5 Comments
Sep 5·edited Sep 5

A lot of my sampling of opinions comes from people I'm encountering on social media, but the allegation that "Sorry, no statistically significant number of people is arguing for “children” (young adults, sure, but not “children”) to be given irreversible surgery or hormonal treatments." is just flat out wrong. I've encountered quite a few people arguing that trans-wannabe minors should be given hormone treatments and surgery if they request it, because they know ABSOLUTELY FOR CERTAIN that they're in the WRONG BODY and daily existence in that state is so painful and they're a bundle of nerves ready to commit suicide any minute unless their every irreversible whim is indulged immediately.

Among the "not statistically significant number of people" is the American Society of Pediatricians, which, according to The Economist Magazine, hardly a far-right publication, reports advocates the surgical removal of breasts of 15-year-olds.

Regarding Imane Khelif, there is no public information on what their genitals look like, nor a published chromosome test. There is a common condition where XY babies are born with horribly deformed genitals and internal testes, and will never be able to impregnate a woman through sex, and they are often raised as females. So being "identified as female at birth" in a 3rd-world country is hardly definitive. The Olympic Committee has taken a highly, highly controversial position of deferring to the gender on a person's passport. In the absence of evidence, anyone who asserts that this person is "definitely" of either gender is wrong. And saying that "no one is advocating that males be allowed to compete in women's sports" is hogwash, there are MANY people arguing that gender has nothing to do with biology and is simply a matter of self-identification, and that is the standard that sports should use. The ACLU website quotes a so-called "doctor" claiming that "males have no sports advantage over females" and a Facebook friend of mine asserts the same thing because Billie Jean King defeat Bobby Riggs (20 years her senior) in a tennis match in the 1970's, and that's the only admissible sports data.

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Saying that "cancel culture has always been with us" is total crap. Polls show that 2/3 of current college students approve of shouting down lectures they don't like, and one third approve of resorting to violence to shut down lectures they don't like. It was NOTHING like that when I was a college student in 1980. I remember back then when the leader of the campus communists (everybody called him "Stormin's Norman") gave a speech and said "I look forward to the day when I turn on the TV and there are men on the steps of the US Capitol saying we have just overthrown the fucking government of the United States, that will be a great day of rejoicing!". What really scared me how many students clapped at that. It NEVER CROSSED MY MIND to organize shout downs or throw riots to silence these guys. In fact, they had a presentation later and introduced myself to Norman as a Libertarian, shook his hand, and we had a civil conversation for several minutes agreeing about nothing. Why do kids today find this so hard?

I spent my undergrad, UC Santa Barbara and Caltech, and there was not a single lecture disinvited, shouted down, or canceled. I knew the head of the Caltech LIbertarians, and the student newspaper was mostly a 1-man publication by one guy who hated Libertarians so he wouldn't print announcements of Libertarian events in the newspaper, then the Libertarian head busted him tearing down a poster announcing a Libertarian event, and he was so embarrassed being busted that he printed Libertarian announcements after that. That was the level of consensus that everybody got to speak.

I am very active on climate change, especially trying to convince conservatives, but haven't encountered any outright denial from IDW'ers. Jordan Peterson doesn't disagree with the science, claims he's thought about it a lot, and (modestly) concludes that since HE can't think of a solution, NO ONE can. I've watched quite a bit of his videos on the topic and am unimpressed. Here's my website: http://conservativeclimateactivists.org/

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We don’t know if Imane Khelif is intersex. A corrupt Russian boxing org said she is… after she beat a Russian with an undefeated record. The org also contradicted itself on whether testosterone was part of the test

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You are correct that this has only been alleged and she has not acknowledged any such thing publicly. I'll correct the text.

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The word ‘intellectual’ belongs nowhere near these fraudulent clowns

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