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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32894 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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Strategy?

This is vibes, through and through. If you’re on team A, she’s a persecuted trans icon. Team B, he’s a dirty poser. There, your social media post is ready to go.

Never mind that Khelif never claimed to be trans, because that would take away from how Brave and Oppressed she’s being. Or that the closest thing to medical evidence is a half-assed statement by an org that already resents the IOC, and they won’t even commit. No, the average culture warrior gets to have full confidence that these athletes are woke partisans, for better or worse.

These circumstances aren’t conducive to strategy.

Vibes alone don't explain what's happening. In this case, both sides seem to be willing to turn this into a culture war issue because - for different reasons - they think social circumstances favor them, and their messaging will be well-received as a result. If this condition weren't met, one or both sides would drop the issue, and there'd be no culture war over it.

That sounds like vibes to me. Thinking the social conditions are favorable is like thinking the stars are right.

I wouldn't say sociology and astrology equally count as junk science.

But how many people propagating this issue are either sociologists or astrologers?

I think amateur sociology falls back on a few easy intuitions. Most important is “My team is obviously correct.” When someone says “you’re on the wrong side of history,” that’s rarely the result of a principled analysis. It’s argument by analogy to situations with the preferred emotional valence. Vibes.

I haven’t seen anybody notable arguing that Khalif is a trans icon; she’s not trans.

I think ‘Team A’ broadly assumes she has a DSD, but is considering social identity over genetics. And it’s mostly speculation from both sides since nothing is confirmed about her genetics or hormones.

Or that the closest thing to medical evidence is a half-assed statement by an org that already resents the IOC

The is a bad look for both sides, not just the one you seem to malign. I doubt the only available gender test is looking at the passport as the IOC appears to imply.

Yeah, I don’t disagree.

Both athletes got disqualified from a recent event, and they did fail some sort of test. Odds are good it was chromosomal. The IBA has been vague, though, so the IOC has jumped on that vagueness to suggest whatever the test was, it doesn’t supersede the other evidence. Mainly that Khelif has always had the legal status of a woman, both in a country which doesn’t give a damn about trans politics and in the previous Olympics.

Which…it’s reasonable, no? The burden of proof should be on the accuser who wants to supersede the passport and birth certificate. The IBA should be able to provide their testosterone or chromosome or whatever test.

To be clear, I think there’s a good chance that she is XY, and that this gets confirmed in the next week or three. I don’t think that has to be a disqualifier. She was clearly womanly enough to get approval for the past however many years, lose to Broadstreet, etc. So I’m inclined to argue with people who act like she’s Randy Savage.

The IBA should be able to provide their testosterone or chromosome or whatever test.

The claim from the other side is that they are not legally allowed to do so due to health privacy laws, which also makes sense to me.

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