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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

That's absolutely what's often cited as the experience of "passing." "I went outside, everyone referred to me as a woman, and no one called me out as trans, ergo I passed." Tbh, if anyone thought I was trans but never brought it up out of politeness, how would I know? My experience would look exactly the same on the day to day: I go outside and act like a man and people treat me like a man. Maybe some people are uncomfortable with me or don't like me, but who knows, maybe they're Cowboys fans who cares?

I wouldn't characterize such a statement as conforming to that definition of "passing," though. It appears more like just jumping to conclusions, that the absence of people bringing it up is proof of the absence of people noticing, which is what determines "passing."

I mean, I can take your word for it, that some TRAs do use the term that way, but that seems clearly very different from the way people use the term when discussing CW issues, and not in quantity but rather quality. When people talk about "when trans person X passes," I don't think they tend to mean "when trans person X only interacts with or notices people who will treat them in a certain way," but rather "when trans person X presents in such a way as to meet some sort of threshold in how others perceive their gender."

But that's not what real life looks like, which was my point about context. In real life I don't walk around suspecting people's genitals might not match their presentation. So the moment you ask people to identify trans people from a group, you've radically altered their normal calculus! The moment you bring up "trans" you've radically altered their normal calculus.

We can design studies to make the true measure obscure from the participants. This is a common enough problem in such studies that it's fairly standard practice, and there are many ways to accomplish it, including just lying to the participants about what the study is actually about. Of course, it's questionable how effective such things are and they're all imperfect, but, also of course, all models are wrong, yet some are useful.

Hell, the moment you tell people they have to make a decision one way or the other, you're throwing off what passing means in reality. Because non-passing can also mean something like "Idk, she makes me uncomfortable but I can't put my finger on why..." Uncanny valley stuff. So what do we do with that? Where does that fit into either a day-to-day understanding of trans life, or into a Turing test?

This seems quite possible to test as well, though likely quite difficult to do properly. One can measure physiological signs of discomfort, and one can also get assessments from test subjects that don't involve making decisions one way or another, but rather just the sense that they get. It's possible to quantify such things and then compare how they differ between different populations. There are many pitfalls to such efforts, and I certainly wouldn't trust the current academic apparatus to carry out such studies with enough rigor to draw any meaningful conclusions, though.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

Here's some culture war red-meat: Jussie Smolett conviction overturned

On one hand, I want to see this smug a-hole who disparaged my once beautiful city get his comeuppance.

On the other hand, I dunno...I can't think of anything.

Smollett had challenged nearly every aspect of his case, arguing that his legal woes should have been over after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office struck a controversial deal to drop charges just a month after Smollett was indicted in February 2019.

The agreement should have prevented Smollett from being charged for the same crime by a court-appointed special prosecutor a year later, according to the state’s highest court.

In a 5-0 opinion, with two justices abstaining, Justice Elizabeth M. Rocheford wrote the second case violated Smollett’s due process rights because he had fulfilled the requirements of his earlier plea deal by turning over his $10,000 bond and doing community service.

“We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust,” Rocheford wrote in the 32-page ruling. “Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied.” The court ruled that a controversial decision by prosecutors to drop all charges against Smollett amounted to a plea deal, and that the case brought by a special prosecutor a year later was invalid.

I suppose I can see the logic of "you can't charge a guy who's already agreed to a plea deal." So, whatever, I guess. As a former Chicagoan, the real villain always seemed to be Kim Foxx, who kind of just did whatever she wanted, including letting this fool off the hook.

With only nine days before she leaves office, Foxx claimed Thursday’s ruling offered her office a measure of vindication.

“We have spent five years and millions of dollars on the re-prosecution of someone for a low-level felony,” Foxx told the Chicago Sun-Times, noting that her office’s handling of the case was used as a cudgel by critics of her broader reform agenda.

“This case was bigger than what Jussie Smollett did,” she added.

You can say that again.

I'm sure most people, at this point, are simply sick and tired of all these people and figured the whole ordeal was over. It's clearly a slap in the face of the prosecutor Dan Webb (what's with all these double consonants? amiright??) but I doubt it's going to rehabilitate Smolett's career. Actors are infinitely replaceable, so without divine intervention his career is effectively over. Of course, I might also be wrong as I rarely watch TV or pay attention to celebrities.

Oh, wait...

In an interview last month to promote a new film Smollett co-wrote and directed, he remained defiant and claimed to have spent about $3 million on his defense — even though it might have made more sense to have served out his time.

So...was he a victim of a vindictive prosecution, or just an innocent dude trying to get a better contract? Ok, it's really hard for me to be unbiased her. I'll admit it.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

I don’t know if any specifically transitions to use women’s restrooms. I will say that especially given the trans community’s abhorrence with the idea of having to prove that they’re actually trans and under treatment is basically an end run around the norm. If a guy in a beard and a short dress walked into a women’s restroom, the business is under the civil rights gun and thus can do little about it no matter how much of a pest he’s being until he actually rapes someone. And I find that enabling of crime to be telling.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

I assumed the reason we don't give everyone metformin is because of the very memorable bathroom visits that it causes.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

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.

That's absolutely what's often cited as the experience of "passing." "I went outside, everyone referred to me as a woman, and no one called me out as trans, ergo I passed." Tbh, if anyone thought I was trans but never brought it up out of politeness, how would I know? My experience would look exactly the same on the day to day: I go outside and act like a man and people treat me like a man. Maybe some people are uncomfortable with me or don't like me, but who knows, maybe they're Cowboys fans who cares?

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.

But that's not what real life looks like, which was my point about context. In real life I don't walk around suspecting people's genitals might not match their presentation. So the moment you ask people to identify trans people from a group, you've radically altered their normal calculus! The moment you bring up "trans" you've radically altered their normal calculus. You see this a lot with people talking about true crime stories, "oh how did no one suspect, there were all these clues!" But the people didn't know they were in a mystery, they weren't looking for clues. If you tell people that the sex of the person they're talking to is a mystery, they'll seize on all kinds of clues. If they don't, they'll slide right by the clues. So the moment you run a study on the basis of "spot the tranny" you vastly alter the odds compared to baseline.

Hell, the moment you tell people they have to make a decision one way or the other, you're throwing off what passing means in reality. Because non-passing can also mean something like "Idk, she makes me uncomfortable but I can't put my finger on why..." Uncanny valley stuff. So what do we do with that? Where does that fit into either a day-to-day understanding of trans life, or into a Turing test?

Passing is, weirdly, vastly harder in queer spaces than in non-queer spaces, even if queer spaces are much more likely to hug-box trans people about how great they pass and bend over backwards to avoid mistakes. It's not odd at all for me to see a middle aged woman with a whispy little mustache at church, I wouldn't think she's packing a cock under there just has unfortunate hirsute characteristics.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

I take rosuvastatin and it has had a dramatic effect on my cholesterol levels. (Dramatically good).

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

Another way to put it is that the definition of "right wing" has expanded to contain even people like Musk, Rogan and Gabbard.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

the McBride situation aside, these bills are nothing more than performative measures meant to publicly express disgust with the idea of trans people in general. They do nothing to actually keep trans people out of whatever bathroom you're trying to keep them out of, excepting whatever mild deterrent effect comes out of making something technically illegal. What would it take to successfully prosecute such a case? Suppose a woman sees someone she suspects is a trans-woman in a public restroom. What can she do? The first option would be to alert the staff, who may or may not care to do anything about it. Eventually, the police will have to be called by someone. Assuming the police arrive and the suspected man is still on the premises, to what extent does a person have to look masculine enough for it to constitute probable cause for arrest?

You might argue that the officer could ask them to produce ID, and if the sex was listed as male this would give them probable cause (states with bathroom bills generally require the sex on ID to match that of the birth certificate). While the cop may have a valid argument that he had the requisite reasonable suspicion necessary to require identification, identification in this context is limited to providing a correct name, address, and date of birth; producing a government-issued ID is not required. At this point, there's no probable cause to arrest. There's no probable cause to get a warrant for a medical examination.

The only option at this point would be to run the name and dob through various government databases to determine if the sex listed in the records matches that of the bathroom they were in. But nobody is doing this. And even if they did, it isn't necessarily dispositive, since the person could have been born in a state that allows amended birth certificates. Given that police can't just look at people's genitals based on a complaint alone, actually enforcing such a law would be burdensome to the point that it's unenforceable absent some extraordinary circumstance. Even the state officials supporting these bills, when asked about enforcement, admit that they have no clue.

If the trans community were smart, they'd stop complaining about these bills and shrug them off. Red state legislators know that the bills are unenforceable, but they pass them anyway. I think their motivations are partially sincere, but partially cynical—trans issues are an electoral loser, and passing these laws induces their opponents to take unpopular positions. If the trans community simply announced that they had no intention of complying because the state couldn't do anything about it anyway, it would put increasing pressure on the government to actually attempt enforcement. there would likely be few prosecutions, if only due to a dearth of complaints, but one can imagine a situation where the only arrests of note are of normal women who are mistakenly believed to be trans. This would result in a PR disaster that doesn't require any Democrats to take unpopular positions.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

once I've had all the kids I plan on having.

Knowing you are male this wording made me chuckle internally. I get your meaning, however.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

You are advocating for people to do what they want and have others pay for their failure. People taking over their medical care without professional supervision directly hurts others and themselves, and society literally pays for it in terms of opportunity costs and DIRECT costs.

I haven't seen you engage with any of the examples I've given or actual content at play, just give a metaphor which is poor and repeatedly express your stance.

When given the ability to hang themselves in healthcare people do so. This is not a hypothetical. This is true right now and I gave examples, and that's for the simpler things.

If you want to continue this conversation please explain what antibiotic stewardship and why it's important, or argue why it isn't.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

This is basically the long form of my somewhat pithy/sarcastic comment. Sorry, but we just live in a world where messaging apps have already proliferated. They will all have their defenders that prefer this thing or that thing (see the other responses to my comment). Probably the only thing that grinds my gears more than the people who are just defending this feature or that aspect of whatever messaging service is when they do like the comment I responded to and say that it's mostly about everyone else being there. If that's the criteria, we already have that; it's called SMS. Everybody has that. But of course, it's not really about everyone being there; it's about this feature or that feature. Names, numbers, privacy, temporary names, group functionality, extra gizmos, etc. Once you realize that it AlwaysHasBeenMeme about a cluster of features, only one of which is "lots of people have it", then there just isn't any natural "default" that everyone "should" just use.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

‘Protect women’ is not actually a historical norm, and societies which are not western today often have no problems harming women.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

Nude swimming disappeared because swimsuit technology improved; communal showers i’m pretty sure went out of style due to increasing wealth making individual stalls more affordable.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

And the urban myth of Boys Don't Cry or the Trap, a trans person who passes so well that they get all the way into bed before the genitals are discovered.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

I strongly suspect that for the majority of these "I'm Jewish and I don't like Israel" types their Judaism means nothing to them in any other context.

Who cares? That doesn't change the fact that they're Jewish, any more than I would become black for not supporting white nationalists. Again, unless you're willing to endorse Rachel Dolezal transracialism this doesn't stop them from being Jewish, in many cases loudly and proudly so. They qualify for Aaliyah to Israel, they would be granted citizenship if they went - even the Israeli government considers these people jews. Alternatively, if you've got some kind of proof that you are an official arbiter of Judaism who can tell people whether or not they're authentically Jewish, you get to make this argument. Otherwise it's just another plate of warmed up haggis.

Sure, but I don't know what relation that bears to non-orthodox Jews who are anti-Israel.

They're an example of jews for whom their Jewishness is a central element of their life and still oppose Israel. Some of them are left wing as well, some not.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

If you are okay with putting a bullet in the head of anyone who uses medical care without expert opinion in any way that causes a societal cost then sure.

This is a wildly disproportionate and frankly bizarre thing to say. We could just not do that. Or are we currently required to be okay with putting a bullet in the head of anyone who works on their car without expert opinion in any way that causes a societal cost?

But let's be clear what you're doing here. You've become unable to defend your previous position that would imply that we must ban individuals from performing auto repair, so you're playing a two-part threat. Claiming that we must restrict supply because we've subsidized demand. It's a lucrative hustle in crony capitalism if you can control the government in this way. But we can easily dismantle the threat, cut the Gordian knot, and just not do any of that stuff. Just stop. Stop putting bullets in people's heads. Stop making everything either banned or mandatory.

Paternalism is good to some extent it's why we have building codes and financial regulations and you know....laws.

This is completely absurd. If we have any law, we must have one particular set of laws that benefit your industry. Just utterly disconnected from reality. This sort of reasoning can justify literally any regulation, no matter how insanely stupid, no matter how insanely destructive, no matter how insanely corrupt. "What? You want no laws whatsoever?" Come on. Be serious.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

You can’t.

‘Transgender is a real thing and not a mental illness’ and ‘transgender is some kind of delusion or mental disorder’ are both unfalsifiable because they come down to object level postulates in definitions. You would win the argument by convincing someone that your postulates are better than theirs, the same as they would convince you.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

Musk is an eccentric right winger in todays spectrum.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

This is a hilarious response now that you've edited the original. Just totally out of left field, no warning at all.

I know absolutely nothing about finasteride except what you've typed here and let me just say this does not sound like a ringing endorsement.

Transnational Thursday for November 21, 2024

I don’t think there was any significant damage.

Sending a "We can get you" message does quite a bit of damage on morale and the government image.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

There's def reasons we don't give everyone Statins and Metformin, but everyone always forgets lol.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

That's excellent.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

Yeah. I think acknowledging a sex/gender distinction would cut through most of the newsworthy categories.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

Whats signs should I look out for post "breakup" to know it's temporary vs otherwise.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

Yes, I'm very sure of this, it's part of a common program that I knew of in advance, the logistics of this just didn't occur to me in the heat of the moment.