First, a comment by themadtapper on The art of the question on July 24:

This is some Glenn Beck level ass-hattery. “I’m just asking questions! Why won’t Ophelia Benson confirm she’s not a transphobe?”

I love how Joe says “it was just the polite way of asking if you are a transmisogynist”. As if anyone, even an actual transmisogynist, would ever answer anything but ‘no’ to that question. No, what Joe was doing was fishing for something to accuse her over. When challenged on the claim that Ditum and Lewis were “obvious bigots” and the assumption that following on Twitter amounted to an endorsement, Joe promptly blocked Ophelia and then lied about her reply. And in true Beck style he took every refusal to play his game as an admission of guilt to an accusation that anyone with a cursory knowledge of Ophelia’s posting history would know is false. And sadly, just like Beck, he gets what he wants even if you don’t give him what he wants. In come a parade of people to make posts about how hard Ophelia is trying to avoid the question. “Why, she MUST have something to hide after all, since she won’t answer the question!” Or, you know, she knows perfectly well that no answer will satisfy anyway. Because an answer is not what’s wanted. Any answer denying guilt will be met with further interrogation and insinuation, and the refusal to play (whether immediate or after fatigue and frustration set in) will be declared an admission of guilt.

Honestly, if Ophelia right now made a post that consisted of only the words “Yes I think transwomen are women. No I am not a transphobe/transmisogynist,” how long do you think it would be for someone to pop up in here saying “but why did you wait so long to say that, and only under increasing pressure?” No answer will satisfy, because the ones asking have already decided. They could have already gotten their answer by perusing the past posts of this blog. They’re not interested in an answer. They’re interested in spreading innuendo, insinuations, and doubt. The question was never intended to seek information, but to spread disinformation.

Next, a comment by themadtapper on Divorce status today:

I said it in another thread, and I’ll say it again here. This is some Glenn Beck style bullshit.

“I’m not saying she’s a TERF, but why’s she following TERFs on Twitter? I’m not saying she’s a TERF, but why won’t she answer the accusations of TERF-dom? I’m not saying she’s a TERF, but why’s she asking TERFs for advice? Ok, maybe she isn’t asking TERFs for advice, but surely you can see how people might think that? I’m not saying she’s a TERF, but but but but but…”

Frankly, at this point I can’t really accept that anyone demanding apologies from Ophelia, or accusing her, or trying to “help” her see the error of ways, is doing so in good faith.

And that goes for you too, Jason. You keep trying to paint a picture of poor, pitiful, helpful you being mistreated by an obstinate, ungrateful Ophelia. You say you’re “disappointed in how [Ophelia’s] reacting to the legitimate grievances” when your “legitimate grievances” include shit like this:

she said particularly impolitic things in particularly impolitic ways,regurgitated damaging arguments handed to her by TERFs that rightly got peoples’ hackles up

And this:

but she’s doing so much lashing out at the genuine, nuanced criticism, and so much cozying up to the TERFs that everyone ELSE recognizes as having it out for trans folk, that it is perfectly reasonable for trans folk to want to steer clear even where people who are not trans might want to continue to engage.

Oh, but woe is you, defending yourself from the big meanie Ophelia who, for some completely irrational reason, thinks that your accusations of her cozying up to TERFs and regurgitating TERF talking points is an attack. Why, you’re just having a friendly disagreement. You’re just trying to help, if only she’d let you. And if only she’d stop acting like a TERF. Not that she is one, of course, but surely we can see why some people might think that…

But you did paint me as an example of toxicity.

That post was toxic. It was bad, and you should feel bad. You don’t, and you won’t, but you should.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

What is the divorce status? It’s in abeyance for now, because I was very strongly urged to make it so.

But I still very much want to leave. I’m going to set up a Patreon account, and if I get a few subscribers, that will help make it possible. (Imagine B&W with no ads again!) I want to leave because several network colleagues have ostentatiously attacked me, not simply as someone they disagree with, but as a bad harmful dangerous person. They consider me a taint, a pollution, a toxin, and that is obviously very bad for a network of this kind. I don’t want to blog on a network where a small but vocal group of fellow bloggers think I’m a contaminant.

We don’t have a rule against a group of bloggers ganging up to ostracize and demonize one blogger. I thought (without noticing I thought it until recently) we did have a tacit rule of that kind, but I’ve learned that we don’t. We don’t have a rule, but what we do have is reality. The reality is that if a group singles out one blogger and goes after her for thought-crime and deviationism, that blogger is going to leave.

What do I mean, thought-crime and deviationism?

This for example from a comment by Jason on his post attacking me:

I think she said particularly impolitic things in particularly impolitic ways, regurgitated damaging arguments handed to her by TERFs that rightly got peoples’ hackles up, and I think she personally does not understand that at least some of the vitriol thrown her way is because some of those positions she’s taken are, actually, expressly damaging to trans folk. And the way she finally acquiesced to saying yes was so loaded with “but but gender is weird” — as though anyone was arguing gender WASN’T — is further damaging and undercuts her yes in a way that looks like a YES-BUT, which always reads as a NOT REALLY. And I am aware that she keeps saying over and over that she’s answered “yes”, but she’s doing so much lashing out at the genuine, nuanced criticism, and so much cozying up to the TERFs that everyone ELSE recognizes as having it out for trans folk, that it is perfectly reasonable for trans folk to want to steer clear even where people who are not trans might want to continue to engage.
To modify my first sentence though, I think my like and trust for Ophelia Benson is eroding the more she refuses to acknowledge that she might have done wrong and that anyone is at all legitimately hurt here. And every clarification — even if a step in the right direction — is loaded with paranoia about snakes in the grass and poisoners and witch-hunters who just want to attack her, that no amount of nuance in the argument is going to get through to her.

That’s not how colleagues should talk about each other in public – not in any organization where I want to work, at least. The main reason I wanted to join Freethought blogs when it was first set up was because it appeared to be a great group of people. I loved working solo but then once the network was created, I didn’t want to be left out of it. I thought it would be fun to have colleagues, and it was. It’s not fun any more, now that a few of them have lined up to talk about me the way Jason did there. If it’s not fun any more, why on earth would I stay? I could decide to stay for the good of the network, but since it’s the network that’s portraying me as a contaminant, I’m not motivated to do that. I’m getting all the shit part of having colleagues, and none of the good part.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

And now for something completely different, a pop culture interlude. Last Tango in Halifax – any watchers here?

I don’t think much of the latest season, season 3. Too much silly melodrama and way too little daily life, which is what it’s best at. I got bored. It’s funny that melodrama can be boring while daily life can be enthralling, but there it is, at least for me.

Still. It’s better than most things. Women front and center, and talking about lots of things besides a man. It passes the Bechdel test in the first few minutes, every time.

And then it’s Yorkshire.

And it’s Derek Jacobi, the best Hamlet ever in the history of everything.

And Nicola Walker, and Nina Sosanya.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Guest post by Jackie McPherson, originally a comment on a Facebook thread, published with permission.

To me, it is whatever the person calling themselves a woman says it is, for them and them alone.

What society says a woman is, fits few (if any) real people.

We need to have this discussion, and we need to do it without attacking other people for perceived transgressions (or even trans aggressions. Ouch. Sorry).

Ophelia has been entirely honest – she acknowledges that if a person says she’s a woman, then she is a woman. And she also says we need to discuss what is meant by that word ‘woman'; not because of individual women, but because of how wider society treats people that find themselves in that artificial class of ‘womanhood’.

The biggest problem is that, apparently for simplicity’s sake, humanity has been divided into two categories in the English-speaking world – well, possibly the entire part of the world previously and/or currently dominated by the Mosaic religions – dominated and although the majority might appear happy to fit into one of those two, a sizeable minority don’t.

And our language, customs and laws ignore us.

When I was still hiding who I am from even myself, before I even knew that I am autistic, I yet still wished that children were born undifferentiated, and could choose which sex they wished to be on entering puberty. That way, I (perhaps naïvely) thought, everyone would be raised the same way since no parent or teacher would know if they were raising a future male or female child.

All the ridiculous add-on baggage that society attaches to apparent biological sex would vanish.

Since I knew that it was at best a sci-fi fantasy (I was wishful, not delusional) I fervently hoped (and still hope) that we would stop at least gendering children, since their biological sex is irrelevant before puberty, and also stop assigning greater value to masculinity and maleness than we do to femininity and femaleness.

We could have real conversations about how different levels of different hormones, in the womb and later, affect brain and body development. We could acknowledge that even those who are able to cram themselves into their assigned box, and appear comfortable, don’t always feel that they actually fit.

What if male, female, masculinity, femininity, were understood to be fluid, on a spectrum, and weren’t assigned intrinsic value but were just random facts of life, like eye colour?

We could allow people to express themselves without frowning on their efforts, or denying them their humanity, or doubting their self-assessment. People could acknowledge that sometimes a person is born with a body in one biological category, and a brain in another – and it doesn’t matter, they can do what they like with their own body, because it is them.

Sex-changes would be no more problematic than ear-piercing, or tattoos. And there wouldn’t be the pressure that there is today, in either direction, to conform to a particular set of behaviours.

The problem is that we use the same word – gender – and mean different things by it, and sometimes the meaning that one person is using and deconstructing isn’t the one another person is using, and a third person might think that either (or both) of them is being mean to the other.

Since I am transgender, I understand that my biological brain doesn’t match my biological body, and no amount of ignoring societal pressure to be feminine (something I’ve blithely done my entire life; thanks, autism) makes that fact any different.

But the question remains – what is a ‘woman’ (and so, by extension, what is a ‘man’).

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A thing I’ve noticed. There’s a lot of talking past each other here (in this hotly contested discussion, I mean, not on this blog). There’s a  lot of mixing up of slogans and political commitments with attempts to disambiguate words and problematize concepts. The two don’t go well together. I have political commitments, but I also like to try to disambiguate words and problematize concepts.

So, if only “abbeycadabra” had thought to make their question to me a matter of political commitments, I could have answered it, probably the way they were looking for. But they didn’t. And because they didn’t, they pretty thoroughly fucked up my life for the past couple of weeks.

I squandered much too much time today answering endless repetitive pointless questions from two men on Facebook who were making the same mistake.

They were (it became more and more clear) talking about commitments, but they talked about them in the language of ontology and epistemology. If they had just talked about them in the language of rights or morality or politics, I could have answered in a sentence and all that time would have been saved.

I’ve long defended the claim that skeptics don’t have to banish all commitments as the enemy of skepticism. People with no moral commitments are…not pleasant people, as you may have noticed. But one does have to know the difference.

Slogans have their uses, but the uses are pretty limited. Usually when I’m trying to think about something, slogans are not going to be relevant. (Cf Josh’s post on “intent is not magic” yesterday.) Spending hours trying to force me to utter a particular slogan is just silly. It doesn’t tell you anything. Ask me instead if I share your commitment; unless you’re an asshole with asshole commitments, the answer will be yes.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment by kevinkirkpatrick on I did say.

It’s said no analogy is perfect; so take this with a grain of salt:

Say I took issue with the legal institution of marriage; and felt it was worth exploring whether our society would be better off massively redefining marriage or, perhaps, doing away with it altogether (I think such a case exists – marriage doesn’t seem to provide benefits, like financial assistance w/ guardianship. to many who need them; while it certainly has some massive rob-the-poor-to-feed-the-rich effects that do our society no good) . Such explorations might entail examinations of romantic couplings vs. friendships; childless couples vs uncoupled guardians; various toxic religious views of marriage; etc., etc.

But if such explorations were interrupted with “Do you support same-sex marriage, Yes or No?”, and that question came across in a way that was either outright disrespectful, or if I felt a “yes” or “no” might be used in a way to undercut my more nuanced considerations of marriage altogether… then yeah, I might be inclined to tell questioner where they could shove their question. However, I could easily see my refusal to answer the question be stripped of the context for which I’d refused to answer, and be used as an indictment of my having a homophobic stance toward gay marriage. And, by the way, there’s a horde of people whose lifelong aspirations seem to focus on destroying my reputation, who have no more interest in the situation than to throw fuel on any such fires in anyway they can. Yeah, I could definitely see the whole issue winding up in a pretty nasty place.

Anyway, not sure if that analogy fully captures the situation at hand, but for whatever reason, it’s definitely helping snap things into focus for me.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Hilarious.

GLUTEN FREE MUSEUM: WEBSITE REMOVES ALL GLUTEN PRODUCTS FROM WORKS OF ART

There are lots more.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment by Stewart on I did say.

More seriously trying to understand it, there is probably a mixture of things going on, none of which is Ophelia holding unpleasant views she refuses to discuss, but one of which is Ophelia reacting with completely justifiable exasperation at people launching unceasing attacks at her (some of a truly vile and literally – in that word’s original meaning – dehumanising character, throwing the very idea of discussion or arguments out the window) for views she doesn’t hold.

Perhaps some trust their sources so slavishly that they feel it unnecessary to read what Ophelia has actually written; there are others who are deliberately egging them on. Others still have sunk so deep into a morass of jargon that they will follow anyone who seems to be trendy (which is what most jargon is really all about).

I’m getting the feeling, from the way some things have been written, that no single factor is as pervasive as the mob effect the Internet has become so good at generating, in a fairly amazing simulation (considering the differences) of the movement and behaviour of real, flesh and blood, mobs. Anyone belonging to such a mob who reads my words is unlikely to consider it possible they are part of one. There are people pushing that mob’s buttons with cold and cynical knowledge of how these things work and some of them are people who would stop short at such behaviour in the real world, but don’t bother thinking about the effects they don’t have to see after they click “send.”

Surrender to peer pressure is, I would guess, an enormous factor and many people truly do seem to be too lazy to think for themselves.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I guess what I need to do is just re-post this every few hours for the next who knows how long. “This” is the post I wrote to clarify why I refused to answer a yes-or-no question and what my view is. (It took me more than one word. That’s why I don’t answer yes-or-no questions, except for very simple factual ones like “do you murder people?”) It seems I need to re-post it a few hundred times because people keep accusing me of things I very explicitly reject in that post (and then calling me paranoid and narcissistic when I notice).

So here it is. Get used to it – you’ll be seeing a lot of it.

_____________________________________

Ok. It’s too late for this (but then it probably always was), because there are a lot of people just hell-bent on spotting a TERF in the bushes and not changing their view no matter what; the well is thoroughly poisoned and is going to stay that way. The poisoner oolon, who went to Pharyngula to work up the troops against me yesterday, is one such; that dude wants scalps, period.

But there are, I’m told, people who are just plain hurt and upset, especially trans people, and I don’t want to hurt people. Therefore I’ll try to clarify what I meant by refusing to answer yes or no.

(It’s like Bill Clinton and “is” – that was treated as a joke, but there actually is more than one meaning to “is.” Rumsfeld and his unknown unknowns were also treated as a joke, but he too was quite right – it’s only a pity he didn’t take the unknown unknowns a lot more seriously.)

There’s a difference, for instance, between an ontological is and a political is.

The more I think about the ontology of gender, the less I think I understand it. It’s slippery. That makes it impossible to answer yes/no questions about it.

But politically? Do you mean, will I take trans people’s word for it? Will I use their right names and pronouns? Of course I will. Do I want to make them jump through hoops to prove something to me? Of course not.

Do I get that trans people are severely marginalized, and have to jump through kinds of hoops I have no idea of? Hell yes.

I have thoughts and questions about gender, broadly speaking; gender as it affects all of us, and women in particular. I don’t think those thoughts are transphobic.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Gee, I wonder what this could possibly be about. This post at Skepchick: Release The Scotsman: Responsible Use of Fallacies.

There’s a trend when it comes to talking to people about the negative elements of communities they’re involved in. When people don’t double down and simply deny that there are nasty folks in their community, they like to play the “well they’re not a REAL feminist/atheist/kinky person/purple people eater.” This is known as the No True Scotsman fallacy, and it’s annoyingly common.

Understandably, few people like to be called out on using fallacies, so a typical response to getting called out is something like “Well I still don’t like them and I don’t want them around so they don’t count to me.” I often find myself responding to No True Scotsman call outs by saying “I know they’re technically part of feminism/atheism/people on Tumblr, but I really don’t condone what they’re doing and I have no desire to be associated with them. I don’t know why you’re talking to me about what they did, I hate it as much as you do.”

Eh?

That’s so contorted it’s hard to follow. Olivia (the author) seems to be going to a lot of trouble to avoid saying what she’s talking about; maybe that’s why it’s hard to follow.

I think what she’s saying is: it’s a pain when there is Someone Terrible in our group, so what we do is, we say the Somone Terrible isn’t a real member of our group, aka not a True Scotsman. Olivia seems to be saying that’s a bad thing to do; she frowns on it. We have to bite the bullet and say how Terrible the Someone Terrible is. We have to own it.

But that’s kind of bullshit. All of us have to collect our folks when they’re doing inappropriate shit, and if we want to avoid Scotsman accusations we have to be willing to recognize that even the people we hate can be and often are parts of the movements that we are part of.

I think I’m on the right track. I think she’s saying we have to be honest about the fact that even people we hate – like this Someone Terrible – are part of our movement. We have to “collect” them when they’re doing inappropriate shit.

What are the behaviors someone has to do in order to be responsible towards the shitty members of their groups? Are there times that it isn’t fair to use No True Scotsman just because someone is trying to distance themselves from other members of their movements?

That part is very opaque. It’s about shitty people who somehow are in your groups, and…no, I can’t figure out the second sentence at all. Who is distancing from whom? I think she lost the thread there. Not a very good writer. Is that what she means by being shitty?

No you are not personally responsible for every other person in your movements. But if you want to distance yourself from the shitty elements, you have to do actual work. Meaning you actually have to distance yourself by saying “That is not appropriate stop doing that.” You also have to take actions. If the person is behaving in a shitty manner towards trans people, step up and say “I 100% believe that trans women are women.” Use preferred pronouns, don’t make trans identities the butt of jokes, and call out those who are doing the opposite. Essentially, do your own work and be a good ally or activist by calling out bad behavior when you see it*.

Ohhh, now I think I see where we are. She’s saying everybody has to step up and shit on me, the Notorious Terrible Person of the week month year. Don’t just sit there; don’t look away; don’t talk about something else; don’t ask what the fuck you mean; step up and distance yourself by saying “That is not appropriate stop doing that.”

If you are doing your own work, if you are stepping up to the plate to try to improve your movement and community, if you are denouncing the awful actions of the shitty people in your movement, then and only then do you get to say “I did my best to change that part of feminism/atheism/etc. Those are not my people. I am not associated with them and I have made that clear.”

It’s not enough to stand by and assume everyone knows you disagree. It’s not enough to just passively dislike someone. You need to step up and make your own positions clear.

Right on! Preach it, sister! Denounce those awful actions of shitty people (i.e. me)! Do it! It’s not enough to stand by and assume everyone knows you disagree. It’s not enough to just passively dislike someone. You need to step up and shit on that awful person the way all the other good people are.

It’s best not to say her name though. That way you can…uh…

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I’ve noticed something. I’ve complained before about the elevation of stock phrases to do work that only actual thinking can do (I’m not the only one). “Intent isn’t magic” is one of the biggest offenders. It’s like the proverbial “attractive nuisance,” the open swimming pool in the yard that begs toddlers to fall in and drown.

“Intent isn’t magic”, for too many people, has morphed into “intent is irrelevant and has no explanatory power for human interactions.” They don’t say that in those words, but that is the effect.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB