What is a non sequitur?
Brief philosophy.
#letuspee pic.twitter.com/lFvkXuzsCf
— Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) May 27, 2019
Remember, McKinnon teaches philosophy.
What does the poster communicate? “A person of a type claimed to be a potential threat was here at this toilet and nothing bad happened.” What does McKinnon want us to think it communicates? “A person of a type claimed to be a potential threat was here at this toilet and nothing bad happened, therefore nothing bad ever will happen when any person of that type is at any toilet anywhere.” I think that makes the problem reasonably clear? You can’t get from “this one incident involving one person at one place” to “all incidents involving all similar people at all places.”
It’s the so far so good fallacy – no that’s not a real fallacy, I just made it up. It’s not a good way to do risk assessment, or indeed prediction of any kind. It’s cloudy at the moment, so it will always be cloudy? No. The stock market didn’t crash today, so it never will? No. Banks didn’t fail today, so they never will? No.
The claim is not that all trans women will assault women in toilets every time there is a woman present to assault. The claim is that some men assault women when the conditions are right, and shared restrooms could present such conditions. The fact that one trans person used a toilet without harming anyone does nothing to address that claim. Nothing.
And yet McKinnon teaches philosophy.
And the odds that the person who applied this sticker was McKinnon himself?
Risk assessment is enemy number one to the trans project; I’m glad you used that phrase. Nearly all of their energy is spent denigrating the concept and trying to make it equivalent to “hysterical bigoted reactionary prejudice.”
They want no one to connect any dots, or to have an predictive power at all. Everything’s just “an isolated incident”, if they concede that any incidents occurred, ever.
Which they didn’t.
And how do we know nothing bad happened there?
When? On what date? Who reported the lack of bad happenings?
This makes no sense in any possible world.
Even rapists, serial killers and committers of genocide go to the loo without doing their day job from time to time.
Anyway, how do we know nothing bad happened? By whose definition? If a trans person uses an empty bathroom, does the tinkle make a sound? If others were using the bathroom at the same time, how do they feel about what happened?
Gun fanatics will be relieved to know that their “I own an AK-47, and I’ve never gone on a killing spree!” argument now has the endorsement of a philosophy professor.
Screechy, NZ doesn’t have a right to own guns the way the US does, but we do have a high rate of gun ownership. The key difference being that most are genuine hunting rifles. In recent times it has become more common for some people to favour purchase of civilian versions of the AR15 that are configured so they do not meet the MSSA category definition. Problem is, it’s really easy to illegally convert them into MSSA’s. One of the requirements to own a gun in NZ is to to be licenced. This involves attending and passing a firearm safety course (theory only) and undergoing a Police background check. The background check confirms that you are a ‘fit and proper person’.
I’ve been disgusted to witness holders of firearm licences (some with categories that allow possession of MSSA or handguns for competition use) state within the same conversation that gun ownership should not be further restricted because they are law abiding stable and rational people; and also that if the Government tries to take their guns they will hide them and buy/sell on the black market. This in the context of a generally peaceful country where 51 people have just be slaughtered by one racist with a bunch of guns. They get very offended when I point out that uttering the second statement excludes them from being covered by the first statement.
Even rapists, serial killers and committers of genocide go to the loo without doing their day job from time to time.
That’s a keeper.
[blushes]
‘A trans person was here and nothing bad happened’.
So what goes up on the wall when ‘something bad’ does happen?
‘It Has Been – Days Since The Last Trans Incident’?
Nope. Same sign. Because the person the bad thing happened to was not trans. (If it does happen to a trans person, it will be shouted out as though every person who is not trans is a brutal trans murderer, even if the bad thing that happens is nothing worse than being misgendered).
^ And, it was just a singular incident, and incidents can’t be counted or aggregated if we call them that.
The first rush of wing-nut ‘bathroom bills’ seemed so obviously wrong-headed. But then…Karen White and co. surface. There really are two parallel issues:
1. The actual safety and rights of ‘real’ trans people.
2. The existence of genuinely dangerous misogynist ‘trans’ pretenders.
Its rather like the tension between acknowledging Islamo-fascist threats without ‘playing into the hands of’ anti-immigrant racists.
Re #12
Also:
The actual safety and rights of women, which may be in conflict with proposed resolutions to item 1.
Forcing women to share dressing areas (and other heretofore women-only spaces) with males, even if those males are not predators, is unreasonable.
What we keep saying. The issue is that trans women are at risk from violent men. Women point out that we should not have to accept being put at risk to solve the problem of violent men.
And, of course, the flip side of this is that we have documented proof of trans women assaulting women in private spaces such as loos. There is an entire facebook group that does nothing but post media reports of these things. So what if you tinkled in a women’s loo and didn’t assault anyone, McKinnon. Bravo. Very stunning & brave of you.
If this becomes a thing, I propose that gender critical trans people like Miranda Yardley put stickers in men’s loos reading: “A trans woman was here and nothing happened.”