to see so many supposedly intelligent adults pretending not to understand why a lesbian would not be interested in sex with a be-penised person, however that person identifies. They also pretend that a person who has sex with both women and TiMs is not bisexual but is either hetero or lesbian. In fact, they seem very reluctant to to even acknowledge that bisexuality exists, I’m guessing because bisexuality requires that sex itself is a binary.
Their responses to Kathleen really boil down to ‘nobody is saying that you have to be open to the idea of sex with TiMs, gracious no. We’re just saying that if you choose not to be open to the suggestion, whatever your reasons, then you’re a fucking raging transphobe. That’s all.