Folamh3
User ID: 1175
Folamh3
49m ago
I wonder if others, like say antifa members, occasionally look at Proud Boys and recognize in them a shadow version of themselves.
It's a real "there but for the grace of God" situation, isn't it. It's funny when you see street clashes between Proud Boys and Antifa, and for all the talk of this being a clash between a racist organisation and an antiracist organisation, both groups look about as racially diverse as rural Sweden, or in some cases the Proud Boys are more diverse than the Antifa guys.
I read somewhere (possibly in a review of The True Believer) that the number of literal Nazis (as in, members of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s) who were previously communists is off the charts. I also read somewhere that in the UK in the 1980s, both far-right skinheads and antifa recruited from the same pool of talent: football hooligans, young frustrated men spoiling for a fight, who could easily be radicalised into one extremist ideology or the other (or even both in succession) if there was the possibility of getting to bust some heads with impunity in it. See also my post about how being generally dissatisfied with your life is a far better predictor for endorsing an extreme ideology than anything else.
Folamh3
53m ago
How big would the number have to be to justify the framing, in your opinion?
Folamh3
1hr ago
But what would he sue them for? Fraud? What exactly is fraudulent about the scam?
You're correct that aspies, nerds or whatever tend to display more feminine traits. In terms of their interests, I would argue they're "hypermale" not just in terms of statistics but also in terms of their character. Men tend to be high-systematisers and interested in abstract systems, while women are more interested in interpersonal relationships. "Intensely interested in abstract systems but utterly lacking in social skills" is about as pithy a definition of "nerd" as you can get, whereas more typically "bro" males tend to be jacks-of-all-trades: they'll have a passing interest in abstract systems (e.g. have memorised Nomar Garciappara's on-base percentage or the acceleration on a '67 Ford Mustang), but without sacrificing the ability to "read the room" and charm people. Most of the stereotypically nerdy interests (systems-heavy video games, hard sci-fi, fantasy universes with elaborate magic systems, conlangs and extensive worldbuilding electrical engineering, tabletop gaming, computer programming, progressive/technical death metal, IDM, math rock) are about complex abstract systems first and human beings/interpersonal relationships a distant second, if at all. Even saying "nerds like video games" doesn't really sell the distinction I'm getting at: plenty of ordinary dudes will play a little Call of Duty to unwind in the evening, but it takes a certain kind of nerd to log thousands of hours in high-level grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive or learn the entire metagame for Starcraft II. The reason nerds don't have much of an interest in team sports isn't because they're more interested in traditionally feminine interests, but the same reason they don't like playing Call of Duty: they find these activities mechanically shallow and uninteresting from a systems perspective, and are usually not shy about expressing their contempt for the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers who do derive enjoyment from these activities (the latter clause is "in character" and not what I personally believe, in case it wasn't obvious). Show me a nerdy dude or trans woman who's into knitting, astrology and murder podcasts, and then we can talk about how feminine their interests are.
In my limited experience their personalities seem to not just be male, but hyper male. Like take for instance the prevalence of trannies in the speedrunning community, it is hard to think of a more hypermasculine activity than speedrunning.
I have an acquaintance who came out as a trans woman a few years ago, and the irony of her situation has not escaped my attention. She claims to be a woman trapped in an "assigned male at birth" body, and yet the number of cis women I know personally who
- compose angsty math-rock
- have logged 1,000+ hours in League of Legends
- spend a great deal of time in Games Workshop
- consume so much pornography that they've actually had to confront the ethical dilemma of whether or not they should pay the "content creators" for it
are zero, zero, zero and zero, respectively. Likewise the recent micro-scene of bedroom black metal solo projects whose members identify as trans women (most famously Liturgy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgy_(band)], but it seems every other band on this label meets that description exactly): does anything scream "socially awkward man with some autistic traits" more than starting a bedroom black metal solo project?
What you're describing is autistic traits, and many feminists have argued that autism is "extreme masculinity" (men tend to be high-systematising, and autistic men are almost totally systematising). I'm sure you're already aware that the correlation between autism and gender dysphoria is extremely strong and seems to becoming stronger with every year.
I have always suspected that I am in the "at-risk for AGP" demographic, even though I've never felt it myself.
I'm a man who several people have independently suggested might be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, high-systematising, bookish, socially awkward, didn't fit in at school (as a result of which I retreated into social media and anonymous online chatrooms), love video games enough to have done a master's in game design, listened to black metal obsessively as a teenager, passively interested in anime and manga as a teenager. If I'd been born ten or even five years later, dollars to donuts I'd be calling myself Lilith right now. (At least then my enormous ass would have been more of an asset in my dating life.) By the same token, had my aforementioned acquaintance been born five or ten years earlier, I think the chances of them coming out as trans at the age they did would have been somewhere around nil. Anyone who thinks social contagion plays no role in this phenomenon must be blind.
I don't think your comparison of gender dysphoria to intense romantic infatuation is quite as illuminating as you seem to think it is.
We've all had the experience of being romantically infatuated with another person. Probably almost all of us have felt "lovesick" at one point or another, in the sense of being romantically attracted to someone who's unavailable, or being attracted to someone but being too afraid to tell them how we feel for fear of rejection, or telling someone how we feel and finding out that it's unreciprocated, or getting dumped by someone we're still very much in love with. Short of bereavement, romantic rejection is one of the most unpleasant, destabilising and humiliating emotional states that the average person is likely to find themselves in, and I would never dream of making fun of someone who's having a tough time because they got rejected by their crush or broken up with (one of the reasons "Radicalizing the Romanceless" really resonated with me). (Of all the toxic, antisocial behaviours that social media aids and abets, there are few worse than that trend when a guy texts a girl to tell her he really likes her, and she immediately screenshots the conversation and sends it to her group chat with the caption "OMG CAN YOU IMAGINE 😂😂😂".)
But some people's intense romantic fixations can lead them to behave in extremely unhealthy ways which violate the boundaries of the object of their affection: repeatedly texting them, calling them or buying them gifts when they've made it perfectly clear they aren't interested; following them; bothering them in public places; sending them hateful messages; and (much more rarely, of course) physically intimidating or assaulting the object of their affection, or their current romantic partner. We call such a person a "stalker", and much of the aforementioned behaviour is actually illegal (however difficult it is to enforce), and rightfully so. As sympathetic as I might be towards someone whose affections aren't reciprocated and is feeling sad about it, my sympathy ends when they engage in unacceptable behaviour like this.
Likewise with gender dysphoria. Obviously I have no idea what gender dysphoria feels like, having never experienced it personally. But I can certainly relate to the experience of hating how your body looks in the mirror (both directly and indirectly, as I've had multiple friends who suffered from severe anorexia). I've been depressed for lengthy periods of time, and sincerely wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Much as I'd never make fun of someone who's sad because they love someone who doesn't feel the same way, I'd never make fun of someone whose gender dysphoria is causing them intense emotional distress. I am sincerely sympathetic.
But some people's gender dysphoria can lead them to behave in extremely unhealthy or toxic ways: emotionally manipulating lesbians into having sex with you by accusing them of bigotry if they don't; getting lesbian speed dating events cancelled; suing women who refuse to wax your male genitalia; sending rape and death threats to a female victim of sexual assault who expressed discomfort about using a bathroom alongside trans women; physically assaulting a gender-critical woman in her sixties; shooting up a primary school and so on. As sympathetic as I might be towards someone suffering from gender dysphoria, my sympathy vanishes the instant they engage in behaviour like this.
So I think I'm actually being perfectly consistent, per the terms of your analogy.
I'm open to correction on this and fully admit I may be falling victim to confirmation bias or the availability heuristic, but my impression from this community is that, when trans issues come up, it's usually not so much people complaining about the former (i.e. "this person has gender dysphoria, gross, what a disgusting fetishist") and more people complaining about the latter (i.e. "this person is suffering from gender dysphoria, which is leading them to engage in behaviours which would be grossly unacceptable if carried out by anyone"). And I admit there's a bit of Chinese-robbering going on, wherein people highlight bad behaviour by self-identified trans people which obviously bears no causal relationship to their gender dysphoria as a means of casting aspersions on the whole group, which I'm not cool with for the same reason I'm not cool with any use of the Chinese robber fallacy.
Folamh3
3hr ago
The new trans woman in Congress who was making video threats about bashing their female colleagues head in the bathroom seemed very threatening.
Do you have a source for this?
The other night I rewatched a movie I liked when I was younger, Heartbreakers. If you want a light comedy featuring a funny performance from Ray Liotta and a hysterical one from Bob Hoskins (and also a leading turn from Jennifer Love Hewitt in her prime, displaying acres of leg and cleavage), check it out.
The premise of the film (this is revealed in the first ten minutes of the movie so it's hardly a spoiler, but the movie would probably be more entertaining if you go into it blind) is this:
Folamh3
5hr ago
They, at least figuratively and sometimes very literally, cut off the part of their body that makes them capable of being a sexual threat- they're no different than a 3 year old boy who needs to use the women's room for pragmatic reasons.
While it's true that males who have undergone penectomies or vaginoplasties can no longer rape women (according to the UK definition of the word, defined as forcible penetration with a penis) or forcibly impregnate them, this does not mean that said males pose no sexual threat to women. They can still grope them, spy on them, take photos of them without their consent, digitally penetrate them etc. And if they choose to physically overpower a woman, they will almost always have a very easy time doing it, unlike a 3-year-old boy.
Folamh3
6hr ago
Laverne Cox gets my vote. Of all ethnic groups, black women tend to be the most androgynous looking anyway, which probably helps.
It could give birth to a sort of "trans-o-sphere" equivalent of the "man-o-sphere" where trans people optimize on the traits that allow them to "pass" most effectively and efficiently, following a sort of "passMaxxing" strategy, if you will.
Why are you talking about this like it's a hypothetical? This space arrived years if not decades ago. Like some sort of weird bizarro-world version of rule 34, if you can think of some trait or activity which is even remotely gendered, you will find an online community of trans people tearing their hair out because they aren't "doing" it properly and/or a guide on how to do it more effectively:
- Feminine handwriting? Check.
- Vocal training? An entire subreddit.
- Gait? Check. (Bonus points because the post commences with "This is probably gonna sound like I'm way over-thinking / over-analysing this, but bear with me...")
Folamh3
8hr ago
This article made me laugh probably more than anything I've ever read on Substack: https://suedonym.substack.com/p/the-real-lesbian-master-doc
(Mods, please delete if it's too culture-warry.)
If half of the rapes are committed by men in women's bathrooms who had previously invoked their gender identity as an excuse to be there, then I would agree that this was a huge fucking problem and we should restrict access to improve women's safety.
But the point habitually made by gender-critical feminists is that, once these policies are in place, a bad actor doesn't even need to invoke the concept of gender identity as an excuse to enter the ladies' room. Once you've established a precedent that certain male people are allowed to use the ladies' room, and you're not allowed to kick up a stink about it even if they have fully intact male genitalia (because not all trans women want to undergo bottom surgery - indeed, the overwhelming majority haven't) or if they're making zero effort to pass (because "trans women don't owe you femininity"), it is inevitable that bad actors (many of whom don't even consider themselves trans) will exploit this ostensibly well-meaning policy for their own ends.
A policy of allowing certain male people to enter the ladies' room presents obvious risks for female safeguarding even if literally 100% of people who call themselves trans women are perfectly pure angels who would never hurt a fly. (It need hardly be said that many are not.)
With the possible exception of Hogwarts, gender restrictions in bathrooms are not strictly enforced. Someone who is entering a women's bathroom to commit rape is unlikely to care that he will also break some trivial statute about not going to the women's bathroom.
Folamh3
9hr ago
They kill themselves at elevated rates when forced to conform to their biological gender.
I see this asserted all the time, but would love to see some hard data backing it up. I have seen the results of one study from Sweden which found that trans people who underwent sex reassignment surgery had higher suicide rates than trans people who didn't.
Folamh3
10hr ago
Then it's an unreasonable framing because trans people are not people with a cross dressing fetish.
Some and some.
Folamh3
1d ago
Clever. I wonder what the modern equivalent would be. Asking a woman if she's X, where X is an Instagram influencer famous for demonstrating self-defense techniques women can use to escape from dangerous men?
That's just kicking the can down the road. No bathroom has a bouncer stationed outside checking people's IDs to ensure that their legal sex matches that of the bathroom they wish to use (and if such a policy was proposed, you and I both know that trans activists would be the ones most fervently opposed to it). Once you've established that at least some obviously male people are permitted to use the ladies' room (because they've legally transitioned), inevitably perverts will take advantage of this by trying to pass themselves off as people who've legally transitioned when they haven't.
Addendum to my "genderfluidity" hypothetical: an obviously male person walks into the ladies' room, gets some funny looks, and falsely asserts "don't worry, I've got a gender recognition certificate". The women in the bathroom aren't entirely satisfied by this, but what can they do? It's not like they can demand that he produce his gender recognition certificate on the spot. Shortly afterwards, the obviously male person sexually assaults someone/spies on someone without their knowledge etc., then walks out of the ladies' room and goes about his day.
And besides, the object level question in this case is "should congresswoman Sarah McBride be allowed to use the women's restroom?", and I think it is reasonable to answer, "She should have the same right that an XY androgen-insensitve cis woman should have to use the restroom, based on the government's tracking of her as a woman." Certainly, I don't think anyone's fears that Sarah McBride would sexually assault someone in the bathroom are super justified.
That's not how rules or heuristics work. If a person is volunteering at an event and there's a possibility that they may have to supervise children, the person is generally required to undergo police vetting to ensure that they can be trusted to supervise children. It's irrelevant if the person truthfully says "I shouldn't need to go through the police vetting, I'm not a child molester" - an actual child molester would say the same thing. That's what the police vetting is for: to determine who is a bad actor and who isn't.
Likewise if a woman is walking home alone at night and notices a lone male person walking some distance behind her, and begins to form a suspicion that said person may be following her. I doubt very much that she would be consoled if said male person yelled out "don't worry, I'm not a rapist!" And even if the male person yelled out "don't worry, I'm a trans woman!", I don't think she should be consoled by this either - trans women commit violent crimes at the same rates as cis men, so this male person revealing how he "identifies" has provided the woman with zero additional actionable information.
And you might scoff "maybe some trans people are creepy perverts, but surely a high-ranking politician would know better". Think again.
Folamh3
1d ago
I'm also not convinced that the fig leaf of "(bio)sex seggregating" bathrooms makes much of a difference here. A quick Google search was able to show there are some cases of cis men sexually assaulting women in bathrooms without the need of cross dressing.
To quote myself:
While Freddie is correct that, under a policy of sex-segregated bathrooms, there is nothing stopping a male rapist from simply walking into a women’s bathroom, a trans-inclusive bathroom policy makes it dramatically easier for such people to get away with committing an opportunistic rape, as bystanders will be less likely to intervene if they see a male person entering a women’s bathroom for fear of being accused of being transphobic. The reasoning is similar to regulations in which adults are not permitted to enter public playgrounds unless they are the parent or guardian of a child: obviously a child molester can simply ignore the regulation, but the regulation is designed to make bad actors more obvious to bystanders.
If a woman is in a public bathroom and an obviously male person walks in, there is no reliable way for her to tell if that person is a harmless trans woman just minding her own business, or a rapist exploiting well-meaning inclusive policies for malicious ends. The fact that the person has a penis is not dispositive in one direction or the other (as Freddie acknowledges not all trans people may wish to medically transition); nor that they are bearded and wearing jeans and a T-shirt (because “trans women don’t owe you femininity", and a trans woman presenting as male does not in any way undermine her trans identity).
You'll never get sexual assaults in bathrooms down to zero, but as argued in my other comment, there's some evidence suggesting that they're more common in gender-neutral bathrooms compared to sex-segregated bathrooms. A common understanding that male people are not supposed to be in a particular space (and hence that any male person who violates that rule is up to no good) seems to go a long way towards preventing sexual misconduct.
I also just don't take the bathroom argument too seriously. The best case I've seen people come up with is that one high school bathroom assault, and that involved a couple who had met up for consensual trysts several times in the same bathroom.
When I wrote my post criticising Freddie deBoer's stance on trans issues, I admitted that, of all the demands made by trans activists, "using our preferred bathrooms" is the one I find least objectionable, even though I understand why it makes some women uncomfortable.
Many feminists appeared in the comments of the Substack article providing sources which suggested that my agnosticism on this issue was misplaced, and in fact women are at far greater risk of sexual assault in gender-neutral bathrooms than in single-sex bathrooms:
Unisex changing rooms put women at danger of sexual assault, data reveals:
The vast majority of reported sexual assaults at public swimming pools in the UK take place in unisex changing rooms, new statistics reveal.
The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Sunday Times, suggests that unisex changing rooms are more dangerous for women and girls than single-sex facilities.
Just under 90 per cent of complaints regarding changing room sexual assaults, voyeurism and harassment are about incidents in unisex facilities.
What’s more, two thirds of all sexual attacks at leisure centres and public swimming pools take place in unisex changing rooms.
Of 134 complaints over 2017-2018, 120 reported incidents took place in gender-neutral changing rooms and just 14 were in single-sex changing areas.
Unisex facilities account for less than half the changing areas across the UK, but the number is on the rise - doing away with separate male and female changing rooms and toilets is seen as a way to cut staff costs and better cater for transgender people.
As I also pointed out in the post, it's no good saying "we're not advocating for gender-neutral bathrooms - we just want trans women to be able to use the ladies' room". There is zero practical difference between the two. After all, trans women don't owe you femininity, so if you're a female person in the ladies' room and an obviously male person walks in, you're not allowed to kick up a fuss about it even if said "trans woman" is making zero effort to pass and has fully intact male genitalia.
"How dare you say that trans women are rapists?!" trans activists will howl. No - a policy of gender-neutral or trans-inclusive bathrooms poses obvious risks for female safeguarding even if literally every trans woman in the world is just a delicate little flower who wants to use the stalls in peace. (At least some demonstrably are not.) If you're taking the stance that
- women are permitted to use the ladies' room
- every person who says they're a woman is a woman; no criteria must be met (medical transition, dressing in a conventionally feminine manner) to meet that standard.
an inevitable byproduct of that is that perverts will exploit trans-inclusive policies for their own nefarious ends. It is literally unavoidable under this rubric.
Hell, trans activists even acknowledge that "genderfluidity" is a thing, and one can "identify as" a man at some times and identify as a woman at other times, perhaps hopping back and forth multiple times a day. What's to stop a pre-transition male person from "identifying as" a woman just long enough to go into the ladies' and sexually assault someone, then walk out and immediately resume "identifying as" a man? (I say "what's to stop" like it's some far-out hypothetical; obviously I'm sure this has already happened somewhere.)
To clarify, I'm not saying that obsessively texting or calling someone should be illegal, and it's rarely more than an annoyance for the person at the receiving end. But I also think that pestering or bothering someone is bad behaviour, and that when the object of your affection has made it perfectly clear they aren't interested, you should respect that. I'd put on the same level as ghosting someone: obviously not calling for it to be banned (how could it?), but I consider it inconsiderate and disrespectful unless proven otherwise.
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