Originally a comment by Sastra on Any observable and consistent pattern?

So which other patterns exist in humans? Name one.

I copied this a while back:

Woman: “ A rich cultural artifact with many cues used to designate that aspect of their identity. Also: A complex, multi-dimensional and highly variable category. There isn’t one definition.” — PZMyers

I suppose we could use that a possible answer, but it’s still not specific. Suspiciously so. Because giving a list of those “cultural cues” would involve things like long hair, dresses, loving shopping and pretending to be shy. He wouldn’t want to imply that, though I don’t see how it could be avoided.

That second sentence looks to me like the transgender version of “God is the Ground of Being.” It sounds like it’s saying something deep and profound, but it’s empty.

Mostly, I see the acceptance of sex categories immediately followed by dismissing them as irrelevant as a form of Equivocation. “Yes, ‘female’ is a reproductive category but a WOMAN is MORE than someone who can have babies.” There’s a sudden switch from biological classifications to personal choices. It reminds me of creationists denying reductive physics because a PERSON is MORE than a bunch of atoms. “ We can’t get meaning from a blind process of evolution. “ It’s a category error an atheist should be familiar with.

Those who argue against creationism also ought to be familiar with the strategy employed by the Intelligent Design folks: pick little holes in the Theory of Evolution in order to convince others (and yourself) that it’s hopelessly inadequate, and then wheel in something with BIG holes as the satisfying replacement. All biology is fuzzy at the borders, but if there were no such things as species, evolution couldn’t take place. PZ doesn’t deny sex differences. Creationists agree that there’s “change over time.” After that, it gets murky.

Urgh. The parents were asked to remove the kid from the school that day and they refused.

The parents of the teenager accused of killing four people in a Michigan high school shooting were taken into custody early Saturday after a manhunt, Detroit police said.

They tried to flee yesterday and it didn’t work out.

The county sheriff has said that James Crumbley purchased the gun used in the violence just days before the school shooting. McDonald said the pair were made aware of disturbing, violent images on the day of the shooting and were urged to get him counseling.

“James and Jennifer Crumbley resisted the idea of their son leaving the school at that time,” she said during a news conference Friday. “Instead, James and Jennifer Crumbley left the high school without their son. He was returned to the high school.” 

Images that officials said were drawn by the teenager included a gun with the words “the thoughts won’t stop, help me,” and a bullet with the words “blood everywhere,” McDonald said.

It was the day before that a teacher spotted him searching for ammunition on line, and his mother said lol not mad at you.

They were urged to take him out of school and they didn’t so he killed four people and injured more.

The prosecutor told MSNBC on Friday that the teen’s parents “had reason to believe he was dangerous. … I believe they should be held accountable.”

She reiterated that prosecutors believe the gun used in the attack was purchased for the teenager.

“We have parents who bought a weapon for their son,” McDonald said. “They posted on social that it was his gun. He posted on social media that it was his gun.”

The couple did not tell school officials Tuesday, when they were informed about the images, that their son had a weapon, the prosecutor said. Authorities believe he brought it to school that day in a backpack, McDonald said.

lol not mad at them?

People have lost their fucking minds.

“for anyone who feels comfortable” she says blithely – but of course no girls will “feel comfortable” in that arrangement.

Lost their fucking minds.

Trans person explains why you are required to want to have sex with trans people.

So, how did we get here? How did not wanting to have sex with human beings from one community in particular become a legitimate preference?

By “one community in particular” they mean trans people. “Community” can mean anything though. It can mean “particularly smelly unwashed unsavory people.” It can mean rapists, murderers, Trump fans, anything. I think we should be free to not want to have sex with Trump fans or rapists. Hauling in the sacred word “community” doesn’t change that.

The othering of transgender people in sexual contexts is not only in the context of dating or intimacy. It’s systemic and as such it bleeds into most interactions and environments — dating and sex is no exception.

So we’re not only not allowed to have sexual preferences, we’re also not allowed to have social preferences? We can’t just like people we like and leave the others behind?

Ah well. Reading ahead it gets even more boring, too boring to argue with. What an arid pointless empty little world this person lives in, obsessing over being trans and daydreaming about forcing everyone to center trans people, and leaving everything else there is to think about unexplored.

When biologists clash:

Trans eggs or cis eggs?

Yes but what are their pronouns?

Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on You don’t get to.

The idea of Schrödinger’s Rapist is a funny old one, at least in its implications for logical consistency. The premises are undoubtedly true, as far as it goes — other things equal, asking a vulnerable person to treat the unknown as benign is asking for them to become a victim of some kind of predator. That is likely the very reason fear evolved in animals in the first place, possibly even in single-celled organisms, for an organism that feels no fear is an organism that will be eaten before its fearful brethren.

One of the things I find interesting about some of those who initially championed the concept of Schrödinger’s Rapist, such as Reverend Myers, is how they condemned Sam Harris’ (yes, yes, Sam Harris, boo, hiss; let’s take the eye-rolling on either side at the mere mention or reaction to the mention of his name as read and move on) musings over profiling during airport security screenings as rank bigotry. I recall the two phenomena occurring relatively closely in time, and though I didn’t really connect the issues then, it occurs to me now that one might refer to unattached young men as Schrödinger’s Terrorist, and profiling after the Harris method as a way of collapsing that uncertainty without pretending that it doesn’t exist.

Though I do not wish to drag us back to 2011 and recapitulate that particular argument, it is indicative, I believe, of how we got here. Reverend Myers and Brother Dillahnunty would likely still give a full-throated defence of Schrödinger’s Rapist as an instructional concept, even as they scaffold the entire concept of gender with gobbledygook and moral pieties that allow them to dismiss the entire conceptual framework which led to the articulation of Schrödinger’s Rapist in the first place. This articulation, in fact, contains within it a fundamental pillar of gender critical thought; it is not a wonder that the priests and the laymen of the trans church have done away with it in all but name.

It is quite likely that Rebecca Watson would make similar noises; she might well throw out a bunch of rapid-fire nonsense out about how it only applies to cis men, and how cis men would never invade a woman’s space under the guise of being a trans woman, and how trans women are supposedly always and everywhere the victims of the worst kinds of violence and bigotry imaginable.

And, in the end, they will have all talked themselves into the abolition of sex-segregated spaces while still claiming to uphold the notion of Schrödinger’s Rapist, all the while.

Some sophisticated theology, that.

Big protest in Salford:

So a…fly is their mascot? A fly? What, because flies are so unpleasant, especially in large numbers? Because flies are attracted by rot? Because they have iridescent wings?

Anyway they done riz up.

We’re way more like the Axis than we are like the Allies.

The parents of Michigan school shooting suspect Ethan Crumbley have each been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter connected to the horrific Nov. 30 attack that left four teens dead and seven people injured, including a teacher.

It’s unusual to hold parents of “school shooters” (how lovely that we have a file name for it) responsible; there are reasons.

“Any individual that had the opportunity to stop this tragedy should have done so. The question is what did they know, and when did they know it,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said Friday.

McDonald said that on Nov. 21, a teacher at Oxford High observed Ethan searching for ammunition on his cell phone during class, and reported it to school officials. Administrators left a voicemail for Jennifer Crumbley and followed up with an email, but received no response. Jennifer then texted Ethan, saying, “lol I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught,” McDonald said.

On the morning of the shooting, Ethan’s teacher was “alarmed” by a drawing he made of a handgun, with the text: “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” He had also had drawn a bullet with the words: “Blood everywhere.”

When alerts went out about a possible active shooter at Oxford High School, Jennifer texted her son, “Ethan, don’t do it,” McDonald said.

“Upon hearing there was an active shooter that day, James Crumbley went straight to his home to look for his gun,” she explained.

He didn’t find it, so he called 911 to say his son could be the shooter.

James Crumbley purchased the 9mm Sig Sauer handgun on Black Friday, four days before the shooting, and Ethan had flaunted it on his social media profiles, authorities said.

As if “Black Friday” were some official or meaningful label as opposed to a marketing ploy. Eat that turkey, spend that money, shoot that gun.

The police found two videos in which the kid talked about shooting up the school, and a journal in which he wrote about it. Organized and helpful.

He pleaded not guilty though.

Solidarity with those creepy guys on the subway and the bus and next to you at the movies and in a doorway and in a quiet corner of the library and all the other places they frequent! Visible dicks for the people! Get ’em out boys!

Andrew Tettenborn at The Critic tells us about a significant ruling at the ECHR on Tuesday:

Rita Pal is an ex-NHS psychiatrist, activist and journalist writing mainly on medical matters for the leftish press, such as the Huffington Post; for a time she also ran her own online paper, the World Medical Times. About ten years ago she had an argument with barrister and ex-journalist Andrew Bousfield, a supporter of Patients First (another NHS pressure group) and sometime Private Eye stringer who on occasion questioned her accuracy and objectivity.

The result was a bitter e-mail exchange. Bousfield went to the police alleging harassment, and in 2011 the Met sent Pal a so-called “prevention of harassment letter”, essentially putting her on notice of that complaint. Three years later Pal wrote an article attacking Bousfield’s competence and followed it with a number of vitriolic tweets which, while not naming Bousfield, could be read as referring to him. On this occasion the Met had had enough. It sent two officers to Pal’s house in Sutton Coldfield, arrested and handcuffed her, drove her to London and interviewed her for some hours before charging her with harassment and releasing her on bail on condition she wrote nothing referring to Bousfield. Eight months later the CPS dropped the case, on the grounds that Pal had said nothing not protected under Article 10 (the free speech provision) of the ECHR.

Pal tried suing the Met for wrongful arrest but failed. She then went to Strasbourg, saying that even though the actual charges had been dropped, her arrest itself had had a chilling effect on her freedom of speech. Here she succeeded. In the absence of clear evidence that the Met had thought seriously about protecting Pal’s freedom of speech, they had no business arresting her in such a way as would clearly discourage her from exercising her speech rights.

So does the same apply to Marion Millar? Ceri Black? Possibly.

… the days of the non-crime hate incident may now be numbered. This, readers may remember, refers to the practice of the police in recording against a person’s name anything said by that person if anyone else perceives it as motivated by hate, without ever asking whether this characterisation is actually plausible. The Free Speech Union and others have campaigned against this for some time, thus far with no noticeable commitment from the government. But since recording such incidents can cause real harms (if it appears on an enhanced CRB check, for example, it may prevent a person gaining employment in a sensitive field), one suspects the government may feel itself on thin legal ice in preserving the system.

May, or may just go right on sending Plod to drop a heavy hand on the shoulder of some evil feminist at her laptop.

Mississippi’s Attorney General Lynn Fitch pretends to think that overturning Roe v Wade will “empower” women.

In the opening brief she submitted in July, Fitch asked the Supreme Court to use Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade. She argued that abortion prevents women from reaching their full potential. When Roe was decided in 1973, she wrote, the justices maintained that an unwanted pregnancy would doom women to “a distressful life and future.” But nearly 50 years later, Fitch claims “sweeping policy advances” now allow women to fully pursue motherhood and a career, stamping out the need for abortion.

One, like hell they do, but even if they did, it doesn’t follow that there is no reason left to end a pregnancy. Some women just don’t want to, and it’s not a kind of thing anyone else should force them to do.

With this Supreme Court case, Fitch said in a television interview, God has presented women with an opportunity. “You have the option in life to really achieve your dreams and goals,” she said, addressing the women of America. “And you can have those beautiful children as well.”

But what if you just don’t want those beautiful children as well?

One of the economists who countered Fitch’s argument in the amicus brief points out that most U.S. mothers don’t have access to that kind of child care. “People from privilege experience a social safety net they imagine everyone else experiences,” said Kelly Jones, a professor of economics at American University who focuses on gender equality and welfare. When high-income people get pregnant unexpectedly, they can turn to family members or other members of their community, she said — or they can fly out of state to get an abortion. But many pregnant people have no one to fall back on and no money to pay for child care.

Oops. There are the pregnant people again – twice. If it were people who got pregnant we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

To Jennifer Riley Collins, the Democrat who ran against Fitch in the 2019 attorney general race, Fitch’s argument is “absurd.”

“You want to empower women?” Collins said. “Put in place systems that support women. You don’t take away from women that which is their freedom.”

The freedom to decide whether or not to house a human being inside your body is a pretty basic freedom.

Dillahunty is turning out to be quite a rich source of fatuities. Sinister fatuities.

We “don’t get” to treat men as a [potential] threat, so that means we don’t get to have any kind of refuge away from men at all, no matter the circumstances or history. We “don’t get” to be aware of the statistics, we “don’t get” to know how many sexual assaults there are and how few of them lead to an arrest and how few of those go to trial and how few of those get a conviction. We don’t get to know what we have known since puberty, which is that adult males are much stronger than we are and can batter us any time they want to. We don’t get to know that some men do want to. We don’t get to take precautions of any kind.

We have “no right” to exclude men. That’s it then. Open season.

Very Lewis Carroll, this one.

Pay attention, willya?

Exciting.

Penn’s Lia Thomas blasted the number one 200 free time and the second-fastest 500 free time in the nation on Saturday, breaking Penn program records in both events. She swept the 100-200-500 free individual events and contributed to the first-place 400 free relay in a tri-meet against Princeton and Cornell in her home pool. Penn split for the day, beating Cornell 219 to 81 but losing to Princeton, 106 to 194.

Second fastest in the nation!! There’s glory for you.

There’s just one tiny detail…

A University of Pennsylvania “women’s” swimmer named Lia Thomas, who used to go by Will as a member of the men’s swimming team, is smashing records and has many wondering if Olympic superstar Katie Ledecky will be soon losing races to a transgender competitor.

He’s smashing women’s records on account of how he’s a man.

Dang, look at the neck on Lia.

On the one hand it’s grotesque that they did this. On the other hand it’s good that they’re not defending it and they are fixing it.

One stone at a time.

Updating to include action tweet:

lol

DOCTOR Adrian Harrop wasted no time after the GMC let him off with a one month suspension yesterday, he immediately spilled his guts to fellow fanatic Ben Hunte at VICE to explain again how saintly he is and how evil the women who disagree with him are.

The headline sneers at the idea that Harrop’s tweets were anything other than perfectly reasonable and polite:

‘Humiliated but Determined’: Pro-Trans UK Doctor Suspended for ‘Insulting’ Tweets

Because they weren’t insulting, you see. They were fine! Helpful! Polite!

Adrian Harrop will be suspended for a month after sending “offensive” tweets to people who opposed his views on trans rights.

Because they weren’t offensive, you see. Only a monster would say they were.

A British doctor is being suspended from work after sending tweets found to be “insulting” and “inappropriate” to people who opposed his pro-trans rights views.

In other words these horrible people want trans people to have no rights! Are you shocked enough yet?

Speaking exclusively to VICE World News following the end of his tribunal hearing, Dr Adrian Harrop said the whole experience has been “mortifying”, but he’s now “more committed than ever before to making sure trans people can access healthcare.”

Is he also more committed than ever to bullying women?

The tribunal could have potentially ended with Harrop having his name erased from the medical register, which would have barred him from practising medicine. However, he will now be able to resume his work as a GP in Liverpool, and return to his job providing trans healthcare, after completing the one-month suspension.

His job is providing trans healthcare? I thought he was a GP. I thought a GP provided general i.e. non-specialized care to the people in his practice.

Several of Harrop’s tweets, seen by VICE World News, were sent in response to homophobic and transphobic posts he received, as well as some death threats. 

It was all the evil bitches. Why aren’t they the ones being punished?

The doctor’s case has been the subject of heated debate, both across social media and in-person at the hearing. VICE World News spoke to some of the self-described “gender atheists” present, some of whom took time off work, missed birthdays and “drove over five hours” to sit in the public gallery.

See? See? Evil bitches, every last one of them.

Asked if the continual backlash from “gender critics” has changed his mind about working in trans healthcare for the NHS, the doctor firmly said “absolutely not – I will be dedicating my energy and enthusiasm to improving things for trans people.”

The man is a saint. A martyr and a saint.

Members of the public were able to attend Harrop’s tribunal hearing, and several women who told VICE World News they are “extremely critical of gender identity” attended every session. They tweeted second-by-second updates of the hearing to their thousands of equally-critical followers.

EVIL BITCHES! EVIL EVIL EVIL BITCHES!

Following the judgment, some of them spoke to VICE World News on condition of anonymity. None of them use their real names in their online campaigning against trans equality. 

The campaign is not actually “against trans equality” but don’t let that stop you. Any lie is justified in defense of The Cause!

The punchline:

Asked what he would say to other doctors who want to fight for LGBTQ rights on social media, Harrop quickly responded “just be very, very cautious.”

Like, you know, skip the bullying and taunting and threats. That kind of cautious.

Innnnteresting.

It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t know, but it’s good to see it in an actual news outlet, with a mug shot.

Smug git; steer clear.

Won’t somebody please think of the harrop.

Why should the women DOCTOR Harrop tormented care about allowing him to “move forward”? Why should they do what the GMC asks when the GMC did nothing to stop him tormenting women for years?