domain:open.substack.com
Tanista
1hr ago
Schafer is closest probably but even she probably drops a point when the photo is candid and unstaged.
Then again, I do know she's trans so...
ABigGuy4U
1hr ago
It’s not surprising, but I think it‘s worth mentioning when talking about an ICBM launch.
Now how do we codify that into law?
Take any provision that protects women's spaces and clarify that "woman" is, as intended by the authors, a sex term and not a claim about "gender identity". Whatever that is.
ABigGuy4U
1hr ago
It’s relevant. He’s going bald because all the hair has migrated to his palms.
Tanista
1hr ago
It's all strange. Trans activists themselves acknowledge that it is strange when they continue to insist that without transition they'd die. That's how strange it is, that's what it takes to make this palatable even when it's not affecting others.
justmotteingaround
1hr ago
This mirrors issues in Bill Bishops 2009 The Big Sort - Why the Clustering of Like-Minded American is Tearing Us Apart. Worth a read or re-read. Its been visible online for as long as I can remember. Outrage and polarization maximize quarterly metrics. In the long run, people mostly want to hear news that confirms their priors.
Twitter (assuming its a business) has the lead and should allow seamless experience filters: default, left wing, right wing, no mod, heavy mod, institutional truth, conspiracy truth, puppies, etc. It wont solve the problem of information siloing, but it would keep people on platform while maintaining neutrality.
Tanista
1hr ago
I don't think the two situations are the same. Men are allowed to become policemen already because they provide obvious benefits if you aren't Leto Atreides.
The presumption is against men being in the women's toilet at all, presumably because there's no benefit that outweighs potential issues.
So the question is why an exception for this sort of man? I really don't care whether it's sexualized or not. I think we should maintain the original taboo
07mk
1hr ago
Passing is on the one hand used by TRAs to mean "polite people treat me as a woman when I obviously visibly signal that I wish to be treated as such." Which almost everyone can achieve.
If that's how TRAs use "passing," I've never encountered it, and it also seems like a vapid meaning, because the "polite" in your quote tends to refer to the characteristic of submitting to such wishes.
The way I understand it, the "test" that's being "passed" in this context is essentially the trans Turing Test (Turansing Test? Turans Test? Trunsing Test?). Now, obviously there are many tiny nuances and details of what qualifies as passing the Turing Test, but broadly, I think the idea is that, after interacting with a trans person, you can't tell that they're trans, then they "pass."
There are likely multiple ways to measure something like this. One theoretical study I imagine, blinded test subjects would interact with a group of people, some trans, some not, and then answered what sex each person they interacted with was born as. If a trans person had >50% of people answer as the opposite of their birth sex, that person would "pass." Another option would be to have test subjects interact with pairs of people, one trans and the other cis, of opposite sexes and the same gender, and if the subjects can correctly guess the trans person at >50% rate, then that person doesn't pass. Could also adjust it to be 1 trans and 9 cis, and if the rate is >10%, or any variation of this, I suppose.
The context also certainly matters a lot, but that can be both controlled for and also studied, to see how people's ability to "pass" change in different environments. What I'd personally love to see is correlations on the type and length of interaction. If you're just talking to someone, does their chance of "passing" go down or up as time goes, and is there some inflection point at which the "passing" rate suddenly skyrocket or plummet? What about if you add hugging to the mix? What if you're in a group setting, where all the other test subjects are confederates who have been instructed to treat the trans person like they do/don't "pass?" What if activities involving physical strength or severe emotional topics are involved?
It'd be fascinating to see some break down just what specific characteristics and interactions maximize and minimize the odds of "passing." 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.
Tanista
1hr ago
Pew seems to think it's just about even
CNN, citing Pew (I can't find that specific set of figures and can't dig in now*) it used to be heavily Democratic and now is more or less even
* Maybe it was a bad idea to shift to "X"
dovetailing
1hr ago
Sure, but the "uses women's bathroom" behavior doesn't add any additional strangeness on top of the "made permanent changes to body and lifestyle" part.
vorpa-glavo
1hr ago
No, for. My position is that freedom sometimes makes people worse off, but in the vast majority of such cases we should still let people be free and have the bad outcome.
To tie it back to the trans issue. I would be okay with the government banning kids from transitioning, but against the government preventing adults from transitioning - even if reliable information emerged that medical transition lead to worse outcomes than the alternative. People should be allowed to sterilize themselves, allowed to cut off their breasts, and be prepared to face all consequences of it.
This is also why I favor tattoos and piercing being legal, even if I personally dislike them and suspect they have long term effects on employability and life outcomes.
Rov_Scam
1hr ago
It's also dependent on the level of interaction. Passing to a friend or coworker is going to be harder than passing to someone they interact with as a bank teller or cashier. In the context of public restrooms, this would be the easiest place to pass, in that they're only spending a few seconds dealing with strangers who probably aren't paying them much attention.
dovetailing
1hr ago
Maybe we're talking past each other but the thing I think is unlikely --- conditional on his making permanent changes to his body --- is that the whole thing is just acting out a fetish. Most people with fetishes don't make permanent changes to their bodies or try to constantly act on them in public, and the ones who do are generally disturbed and disregulated enough that they'll get themselves into trouble with undeniably inappropriate behavior pretty quickly.
MotteInTheEye
1hr ago
I can't. I use the mobile website for Facebook itself but I had to install the Messenger app to send messages.
SkoomaDentist
1hr ago
You can use it via the mobile website, too.
dovetailing
1hr ago
I was objecting to the implication that we're evolved to see women as morally superior, not to the corresponding claim that "protect women" is to an extent hardwired.
NunoSempere
1hr ago
Stuff I'm tracking this week
Top items:
- Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea cut, Germany and Finland fear, sabotage suspected
- Ukraine fired UK, US missiles into Russia. Russia retaliated by sending an ICBM-lite missile into Ukraine
- Sweden sent a brochure to its citizens "in case of crisis or war". Seems worth reading
- The Adani empire is stumbling a bit.
T-Mobile hacked as part of a broader Chinese effort.
Nearly 100 trucks carrying food for Palestinians were looted in Gaza. Hamas security forces retaliated by killing over 20 gang members involved in the looting. Israel cited distribution challenges as the main obstacle in aiding Gaza.
China-Pakistan to conduct joint military/anti-terrorist exercise
Maybe worth purchasing big ticket items soon, before Trump tariffs hit.
DeepSeek will release large models
Russia / Ukraine heating up a bit.
volcano erupted in Indonesia.
US Secret Service using data from phones to locate users, without a warrant
Talks between Hezbollah, Lebanon and Israel are ongoing, with talks being between Israel and Lebanon, and Israel wanting to preserve its ability to attack Hezbollah if needed.
Biden authorizes Ukraine to use US-supplied longer range missiles for deeper strikes inside Russia
Deutsche Welle reports that a chance in Russia's nuclear doctrine preceeded the US allowing Ukraine to use long-range weapons.
300 Colombian mercenaries killed in Ukraine, out of 500 that went there
Russia has begun production of nuclear shelters
Russia Today, a Russian state-affiliated media outlet summarizes the key changes in Russia's new nuclear policy
CNN looks at some satellite images of the infrastructure damage in Ukraine
China and Russia are acting together in the Artic
Special US-Russia Hotline To Defuse Crises Not In Use, Says Kremlin
Zelensky gave an interview to Fox News, in which he recognizes that Ukraine probably wouldn't be able to survive without US support.
Greek Intelligence declassifies reports on 1974 coup and Turkish invasion
Pakistan starts a larger operation against Balochistan terrorists
US arms stockpiles strained by Ukraine, Israel support, says the head of US Indo-Pacific Command.
First case of clade I mpox diagnosed in the US
Trump seemed to confirm on Truth Social that he'd declare a national emergency and use military assets to institute a mass deportation program
WHO added another mpox vaccine to their emergency listing. This allows countries & procurement processes to coordinate a bit better around acquiring it.
EU isn't cutting antibiotic use fast enough to slow antibiotic resistance, the EU CDC says
H5N1 bird flu infects six more humans in California, Oregon
Here is an overview of nuclear events
Here are a few bullet points on the "Talibanization of Bangladesh"
Throwaway05
2hr ago
I actually know a physician who ended up with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statin-associated_autoimmune_myopathy
Dean
2hr ago
It looks like it was just the kinetic vehicle with no nuclear warheads.
Is that supposed to be surprising? Russia has been conducting missile strikes for years with nuclear-capable missiles (not least because most of their modern missiles are nuclear-capable).
Russia using an ICBM is just a symbolic tit-for-tat for the US ATACMs range release. It's not a particularly cost-efficient delivery platform, but is intended to play into the recent implicit saber-ratling as a demonstration of capability.
Felagund
2hr ago
He likes data, and is good at stats. Here's his substack: https://www.cremieux.xyz
dovetailing
2hr ago
Surely it's less strange than all the other stuff he's done to get to this point, right? Like, a random guy in drag insisting on using the women's room, that's separately a strong signal of weirdness/sketchiness. But if he's convinced himself that he's a woman at this point, and (quite possibly, though I couldn't say for sure) been on hormones and had surgeries to get there, then surely that's the strange part, not the part where he subsequently wants to use the women's restroom.
TIRM
2hr ago
Nah. I'm rock solid correct. Some people are just terrible at judging risks. Europeans on bicycles especially.
07mk
2hr ago
I feel like the entire rest of society, particularly the woke end has decided that the rape of women is a small price to pay for feeling progressive about letting transgender women into women’s spaces — without vetting at all.
I think what's more accurate is that they've convinced themselves that it simply "doesn't happen", or that "no one transitions just so they can use women's bathrooms".
This doesn't seem more accurate, but rather the "how," to the quoted part's "what." Deciding that such a cost is worth the benefit can be very unpleasant, depending on what the costs and what the benefits are. So unpleasant, that many people might be unwilling to make such a decision if they perceive it that way. So they decide to perceive it a different way, by convincing themselves that the cost isn't actually real, which allows them to make that decision. I see this pattern repeated all the time both in culture war contexts and not.
I just signed up (never really having used Twitter) to see for myself. Scrolling the default feed as a new user was mostly normie stuff, sports, pop culture and such, however with a heavy overrepresentation of ghetto black content. This was third and this was the fourth post on my feed. Two of the first ten posts were from conservative pro-Trump types and a third was from Elon himself, but it was not related to politics. Scrolling a bit further basically confirms that: 20% conservative, 20% ghetto, 60% normie pop culture/sports.
More options
Context Copy link