There are a few things where I just can’t understand the level of vitriol. The hatred (I do think that is the right word) of Hillary Clinton in 2016 is one. I had conversations with relatives who were just short of frothing at the mouth as they expressed their animosity toward her. And the hatred directed toward transfolk is another. I can grok that some people are bothered by it and I think I understand their (stupid) reasons. But some people are, again, almost frothing at the mouth about something that quite literally affects them not one bit. I don’t get that.
A long time ago, I had a girlfriend whose ex-husband had gender dysphoria syndrome and went through the complete transition. My friend dealt with that process by writing a considerable paper, describing that process and her reaction to it, and she was good enough to share that with me. Her observations went a long way toward allowing me to understand at least some of what goes on with a trans person and the necessity of recognizing the impact of that individual's mindset as well as their physiology.
Somehow, I get it. I wish I knew why Dawkins doesn't.
On that, he's correct. Extraordinary claims like 'there is a god' require extraordinary proof, none of which has ever been provided. On his current claim, however, he's dropped that standard of proof in favor of any rumor, innuendo, or unsubstantiated assertion that supports his bigoted view. It's sad to see a once towering figure reduced to spewing hateful, hurtful, lies about a young woman athlete.
Dawkins has closed his mind on the subject of gender fluidity. He mentally masturbates over a biological truth that most humans with either a XX or XY sex germ are, respectively, female or male. Yet he closes himself off the to 'flow' or range of how XX or XY is constructed during the maturation process. Some females are flooded with testosterone, but their body will not process it. A high testosterone female could be disqualified from competition because of it. Some males maturate female anatomy without a uterus or eggs and would be considered a female until a genetic test reveled their XY trait. The 'flow' of a process is killed when frozen.
There are also cases of people with XY chromosomes giving birth. So... there's that. One would expect a career scientist to be capable of finding the first bloody result in a Google search: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/
There is a trans-woman on YouTube – a site called "Philosophy Tube" who pretty much takes you through the whole thing. If you have anyone who needs instruction as it were. She also has some interesting philosophy tubes as well. :)
If you go with the idea that outrage is moral, and more outrage is more moral, than outdoing your neighbor in outrage is a way of demonstrating superior morality.
Hillary Clinton’s hatred was earned. I say this as someone who voted for her to be Senator in New York and then watched her do absolutely nothing but use the position as a platform for advancement into national politics. She earns the hatred every time she responds to people with vitriolic, demeaning comments—which happens quite often.
I’m sorry you feel that way. I have other first hand information about her —actually second hand—telling me good things about her:
1. When Bill and Hillary, while still president, made a visit to Motorola to learn about semi-conductors and other tech, my sister, a top exec at Motorola, was the one who spent the day with them, showing them around and explaining things. I got a report about the visit and how gracious Hillary was. In fact Hillary maintained—if I remember this correctly—contact for some time.
2. I was an expert witness for JAG, Marine Corps colonel who was the top legal command in Iraq. He told that during a photo shop visit by several politicians, she was the ONLY one that came over to him without cameras and asked what he needed to do his job better. With notebook and pen she made a list and two weeks later he received everything.
Those who served with her in government have said she was the most knowledgeable and capable person they served with.
So, you must have voted for Trump. I’ll keep my comments to myself about that.
Hillary was very competent. She also made some very stupid choices. I like her as a person, having met her a few times. But she wasn't the right candidate for that time, for a variety of reasons.
Finding the warmonger Hillary to be a corporate tool. In no way translates to supporting trump. The fact you automatically went there shows abandonment of reason for emotional purposes.
You just could not resist putting in that last line! Cute. You know what they say about assumptions, Jim. Life-long Democrat, an anti Trumper from day one here. My red line is genocide, though. I will never vote for a politician who has voted to fund a genocide. Jill Stein will get my vote. If Trump wins, it will be in on the Democrats rather than third party voters.
As much as I appreciate the ideology, this isn't a thought experiment in philosophy class. We have a very simple choice between exactly two options: You either want to see Trump become POTUS or you don't. A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump. Period. Please do let us know when you're not longer a Trumper.
A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump… Harris has nothing to do with Hillary, whom I don’t like very much either. She and the DNC screwed Bernie out of his nomination.
Hey remember when Hillary’s husband was closely associated with the head of a pedophile sex trafficker with a global network catering to influential elites and she made a public statement about it to draw attention to a major issue before divorcing her husband for repetitively being a deviant sexual predator?
These relatives live in west Texas and got their news from Rush Limbaugh. I'm not discounting what you say but I doubt my relatives had much of that info at hand.
In other words Hillary Clinton is just like all of us who leverage their advantage for their own self interest. Though being mean to others just makes them seem deserving of hatred. Dog and most folks realize being 'nice' is highly adaptive. Don't believe me? Go pet a wolf.
I think it's misogyny – conscious or unconscious. Women politicians get more, worse and different abuse to men. Jacinda Ardern went from hero to zero in a split second and by god the abuse was shocking even to me.
Bingo! they both got smeared incessently by the right wingers hateriots, and our mainstream media happily repeated every smear, ad nauseum, amplifying it beyond rationale. Until it leaks into otherwise rational brains.
Perhaps, but much of what you seem to despise is simply practical politics. Leaving aside the emotional language do you think any American president is going to be elected if they abandon support for Israel and transfer that support to Palestinians. Admittedly it's something they should maybe do, but that would be red meat to Fox news and Newsmax. And as she said to the pro-Palestinian protesters "Do you want Donald Trump?" In your two-party system, it's always the lesser of two evils.
Sounds like you are now referring to Kamala. Yes, I will vote for her, just as I voted for Hillary. I disagree with your red meat reasoning though. Fox and Newsmax will attack anything to their left. They are criticizing her laugh and calling Walz Tampon Tim. The real problem with unwavering support of the far right Israeli government is foreign and corporate money in politics. Most American politicians, whether dem or republican nazi, can be bought. I can only think of a handful that are not.
If you do not live in a “purple” state. Vote Jill Stein. Your vote will not be counted in any case anyway. Might as well vote your conscience. (Purple states are a tougher calc).
You might want to read what you just said. You said supporting mass slaughter of babies and genocide is just the price to pay to be in US politics. That’s far too high a price. What if supporting Hitler was a prereq? Would you excuse that? There are ethical politicians like Jill Stein out there. Support them if you don’t think sacrificing babies is a legitimate price to pay. Or join the Nazis.
Do you really believe they have not slaughtered thousands of babies. Or are you simply on board with Hitler's "if you wanna tell a lie, tell a big one and people will believe"?
God i thought open support for genocide was dead. But there you go.
Agreed about women politicians being judged more harshly. That is because make politicians get far more latitude than they should not because the judgement on eomen is undeserved. It’s like how not being afraid you will be murdered by a cop is labeled “privilege”. No minorities are treated horrifically. It is not privilege to expect human decency from public servants.
Freedom from Fear certainly is a privilege in the US. I know far too many people who don't have that Freedom simply because of the color of their skin or their gender or their religion. Many minorities are indeed treated horrifically.
And while they grok that someone with an opposing policy or opinion is deserving of their level of vitriol. They would be happy if said someone was disincorporated in front of their very eyes.
My heart is troubled by all that is going on surrounding this athlete. I cannot imagine my gender being discussed so publicly and everyone weighing in, like it's some kind of abstract concept being debated. This is a HUMAN BEING. With feelings, emotions, personality, people they love etc. A fellow human. Not a concept, not a theory. How people shut their brain off and go all clinical is beyond me and it distresses me that we are so cruel to each other.
I agree, to have total strangers judging her identity, for no good reason other than a corrupt Russian athletic judge with major ties to Putin, said so, with no basis. It defies belief. And Dawkins, and that horrible TERF making a fool of herself about it as usual.
The women being punched by her are human beings too. Including the one that claimed she had never been hit so hard in her life.
Her own trainer admitted she is not xx. https://archive.ph/Nrnw0 She likely has 5α-reductase deficiency like Caster Semenya. The majority of these people transition to male (however she cannot being from backwards Algeria)
Seems reasonable to have a discussion is this should be allowed in boxing.
It is reasonable for the experts, who studied the actual facts, and are familiar with scientific reality of it. The social media speculation, and reports there, are often are done by hateful people, who make up things to justify their hatred of trans persons, which she is not. Even the Italian boxer opponent, said she had reacted badly, and was sorry for all the hatred she had helped to come up.
Their lives lack happiness so they must find persons, or groups to hate, to make themselves superior (in their own mind, anyway.) Belonging to hate-groups makes them part of a community.
I can chime in on the former, though I don't see how it's relevant. Hillary is a war hawk - Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, to name but a few. She, along with the DNC, rigged the primary against Bernie. She still blames him (and everyone else) for her loss despite him endorsing her after she cheated him. She is condescending. That includes the deplorables comment. She seems fake (Pokemon comment) and said she can't relate to non-rich people. Shall I go on?
I resent your insinuation that I'm sexist because I dislike Hillary. It's the type of thing someone says when they have no true defense. Marianne Williamson was my preferred candidate for 2024.
I hate all war hawks, whether Bush or Hillary. War crimes are war crimes. I do have particular disdain for the DNC and Hillary. It has nothing to do with her genitalia, if that's what you are insinuating. See my comment explaining their plans to label Bernie an atheist as revealed by Wikileaks.. However, I did, of course, vote for her over Trump. That's a no brainer. One must choose the less bad option.
Everything I said is factual. The OP is the one that brought up Hillary. Plenty of people on the left do not like her for reasons I provided. This has virtually nothing to do with the 2024 election.
LOL. So your responses are - BS and I'm a Russian, Chinese, or Iranian agent. That is beyond intellectually lazy.
Ok. I’m not going to ask you support your “facts” because Frankly I do not give a damn. I thought this site was about atheism and not petty political laundry. Therefore, I’ll just unsubscribe and leave for you and others that want to air their political bullshit.
Oh please, there is no hatred in Dawkin's post. He's merely pointing out that she is XY competing against xx. Despite Hemant's lies. This is true. (See her own trainer admit it right here. https://archive.ph/Nrnw0
Nonsense. He is stating as a fact that she is male. People with xy have had babies. That is not determinative. And he is supposed to be a genetic scientist. He has abandoned science for hate.
Biological sex is assigned at birth by what is observed. To insist that an individual is 100% male solely due to the presence of a Y chromosome in their genotype is an ignorant oversimplification at best and willfully dishonest at worst. Biological sex in humans is a bimodal spectrum, not a strict binary. This has been well understood for decades.
Gender is ALSO not a binary, but a bimodal spectrum. It is also not the same thing as biological sex. This has been obvious for millennia. There are many cultures, past and present, that recognize more than the two genders insisted upon by the American far right.
Ms Khelif was observed to be and assigned female at birth. She identifies as a woman. She has done very well in her sport this Olympics, but she has been defeated by other women in the past. There is nothing to prevent her from being defeated by another woman in the future. To misgender her as you have done is just plain rude. Begone, troll!
I had one dipshit consplain* to me (on Michael Shermer's substack) that gametes were the sole determinant of sex. He referenced the glossary of a biology textbook ('cause, you know, the other 500 pages were useless). He even told me that anyone who can't give birth was not a woman. Yes, sterile cis-women were not women.
What is a woman? Anyone that covers her drink when you** approach.
* Conservatives tell me things
** Not you specifically, but that's the best response to right-wing idiots who ask the question.
What if she has given birth but no longer can? Because that is all women at some point, menopause anyone. Then women like myself who needed a hysterectomy. I know women who needed one before they could have babies. Do women suddenly stop being women once they start having hot flashes?
All good and very valid questions. I didn't ask, it was pretty obvious the moron was only functioning as a bullshit regurgitator. I can spend way, way too much time going down rabbit holes, but even I have my limits.
Paid less, but doing a better job. More nuanced solutions that cause male head scratching. Has less free time after work because they are doing the work promoting human flourishing. And changes their real name because that is what a super hero does to protect their real identity and have a few moments of peace.
“Biological sex in humans is a bimodal spectrum, not a strict binary. This has been well understood for decades. “
Ok, I agree with the first sentence but feel the second sentence needs some nuance. Well understood by who? I’m guessing the who are scientists who are well versed in the science of genetics as it applies to sex identification and statistics.
Unfortunately most of the people arguing about this do not fit within this group. Thus, there is so much noise in the spaces where this issue is discussed that is not driven by sound science but by ideology. A compounding problem is that many scientist who know some science sometimes feel emboldened to opine in different areas of science for which they know little. As a great example, Sabine Hossenfelder has a new podcast about how she lost trust in scientist. That follows a n earlier podcast about a physicist who is a climate change denier. In the lost trust podcast she makes the point of trusting data, math and logic. I go further and believe “TRUST” no one. Trust an argument by the scientist but only if supported by data, analysis and is logical. But trust itself is not binary but probabilistic.
In regard to the second sentence, things are often known within scientific circles long before the public becomes aware of it.
You are right, too many people seem to think that something didn't exist before they became aware of it. Then they Dunning-Kruger the issue and make up shit drawing from other things they are aware of combined with things they fabricate with certainty. Doing things like that are great for solving problems, but not for injecting into politically fabricated issues.
I used to follow Sabine, then I began to see the cracks and the way she framed things. She seemed to take a much better approach toward the transgender issues, but even then, there are problems with her presentation. Rebecca Watson did a good breakdown of Sabine and the problems with her presentation of the studies she cherry picks. The thing is Sabine is a physicist, not a biologist. She doesn't stay in her lane, which turns into the Appeal to Expertise logical fallacy. She is a scientist that speaks for all science. That's bad. You wouldn't want a tax lawyer representing you in a criminal case, or a pediatrist performing open heart surgery.
As a skeptic first (humanist always), I follow the evidence, regardless of expertise. I'll trust an expert, but evidence reigns supreme. For everyone else, my motto is if it's important, they're lying unless they can prove otherwise. That's why I say things are "consplained" to me, because conservatives tell me things. One example of a coworker consplaining to me is Johns-Hopkins stopping gender transition surgeries because all people who underwent surgery were more unhappy afterward than before. At that time, I didn't know anything about the situation. However, I did use my old University login to bypass paywalls to get to the original "study" (yeah, after 60 years, it's still behind a paywall). It was closer to a pilot study than anything comprehensive. It compared people's happiness with transitioning (about +3.1) to people who eventually opted against transition surgery (about +2.6). (I don't recall the actual numbers, but it wasn't too far from these.) Paul McHugh, a christian psychiatrist with an agenda, used the study to justify shutting down gender transition treatment. The problem with the study to me is comparing two self-selecting groups against each other. Both groups were happy with their choice. What he didn't do was compare the before and after for each patient, like very other study about patient happiness with their surgery.
This same coworker yelled in my face for five minutes in front of everyone at work. In defense of Bill Cosby. I let him rail at me (the Gish Gallup, his favorite tactic) until he ran out of steam. Having been publicly and thoroughly shamed in front of everyone and put in my place, I said, "I don't know about all of that, but I do know that he admitted it in his unsealed deposition." He was stunned. He just mumbled, "I don't know about that," as he crawled back to his desk. One thing I didn't realize until years later, not one of my coworkers intervened in any way, so much for work place violence prevention training.
No one is misgendering her, she can call herself a woman. We are asking if it's fair for someone born xy with male levels of testosterone to box against xx women. Her own trainer admitted she's not xx. https://archive.ph/Nrnw0 XY women are represented in elite sports at 140x their rate in the general population. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25137421/ (consider that 2 of them won golds in Olympic boxing this year)
She appears to have 5α-reductase deficiency like Caster Semenya. The majority of people with this condition (57%) transition to male despite being ID'd as female at birth, so in all likelihood, if she was born in a progressive country instead of backwards Algeria she'd choose male for her gender as well.
PS - insisting sex is defined by what genitalia one has is the most transphobic thing I've read on this thread.
Thanks for pointing this out (as well as the two Joes - Joe King and RegularJoe). Being a little more awake (after a 12-hour night shift), I can see the full gist of the OPs comment.
I suspect you may be right, but we have no idea what the real reason the IBA banned her for. They claim they can't say for "privacy" reasons, but didn't hesitate going onto Russian news stations to say that's why they banned her AFTER she beat Russian boxers.
Assigning sex: I used to think that way, but when I read up on intersex people (read: Intersex and Identity), it's more like the observation informs the assignment. In cases where it's ambiguous (large clit or micropenis?), which happens way more often than we would think, they have to pick a gender. And in the cases of babies with DSD, they assign a sex and advise operating. They most often pick girl because it's "easier to make a hole than a pole."
The baby - yes, baby - is operated on and subjected to numerous follow-on operations to keep them up with typical development. Parents were told to not tell the child why. This created a sense of isolation because they soon observe that none of their peers are having a bunch of operations and they wonder what is wrong with them.
All in the name of making them acceptable to society.
The right is not outraged at performing gender operations on babies who can't grant consent (and parents will follow the doctor's misguided advice), but they claim to be worried about teens trying to figure themselves out getting puberty blockers (which is 95% reversible).
True, indeed. I hope you didn't think I was trying to say that she is intersex, sorry if I gave that impression. I was mainly talking about intersex. Imame could be intersex, but there's been no official diagnosis. If she is genetically XY, then it's possibility she has some form of DSD (there's about 5 or 6 different types of DSD), but still speculation. If she is, then 1) her condition is perfectly natural, and, 2) she is not transgender like all the transvestigators and POS JKR claim.
Thanks, Sean. I didn't assume you were arguing for her being intersex. My problem with all of this sort of speculation is that the original claim for her being trans was baseless. The Russian judge publicly claimed she has XY chromosomes without providing any sort of evidence, let alone reliable, verifiable evidence.
Any effort to 'explain' why his claim *might* be true gives credence to an assertion that was made without evidence. It should be refuted in the same way. The burden of proof lies with the liar who made it, not with Imane nor any of us to substantiate it.
I agree wholeheartedly. When I do speculate, I try to make sure to insert "maybe" in my speculation. The problem is transvestigators, like POS JKR and her sycophant TERFs, who are deeply afflicted with Dunning-Kruger marinated bias confirmation. They're too stupid realize how dumb they are, and they don't care what kind of damage they cause.
On what basis? He gave an interview to the French publication, Le Point. It’s been picked up by other outlets. It’s behind a paywall and is in French, but some generous soul on Twitter paid for it and used Google’s Translate to English. You’ll note that this particular trainer regards Imane as a woman and has only positive things to say about her. I suspect that what he revealed about her chromosomes and testosterone level was somewhat unwitting.
If you disagree with anything in the interview, I’d appreciate you explaining your reasoning. Otherwise, it’s just comes off like “la la la la I can’t hear you!”
I think it's a basic philosophical mistake to assume there is a One True Definition of the word "sex", treating it as a "natural kind" in the essentialist philosophical sense, as opposed to just understanding it as a useful category defined by humans, akin to "planet" (picking that example because astronomers recently redefined it in a way that excluded Pluto, it would sound silly to argue they could be objectively 'right' or 'wrong' in their choice of definition). Dawkins once understood that essentialist attitudes about any scientific categories (like 'species') are confused: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25366
One way of thinking about why essentialism makes little sense is that the behavior of all natural systems is thought to be ultimately reducible to basic laws of physics, and these laws make no reference to any higher-level categories outside of eg fundamental particle types. So, scientists should understand that all categories outside physics are just useful ways of conceptually grouping together similar patterns of matter/energy, and the choice of which categories are more useful may depend on the context (see Daniel Dennett's "Real Patterns" paper at https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-zenon-pylyshyn/class-info/FP2012/FP2012_readings/Dennett_RealPatterns.pdf particularly his analogy starting on p. 37 with named patterns in a cellular automaton called "The Game of Life" where the underlying behavior of the cells is based on the simple rules described at https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life which make no reference to larger-scale patterns such as the "gliders" described at https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Glider ...this point is also discussed at length in the book "The Big Picture" by physicist Sean Carroll, which argues for an underlying objective description of reality in terms of physics and understanding higher-level descriptions as having a more 'poetic' sort of reality).
In the context of evolutionary biology specifically, it's useful to define sex in terms of gametes because all other forms of sexual dimorphism are understood in terms of different reproductive strategies that were selected for based on whether the individual has large or small gametes. But if you're dealing with some other area of biology, like trying to understand the development of various sexually dimorphic characteristics in the fetus, it may be useful to have a different more spectrum-like definition to reflect the fact that we can talk about hormones having a "masculinizing" or "feminizing" effect on many different body parts, in some cases going in a different direction than the gametes.
Thanks for the response. Well put. I enjoyed reading it.
I think part of the problem is people conflate "conceptual" with "perceptual." Race is a concept based on perceived physical traits. Gender (and hence social roles) is a concept based on perceived physical traits. Slavery was concept deemed natural based on perceived physical traits and/or nationality. Men conceived women as inferior based on religious doctrine, until evolution supplanted it (yes, Darwin used evolution to justify patriarchal misogyny - he was a product of his time). We could at least perceive evolution.
I have great respect for Dennett, much more than I ever will have for Dawkins. As I've said elsewhere, Dawkins' anti-trans rants is why I left CFI. The organization is nothing like what Carl Sagan helped found.
"About 7 to 8 percent of patients with vaginal agenesis have a less common condition called androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS). These patients have a normal female appearance, but lack a vagina, cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries."
Please read my response in it's entirety, because I want you to be well-informed when you talk about this. I'm more than willing to clarify anything and point you to credible resources based on science and evidence.
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Reality is more nuanced than that. Are women (XX) who don't have ovaries female? When a woman has her ovaries removed, say because of cancer, is she still a female? Or does she become male?
Analogous to that (imperfectly, of course) are sex and gender.
The chromosomes are the physical layer upon which everything else is based.
From this comes hormones (estrogen, testosterone - and others) and the gametes, a different layer.
Then there are the physiological traits, or secondary sexual characteristics: genitals, appearance (masculine, feminine), hip size, breasts, etc.
Moving up layers, there is the presentation layer: gender/sex associated clothing (dress for female and priests, pants for men), hair length (in the West, short for men, long for women).
Then at the application layer, there's gender/sex associated toys, activities, and work.
All of this will determine the person's role in society, which will affect pay, reputation, status, and how they are treated.
People with DSD (Differences in Sexual Development), aka Intersex (the I in LGBTQIA+), develop, as the name implies, differences from the typically expected development.
There are several different DSD conditions. The one I'm most familiar with is AIS, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. AIS is a genetic condition which causes the body to not respond to testosterone. So a zygote with XY chromosomes will develop along the typical "female" path. This can be complete (CAIS) or partial (PAIS). Complete means the body does not respond to testosterone at all and when born will have all of the secondary physical sexual characteristics of a female, and develop as a typical woman. She will be assigned female at birth, based on what's outside, not inside. She might or might not have a uterus, ovaries, or vagina. She may also not experience a menstrual cycle. It's entirely possible for a woman with CAIS to never discover that she has DSD. PAIS results in a wide array of physical traits. She could have a large clitoris, or a micro-penis. The doctor has to make a determination on what gender to assign the baby.
For more information on how gender/sex is bimodal (bunching up at at two ends - imagine a barbell) and not binary (one of the other), here's a pretty good article to read that based on science:
The OSI model? That's an obscure comparison. There are probably more biologists who understand what you're trying to convey than CS majors and IT network folks that understand the OSI model.
You bring up a lot of good points. I could go on (I have, but I cut it), but I'll spare you.
Yes it is possible for a person to have XX chromosomes and a male phenotype. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development). There's like over thirty known ways for DSD to manifest, and even more ways genetics can be variable (XXX, XXY, XX), and even mosaic ism(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45,X/46,XY_mosaicism), where a person has at least two different sets of genes. If you have XX and XY, then who do you compete against?
The main problem isn't fairness, it's the politicizing and demonizing of people for their differences for (in this instance) right-wing christian agenda. This is a manifestation of a much larger and more insidious issue: Privilege.
Privilege (aka benefit or advantage) seeks to keep itself manifest. People with privilege don't want a "level paying field." If things are made equal, people with privilege claim they are being harmed. It's like in the movie The Incredibles, when Syndrome says, "...when everyone's super ... no one will be." That's like saying, "When everyone has money, then no one has money." And in a capitalist society where everyone is competition, who want to compete against a 1,000 people for a job when the system already reduces that number to 10?
Society says it wants fairness, but it actually practices privilege.
What discussion needs to be had? Some people are born with a Disorder of Sex Development, but all DSDs are sex-specific and affect either males or females. Everyone is either male or female, including people with DSDs. Yes, even ones with DSDs that result in ambiguous genitalia, which in some instances require a chromosomal test to determine sex.
In Khelif’s case, he is male but likely has 5-ARD. His chromosomes are XY, just like the IBA found when they tested him in two different, independent, CAS-accredited labs.
One of his trainers explained the situation in an interview two days ago. It’s now being picked up by other outlets. The trainer’s name is Georges Cazorla.
It’s embarrassing to read the OP and all the credulous comments agreeing, about how sad and shameful it is that Dawkins has gotten biology so wrong.
I have to have a “relevant degree” to merely be *informed* on current events? Yikes. Guess I’ll keep this to myself then, and let you find out some other way.
I fear for Khelif's life for when she returns to her home country. Dawkins, Rowling, and other are accusing her of being a man for being good at her job.
Imane’s initially observed “female” genitalia (internal testes) plus subsequent male puberty - in a wholly and dangerously intolerant society- caused his parents to encourage excellence in a female sport.
As a “way out”.
As a way to be “celebrated” despite obvious sex/gender expression confusion.
The very same people claiming this boxer is transgender are also the same people claiming, just a week before, the opening ceremony was a direct attack on their messiah. They have no issue assuming Jesus turned blue but not that a woman can look like her without somehow being a man. They are being told what to think and what to get angry about and they accept it without question. And they claim that using weird against them, the independent thinkers of the world (yeah right), is akin to using the n word.
They’re weird, Dawkins is weird, the whole situation is weird. Anytime a woman excels at something, she’s cast as a man. Especially if she’s a woman of color. It’s almost like men cannot accept that women are people and they are not inferior and the mediocrity of men of privilege isn’t the pinnacle of humanity.
Dawkins, a once-respected figure in New Atheism, one of the Four Horsemen even, has devolved over the last few years into a conspiracy-spewing bigot. Maybe he and Rowling suffer from the same black mold disease. Whatever the case, any story about trans folk, or alleged trans folk, causes his brain to glitch, even to the point of elevating Russian disinformation.
It's astonishing that he calls for 'civilized argument' in response to the baseless vitriol he posts. He made his name countering the false claims of religion with logic and evidence, yet now he's willing to repeat any damn thing he hears, without bothering to check the facts, if it aligns with his bigotry. Sad to see a brilliant career come to such an ignoble end, but Dawkins has no one to blame but himself.
They were always self-aggrandizing pricks who took a very traditionalist stance in academic virtue signaling, rather than making cogent arguments for…much of anything.
Even his meme theory was things psychology and sociology had worked with for literal decades and he just repackaged and sold as his own.
His sole, honest, claim to fame is being an outspoken atheist in a time it was still borderline taboo to out himself publicly in acadmemia - that still heavily drinks from its roots in the Catholic and Protestant churches.
It's become more and more clear to me that the whole business of sex and gender needs INFINITELY more study than has been rendered to it to this date. Everything from Christine Jorgensen to Imane Khalif tells me that there's more to what gives rise to our individual physiologies than an XX or XY chromosome in our 23rd pair. I"m not even a biologist and I can see that.
Why Dawkins can't, I don't know, and considering the value that he brought to the understanding of atheism, this blind spot of his astonishes me.
Maybe she's [wiki headache inducing lookup] 'XY gonadal dysgenesis' or one of the other myriad examples of the serious complications of this issue as you perceptively point out. It's an issue that should not be used as a political football or club and I'm sick of it especially as coming from the right wing religious fanatics that stems from their idea that their god doesn't make mistakes--barf! We really don't know enough yet to figure out how best to deal with a lot of this stuff. One thing's for sure and I can't repeat enough is that if they want to yell about biological sex determines gender then they have to stop calling that god of theirs a 'he'.
Here's the problem with all this kind of talk: it assumes the original, evidence-free allegation has some merit, and therefore people need to search for a 'reason' that Imane Khalif is tall, strong, and brilliant at what she does. You know, other than that she works hard, very hard, trains well, and performs better than anyone else in her sport.
Unless someone provides actual evidence, verifiable and from a reliable source, that there is, in fact, something to 'explain', there's no need for us to look for explanations.
As Christopher Hitchens once said: "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
Claiming that Khelif is actually trans, or intersex, as an excuse to disqualify her from a competition, absent any evidence supporting- and absent any evidence that even if she was, that her biology would have given her an unfair advantage, which has absolutely not been demonstrated either- is 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 the same as claiming there is a god without backing it up. We dismiss the one; why not dismiss the other for the same reason? The source is not credible and the claim is unsupported. There's no meat on the bone to even speculate about. There's not even a bone for there to be any meat 𝘰𝘯.
Khalif is the world athlete the world rejects. Yet she is a female with superpowers. She should be the record to aspire to since she is a living example of how varied in abilities females are. Marvel at what biological evolution can do. It is like in the movie 'Unbreakable' where evolution is shown to operate at the far tail of a normal curve. Producing, species relative, life with superior constitutions and strange ones. We'll need them both to ward off extinction.
If you look at women from different sports fields, their bodies - just like male bodies - develop, through training and exercise, to give them an advantage in that sport. Runners develop long, lean muscle mass. Boxers develop strong legs and upper bodies. Swimmers are often tall and have incredibly large shoulders. Gymnasts have thighs that could crack walnuts. IOW, not all female bodies conform to the S I swimsuit issue mold.
We should be celebrating the diversity of women instead of making false claims that some of them 'look male' so they must be trans.
Hitch was far from perfect but every time Dawkins or Fry says some bullshit these days I'm so glad he died before he reached this level of desperation.
Just go by their own theologians who almost universally, I think?, claim that god is immaterial and therefore can't POSSIBLY be biological so QED. I've been trying to never use he/him but always it/it's but it's hard to change too many decades of habit. If they want to insist gender is the same as biological sex then they have to stop using he/him.
Or, you experience a karmic meaningful coincidence and your day ends with a happy ending. Sublime answers are best since we tend to reject an in your face answer. We can't handle the full frontal truth but if exposed to it realize it lacks whole truth.
I prefer calling the deity ze. Ze is a person, not an object. One of possibly no sex or at least indeterminate sex. And I don't really want to see zirs genitalia.
Heureusement que dawkins est un scientifique qui sait de quoi il parle...
You know what else I see ? Two non-white women targeted by the president, of an association, who is from a notorious racist country. I am sure it's just a coincidence.
I first reached that conclusion with Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptic Society. He also started in on the anti-trans rant. He did an "analysis" of the language of Walsh's pseudo-documentary "What is a woman?" (As if people are merely just a few words.) Not one single comment in Shermer's substack actually talked about his tripe. It was all right-wing, anti-trans BS. The only thing that mattered to him was getting responses, not the content. That's when I left the Skeptic Society.
I run in several skeptic circles, listen to a lot of skeptic podcasts, watch a lot of skeptic videos, and no one mentions him, except once to call him a sexual predator (several students have leveled allegations at him, and there is a very credible story about a particular incident). Shermer is irrelevant within the community outside of the Skeptic Society, which should really be called the Shermer Society.
Dawkins was arguably much more prominent than Shermer, and has lost a lot of "street cred" (self-inflicted). So he's gone the same way as Shermer. They're both after clicks to reinforce their narcissism; skepticism and critical thinking are just branding, nothing more. In the case of Dawkins, he's a board member of CFI, which also promotes free thinking and secular humanism. Two things very important to me. As a humanist, people matter. Transpeople, one of the most marginalized and attacked people, need our support. They are extremely vulnerable, suffer higher rates of depression and suicide, and are more likely to lose their entire social support structure for being who they are.
Dawkins and Shermer lack the empathy and humanity to have compassion for transpeople. They cannot equate being attacked for being atheists to being attacked for being trans. What matters is to them is the strawman argument of "you can't change your sex" (chromosomes). That's a very elitist, ivory tower view of reality. I think they believe they care, but it's just hollow words.
Shermer wrote that intelligent people are better are rationalizing their irrationality. Ironically, he's demonstrating it.
Pretty misogynist to equate the difference in male and female athletes to the difference between a cheetah and a man.
And this is who Dawkins has always been. He's older, his filters are going, and he has access to social media so it's more obvious, but he was always an asshole.
What brought the transphobes here today? Is it because a well-known atheist is a transphobe or a well-known author is a transphobe or because the transphobe community is having a gigantic melt down over a female boxer? All I know is if you’re a transphobe you are probably a shitty human being about other people’s identities as well.
I wish I could figure out what the masochistic impulse is that keeps me responding to him on LGBT issues. He knows it's wrong to be anti-LGBT, but can't help supporting homo/transphobes whenever the subject comes up.
Some are a combo of transphobes and dawkins' groupies. It's tame compared to the number of trolls every negative mention of saint dawkins usually bring.
$3.41 and some pocket lint says they're waiting for the off hours, or for the next post to go up, so they can drive-by post without immediately getting pounced on by us locals.
Do you really think anyone who doesn't believe a conspiracy theory that the IBA faked a chromosome test to punish a boxer who beat a Russian athelete, a theory that has no proof, is a transphobe?
From a boxer, who has followed the drama in boxing long before everyone got excited about it this year.
The IBA is easily the most corrupt organization in a very corrupt sport, and it’s not remotely the first time they’ve done similar. that’s why Russian athletes (whom they sanction matches of) have such a difficult time being respected anywhere else.
Because the bar set by the IBA is completely dependent on the whims of the IBA.
Literally the only organizations that will work with the IBA are ones that are functional appendant bodies of it. And it’s been that way for a very, very long time.
They’re not the group you want to champion as any sort of arbiter of fact. They live in their own little bubble of make-believe, and aren’t above DQing a fighter that beats one of their golden kids, or stands a very good chance to.
If it came from any legitimate body, I’d give a shit. The IBA is not such an organization. And anyone who’s followed the sport internationally for more than a few months is aware of that.
Dawkins is a biologist. This should be his lane. But he's decided to forget everything, or intentionally misinterpreted everything he's learned to justify his transphobia.
Um, we do see the reality. That's why we're siding with the 'Resistance'. Typical conservative. Try to use popular culture to make your argument relevant and fail miserably by demonstrating you don't understand popular culture.
In all those cases the resistance were looking to overturn the fascist status quo Musk is fighting to maintain. He is the oligarch the resistance, from the emerald mines he got his money from to the disaster he is at running Twitter.
Dawkins is the reason I left CFI. I used to respect him. He f'd up when he went after Rebecca, but at least he issued something that could arguably be considered a type of half-apology (Rebecca is the arbiter of that value of that). Michael Shermer is the reason I left the Skeptic Society.
Both have jumped on the anti-trans bandwagon. I think in order to remain (Dawkins) or regain (Shermer) relevance (as measured in attention and thus converted to money), and the right is very much into outrage (for all their calling everyone else snowflake). This is called grift. It works well for Alex Jones. (I never thought I'd lump those two people in with Alex Jones.)
The problem, or part of the problem for there are many, is too many people on the right can't distinguish been anger that brings discernment (and seeks a resolution to make it go away) and anger that only seeks to fuel itself into bonfire*. They seek the thrill of righteous retribution. It's a drug to these people. It's why movies like Taken are so successful. But it's really about maintaining the high of the rage. I suspect it grants people (meaning anyone), a sense of empowerment in a world that is pretty much outside our control.
*Or as a friend who deep into Anne Rice's witch novel said, "Torrents of flame"
There are a few things where I just can’t understand the level of vitriol. The hatred (I do think that is the right word) of Hillary Clinton in 2016 is one. I had conversations with relatives who were just short of frothing at the mouth as they expressed their animosity toward her. And the hatred directed toward transfolk is another. I can grok that some people are bothered by it and I think I understand their (stupid) reasons. But some people are, again, almost frothing at the mouth about something that quite literally affects them not one bit. I don’t get that.
A long time ago, I had a girlfriend whose ex-husband had gender dysphoria syndrome and went through the complete transition. My friend dealt with that process by writing a considerable paper, describing that process and her reaction to it, and she was good enough to share that with me. Her observations went a long way toward allowing me to understand at least some of what goes on with a trans person and the necessity of recognizing the impact of that individual's mindset as well as their physiology.
Somehow, I get it. I wish I knew why Dawkins doesn't.
Because he's not interested, he doesn't *want* to.
Exactly.
Because Dawkins thinks he's right, always. About everything.
And pay no attention to real research real truth. To him 2+2=5.
When it suits him.
Yeah, he thinks he is right about no god too.
On that, he's correct. Extraordinary claims like 'there is a god' require extraordinary proof, none of which has ever been provided. On his current claim, however, he's dropped that standard of proof in favor of any rumor, innuendo, or unsubstantiated assertion that supports his bigoted view. It's sad to see a once towering figure reduced to spewing hateful, hurtful, lies about a young woman athlete.
Dawkins has closed his mind on the subject of gender fluidity. He mentally masturbates over a biological truth that most humans with either a XX or XY sex germ are, respectively, female or male. Yet he closes himself off the to 'flow' or range of how XX or XY is constructed during the maturation process. Some females are flooded with testosterone, but their body will not process it. A high testosterone female could be disqualified from competition because of it. Some males maturate female anatomy without a uterus or eggs and would be considered a female until a genetic test reveled their XY trait. The 'flow' of a process is killed when frozen.
There are also cases of people with XY chromosomes giving birth. So... there's that. One would expect a career scientist to be capable of finding the first bloody result in a Google search: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/
He lost his ability to marvel at the marvel flowing around us all.
Because he don't want to get it. Also he loves the positive feedback from his fellow haters.
🎯Bullseye, so does that terf that wrote the books about Hogwarts
There is a trans-woman on YouTube – a site called "Philosophy Tube" who pretty much takes you through the whole thing. If you have anyone who needs instruction as it were. She also has some interesting philosophy tubes as well. :)
If you go with the idea that outrage is moral, and more outrage is more moral, than outdoing your neighbor in outrage is a way of demonstrating superior morality.
i never thought of this "perspective", it seems so unreasonable.
Hillary Clinton’s hatred was earned. I say this as someone who voted for her to be Senator in New York and then watched her do absolutely nothing but use the position as a platform for advancement into national politics. She earns the hatred every time she responds to people with vitriolic, demeaning comments—which happens quite often.
I’m sorry you feel that way. I have other first hand information about her —actually second hand—telling me good things about her:
1. When Bill and Hillary, while still president, made a visit to Motorola to learn about semi-conductors and other tech, my sister, a top exec at Motorola, was the one who spent the day with them, showing them around and explaining things. I got a report about the visit and how gracious Hillary was. In fact Hillary maintained—if I remember this correctly—contact for some time.
2. I was an expert witness for JAG, Marine Corps colonel who was the top legal command in Iraq. He told that during a photo shop visit by several politicians, she was the ONLY one that came over to him without cameras and asked what he needed to do his job better. With notebook and pen she made a list and two weeks later he received everything.
Those who served with her in government have said she was the most knowledgeable and capable person they served with.
So, you must have voted for Trump. I’ll keep my comments to myself about that.
Hillary was very competent. She also made some very stupid choices. I like her as a person, having met her a few times. But she wasn't the right candidate for that time, for a variety of reasons.
Finding the warmonger Hillary to be a corporate tool. In no way translates to supporting trump. The fact you automatically went there shows abandonment of reason for emotional purposes.
You just could not resist putting in that last line! Cute. You know what they say about assumptions, Jim. Life-long Democrat, an anti Trumper from day one here. My red line is genocide, though. I will never vote for a politician who has voted to fund a genocide. Jill Stein will get my vote. If Trump wins, it will be in on the Democrats rather than third party voters.
As much as I appreciate the ideology, this isn't a thought experiment in philosophy class. We have a very simple choice between exactly two options: You either want to see Trump become POTUS or you don't. A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump. Period. Please do let us know when you're not longer a Trumper.
A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump… Harris has nothing to do with Hillary, whom I don’t like very much either. She and the DNC screwed Bernie out of his nomination.
Hell yeah. No support for genocide!!!!
Hey remember when Hillary’s husband was closely associated with the head of a pedophile sex trafficker with a global network catering to influential elites and she made a public statement about it to draw attention to a major issue before divorcing her husband for repetitively being a deviant sexual predator?
Yeah, me neither.
And when Hillary went all out to destroy the women her husband raped because it was important to her ambitions?
When was Bill convicted of rape? 🤔
These relatives live in west Texas and got their news from Rush Limbaugh. I'm not discounting what you say but I doubt my relatives had much of that info at hand.
She rarely does so without the recipient earning it first, she has never suffered fools.
Recipients like the women get husband raped and were suddenly an impediment to her ambitions??
I don't remember reading about her husband's rape conviction.....🤔
Probably because the woman who claimed it was so crazy the republicans wouldn't even use her as a witness. She claimed they killed her cat, too.
In other words Hillary Clinton is just like all of us who leverage their advantage for their own self interest. Though being mean to others just makes them seem deserving of hatred. Dog and most folks realize being 'nice' is highly adaptive. Don't believe me? Go pet a wolf.
Translation: “I’m a shit human being who engages in predatory behavior and because I am, I think everyone else is too.”
Malignantly useless predators who consider themselves in balance with the world, but rarely are.
Sure and she used her outsized influence to promote war and corporate interests because she perceived it as being in her interests.
No, Bill, we do not all act in our own self interest. You obviously do—you have no shame in admitting it here.
While it might ease your conscience to think everyone else feels the same as you, many are not adjusting their moral compass for personal benefit.
Plus she loves war and is utterly rabid about slaughtering Palestinian babies.
Sure, Jan. 🙄
I think it's misogyny – conscious or unconscious. Women politicians get more, worse and different abuse to men. Jacinda Ardern went from hero to zero in a split second and by god the abuse was shocking even to me.
Bingo! they both got smeared incessently by the right wingers hateriots, and our mainstream media happily repeated every smear, ad nauseum, amplifying it beyond rationale. Until it leaks into otherwise rational brains.
There's plenty to despise regardless of her sex.
Perhaps, but much of what you seem to despise is simply practical politics. Leaving aside the emotional language do you think any American president is going to be elected if they abandon support for Israel and transfer that support to Palestinians. Admittedly it's something they should maybe do, but that would be red meat to Fox news and Newsmax. And as she said to the pro-Palestinian protesters "Do you want Donald Trump?" In your two-party system, it's always the lesser of two evils.
Sounds like you are now referring to Kamala. Yes, I will vote for her, just as I voted for Hillary. I disagree with your red meat reasoning though. Fox and Newsmax will attack anything to their left. They are criticizing her laugh and calling Walz Tampon Tim. The real problem with unwavering support of the far right Israeli government is foreign and corporate money in politics. Most American politicians, whether dem or republican nazi, can be bought. I can only think of a handful that are not.
If you do not live in a “purple” state. Vote Jill Stein. Your vote will not be counted in any case anyway. Might as well vote your conscience. (Purple states are a tougher calc).
A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump. There's no 'calc', it's truly a binary choice this cycle.
You might want to read what you just said. You said supporting mass slaughter of babies and genocide is just the price to pay to be in US politics. That’s far too high a price. What if supporting Hitler was a prereq? Would you excuse that? There are ethical politicians like Jill Stein out there. Support them if you don’t think sacrificing babies is a legitimate price to pay. Or join the Nazis.
1. They are not babies.
2. No one is required to support Hitler.
3. This is nonsense.
Do you really believe they have not slaughtered thousands of babies. Or are you simply on board with Hitler's "if you wanna tell a lie, tell a big one and people will believe"?
God i thought open support for genocide was dead. But there you go.
Sure, Jan. 🙄
Agreed about women politicians being judged more harshly. That is because make politicians get far more latitude than they should not because the judgement on eomen is undeserved. It’s like how not being afraid you will be murdered by a cop is labeled “privilege”. No minorities are treated horrifically. It is not privilege to expect human decency from public servants.
Freedom from Fear certainly is a privilege in the US. I know far too many people who don't have that Freedom simply because of the color of their skin or their gender or their religion. Many minorities are indeed treated horrifically.
And while they grok that someone with an opposing policy or opinion is deserving of their level of vitriol. They would be happy if said someone was disincorporated in front of their very eyes.
My heart is troubled by all that is going on surrounding this athlete. I cannot imagine my gender being discussed so publicly and everyone weighing in, like it's some kind of abstract concept being debated. This is a HUMAN BEING. With feelings, emotions, personality, people they love etc. A fellow human. Not a concept, not a theory. How people shut their brain off and go all clinical is beyond me and it distresses me that we are so cruel to each other.
I agree, to have total strangers judging her identity, for no good reason other than a corrupt Russian athletic judge with major ties to Putin, said so, with no basis. It defies belief. And Dawkins, and that horrible TERF making a fool of herself about it as usual.
The women being punched by her are human beings too. Including the one that claimed she had never been hit so hard in her life.
Her own trainer admitted she is not xx. https://archive.ph/Nrnw0 She likely has 5α-reductase deficiency like Caster Semenya. The majority of these people transition to male (however she cannot being from backwards Algeria)
Seems reasonable to have a discussion is this should be allowed in boxing.
It is reasonable for the experts, who studied the actual facts, and are familiar with scientific reality of it. The social media speculation, and reports there, are often are done by hateful people, who make up things to justify their hatred of trans persons, which she is not. Even the Italian boxer opponent, said she had reacted badly, and was sorry for all the hatred she had helped to come up.
You put it so well. Especially should disregard what a shitty novelist has to say about gender. I feel perhaps they are under qualified....🤔
Thank you! I don't like all the concern trolling thyhat is to say, acting like they care, about her, when they obviously don't.
Their lives lack happiness so they must find persons, or groups to hate, to make themselves superior (in their own mind, anyway.) Belonging to hate-groups makes them part of a community.
Hating others makes them happy.
I can chime in on the former, though I don't see how it's relevant. Hillary is a war hawk - Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, to name but a few. She, along with the DNC, rigged the primary against Bernie. She still blames him (and everyone else) for her loss despite him endorsing her after she cheated him. She is condescending. That includes the deplorables comment. She seems fake (Pokemon comment) and said she can't relate to non-rich people. Shall I go on?
You can go on but none of that would have mattered to my Republican relatives who loved Rush L.
In general, the hatred of which I spoke for her was on the right. I knew lots of Dems who didn’t like her but hated? Naw.
I figured that. I was just pointing out that many people on the left hate / dislike her as well for different reasons. Reasons that are valid.
Is your hatred for her on a par with that of other war hawk Dems? Or do/did you hate HRC over and above other Dems?
I resent your insinuation that I'm sexist because I dislike Hillary. It's the type of thing someone says when they have no true defense. Marianne Williamson was my preferred candidate for 2024.
I insinuated nothing. I asked a straightforward question.
True defense of what? I had no need to defend anything.
I hate all war hawks, whether Bush or Hillary. War crimes are war crimes. I do have particular disdain for the DNC and Hillary. It has nothing to do with her genitalia, if that's what you are insinuating. See my comment explaining their plans to label Bernie an atheist as revealed by Wikileaks.. However, I did, of course, vote for her over Trump. That's a no brainer. One must choose the less bad option.
Bullshit.
Care to elaborate? What is BS?
Sure. We are in a fight to save this country from authoritarian rule and you are here talking divisive shit from a past election
What are you, a Russian, Chinese or Iranian agent just spreading bullshit to be devisive?
Everything I said is factual. The OP is the one that brought up Hillary. Plenty of people on the left do not like her for reasons I provided. This has virtually nothing to do with the 2024 election.
LOL. So your responses are - BS and I'm a Russian, Chinese, or Iranian agent. That is beyond intellectually lazy.
Ok. I’m not going to ask you support your “facts” because Frankly I do not give a damn. I thought this site was about atheism and not petty political laundry. Therefore, I’ll just unsubscribe and leave for you and others that want to air their political bullshit.
I’m trying to experience the joy so adios.
Have a heart. She explained she left the Whitehouse practically broke with only 12 million dollars and a guaranteed 250k per speech to her name.
I almost forgot to include that she supports the genocide of Gazans.
Oh please, there is no hatred in Dawkin's post. He's merely pointing out that she is XY competing against xx. Despite Hemant's lies. This is true. (See her own trainer admit it right here. https://archive.ph/Nrnw0
Nonsense. He is stating as a fact that she is male. People with xy have had babies. That is not determinative. And he is supposed to be a genetic scientist. He has abandoned science for hate.
How the fuck does a once respected biologist get biology so wrong?
he got it exactly right. Imane has XY chromosomes and likely a DSD that got him to appear female at birth.
The writer of this article isn't very good at biology if he thinks that sex is assigned at birth. It's merely observed.
Biological sex is assigned at birth by what is observed. To insist that an individual is 100% male solely due to the presence of a Y chromosome in their genotype is an ignorant oversimplification at best and willfully dishonest at worst. Biological sex in humans is a bimodal spectrum, not a strict binary. This has been well understood for decades.
Gender is ALSO not a binary, but a bimodal spectrum. It is also not the same thing as biological sex. This has been obvious for millennia. There are many cultures, past and present, that recognize more than the two genders insisted upon by the American far right.
Ms Khelif was observed to be and assigned female at birth. She identifies as a woman. She has done very well in her sport this Olympics, but she has been defeated by other women in the past. There is nothing to prevent her from being defeated by another woman in the future. To misgender her as you have done is just plain rude. Begone, troll!
I had one dipshit consplain* to me (on Michael Shermer's substack) that gametes were the sole determinant of sex. He referenced the glossary of a biology textbook ('cause, you know, the other 500 pages were useless). He even told me that anyone who can't give birth was not a woman. Yes, sterile cis-women were not women.
What is a woman? Anyone that covers her drink when you** approach.
* Conservatives tell me things
** Not you specifically, but that's the best response to right-wing idiots who ask the question.
𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛? 𝐴𝑛𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢** 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑎𝑐ℎ.
Perfect! Stealing for my own use. 😀
Please do. I stole it as well.
What if she has given birth but no longer can? Because that is all women at some point, menopause anyone. Then women like myself who needed a hysterectomy. I know women who needed one before they could have babies. Do women suddenly stop being women once they start having hot flashes?
All good and very valid questions. I didn't ask, it was pretty obvious the moron was only functioning as a bullshit regurgitator. I can spend way, way too much time going down rabbit holes, but even I have my limits.
"What is a woman?"
If someone claims to know, they can compete for "the biggest bullshitter" championship. I don't know, and from my biological signals I am one.
Here are a few indicators:
Someone who gets paid less for doing the same job.
Someone who's ideas are discarded until a man says the exact same thing.
Someone who has less free time after work.
The person who changes their last name when they get married.
This list is not all-inclusive.
Someone who covers their drink when J.D. Vance is close by.
Paid less, but doing a better job. More nuanced solutions that cause male head scratching. Has less free time after work because they are doing the work promoting human flourishing. And changes their real name because that is what a super hero does to protect their real identity and have a few moments of peace.
The last one is a tradition, not a legal obligation. At least in France and in some Asian countries.
Once the words "anyone who can't give birth is not a woman" came out of his mouth, everyone should have just stopped listening to this idiot.
Yes, but too many people use this to confirm their bias.
A covering action that roars - "leave me be".
WTF! Glad you attempted to parse that nonsense.
“Biological sex in humans is a bimodal spectrum, not a strict binary. This has been well understood for decades. “
Ok, I agree with the first sentence but feel the second sentence needs some nuance. Well understood by who? I’m guessing the who are scientists who are well versed in the science of genetics as it applies to sex identification and statistics.
Unfortunately most of the people arguing about this do not fit within this group. Thus, there is so much noise in the spaces where this issue is discussed that is not driven by sound science but by ideology. A compounding problem is that many scientist who know some science sometimes feel emboldened to opine in different areas of science for which they know little. As a great example, Sabine Hossenfelder has a new podcast about how she lost trust in scientist. That follows a n earlier podcast about a physicist who is a climate change denier. In the lost trust podcast she makes the point of trusting data, math and logic. I go further and believe “TRUST” no one. Trust an argument by the scientist but only if supported by data, analysis and is logical. But trust itself is not binary but probabilistic.
In regard to the second sentence, things are often known within scientific circles long before the public becomes aware of it.
You are right, too many people seem to think that something didn't exist before they became aware of it. Then they Dunning-Kruger the issue and make up shit drawing from other things they are aware of combined with things they fabricate with certainty. Doing things like that are great for solving problems, but not for injecting into politically fabricated issues.
I used to follow Sabine, then I began to see the cracks and the way she framed things. She seemed to take a much better approach toward the transgender issues, but even then, there are problems with her presentation. Rebecca Watson did a good breakdown of Sabine and the problems with her presentation of the studies she cherry picks. The thing is Sabine is a physicist, not a biologist. She doesn't stay in her lane, which turns into the Appeal to Expertise logical fallacy. She is a scientist that speaks for all science. That's bad. You wouldn't want a tax lawyer representing you in a criminal case, or a pediatrist performing open heart surgery.
As a skeptic first (humanist always), I follow the evidence, regardless of expertise. I'll trust an expert, but evidence reigns supreme. For everyone else, my motto is if it's important, they're lying unless they can prove otherwise. That's why I say things are "consplained" to me, because conservatives tell me things. One example of a coworker consplaining to me is Johns-Hopkins stopping gender transition surgeries because all people who underwent surgery were more unhappy afterward than before. At that time, I didn't know anything about the situation. However, I did use my old University login to bypass paywalls to get to the original "study" (yeah, after 60 years, it's still behind a paywall). It was closer to a pilot study than anything comprehensive. It compared people's happiness with transitioning (about +3.1) to people who eventually opted against transition surgery (about +2.6). (I don't recall the actual numbers, but it wasn't too far from these.) Paul McHugh, a christian psychiatrist with an agenda, used the study to justify shutting down gender transition treatment. The problem with the study to me is comparing two self-selecting groups against each other. Both groups were happy with their choice. What he didn't do was compare the before and after for each patient, like very other study about patient happiness with their surgery.
This same coworker yelled in my face for five minutes in front of everyone at work. In defense of Bill Cosby. I let him rail at me (the Gish Gallup, his favorite tactic) until he ran out of steam. Having been publicly and thoroughly shamed in front of everyone and put in my place, I said, "I don't know about all of that, but I do know that he admitted it in his unsealed deposition." He was stunned. He just mumbled, "I don't know about that," as he crawled back to his desk. One thing I didn't realize until years later, not one of my coworkers intervened in any way, so much for work place violence prevention training.
Right on, right on, right on.
No one is misgendering her, she can call herself a woman. We are asking if it's fair for someone born xy with male levels of testosterone to box against xx women. Her own trainer admitted she's not xx. https://archive.ph/Nrnw0 XY women are represented in elite sports at 140x their rate in the general population. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25137421/ (consider that 2 of them won golds in Olympic boxing this year)
She appears to have 5α-reductase deficiency like Caster Semenya. The majority of people with this condition (57%) transition to male despite being ID'd as female at birth, so in all likelihood, if she was born in a progressive country instead of backwards Algeria she'd choose male for her gender as well.
PS - insisting sex is defined by what genitalia one has is the most transphobic thing I've read on this thread.
This is so embarrassing.
Then stop embarrassing yourself.
There's been NO, ZERO, evidence produced to support the claim that Imane Khalif has XY chromosomes. NONE. Stop spreading misinformation.
Credible Citations Needed, miss.
Could you be so kind as to link to your source for this genetic information?
Note to self: read the thread - sources are cited below.
Thanks for pointing this out (as well as the two Joes - Joe King and RegularJoe). Being a little more awake (after a 12-hour night shift), I can see the full gist of the OPs comment.
I suspect you may be right, but we have no idea what the real reason the IBA banned her for. They claim they can't say for "privacy" reasons, but didn't hesitate going onto Russian news stations to say that's why they banned her AFTER she beat Russian boxers.
Assigning sex: I used to think that way, but when I read up on intersex people (read: Intersex and Identity), it's more like the observation informs the assignment. In cases where it's ambiguous (large clit or micropenis?), which happens way more often than we would think, they have to pick a gender. And in the cases of babies with DSD, they assign a sex and advise operating. They most often pick girl because it's "easier to make a hole than a pole."
The baby - yes, baby - is operated on and subjected to numerous follow-on operations to keep them up with typical development. Parents were told to not tell the child why. This created a sense of isolation because they soon observe that none of their peers are having a bunch of operations and they wonder what is wrong with them.
All in the name of making them acceptable to society.
The right is not outraged at performing gender operations on babies who can't grant consent (and parents will follow the doctor's misguided advice), but they claim to be worried about teens trying to figure themselves out getting puberty blockers (which is 95% reversible).
This topic comes up often enough on the SGU (https://www.theskepticsguide.org/) and there are some excellent articles on Science-Based Medicine (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/).
Edit: Biology is tangential to the article. It's about how Dawkins is a fucking moron and a liar.
However, in this case, there's no evidence that Imane is intersex either.
And which family in Algeria would choose to register a baby as a girl when he is or can be a boy ?
An excellent point. Why would her parents choose second class status for their child if they had evidence she is, in fact, a he.
True, indeed. I hope you didn't think I was trying to say that she is intersex, sorry if I gave that impression. I was mainly talking about intersex. Imame could be intersex, but there's been no official diagnosis. If she is genetically XY, then it's possibility she has some form of DSD (there's about 5 or 6 different types of DSD), but still speculation. If she is, then 1) her condition is perfectly natural, and, 2) she is not transgender like all the transvestigators and POS JKR claim.
Thanks, Sean. I didn't assume you were arguing for her being intersex. My problem with all of this sort of speculation is that the original claim for her being trans was baseless. The Russian judge publicly claimed she has XY chromosomes without providing any sort of evidence, let alone reliable, verifiable evidence.
Any effort to 'explain' why his claim *might* be true gives credence to an assertion that was made without evidence. It should be refuted in the same way. The burden of proof lies with the liar who made it, not with Imane nor any of us to substantiate it.
I agree wholeheartedly. When I do speculate, I try to make sure to insert "maybe" in my speculation. The problem is transvestigators, like POS JKR and her sycophant TERFs, who are deeply afflicted with Dunning-Kruger marinated bias confirmation. They're too stupid realize how dumb they are, and they don't care what kind of damage they cause.
No serious person who understands these issues ever claimed she was trans.
well, there are 2 failed tests.. and her own trainer admitted it. https://archive.ph/Nrnw0
He CLAIMS. He hasn't produced any evidence to support his claims. He should put up or shut up.
One of her trainers has confirmed it. His name is Georges Cazorla.
I'm calling BS on that.
On what basis? He gave an interview to the French publication, Le Point. It’s been picked up by other outlets. It’s behind a paywall and is in French, but some generous soul on Twitter paid for it and used Google’s Translate to English. You’ll note that this particular trainer regards Imane as a woman and has only positive things to say about her. I suspect that what he revealed about her chromosomes and testosterone level was somewhat unwitting.
If you disagree with anything in the interview, I’d appreciate you explaining your reasoning. Otherwise, it’s just comes off like “la la la la I can’t hear you!”
Here is the translation:
https://x.com/BerenHand/status/1822436430716539391
I think it's a basic philosophical mistake to assume there is a One True Definition of the word "sex", treating it as a "natural kind" in the essentialist philosophical sense, as opposed to just understanding it as a useful category defined by humans, akin to "planet" (picking that example because astronomers recently redefined it in a way that excluded Pluto, it would sound silly to argue they could be objectively 'right' or 'wrong' in their choice of definition). Dawkins once understood that essentialist attitudes about any scientific categories (like 'species') are confused: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25366
One way of thinking about why essentialism makes little sense is that the behavior of all natural systems is thought to be ultimately reducible to basic laws of physics, and these laws make no reference to any higher-level categories outside of eg fundamental particle types. So, scientists should understand that all categories outside physics are just useful ways of conceptually grouping together similar patterns of matter/energy, and the choice of which categories are more useful may depend on the context (see Daniel Dennett's "Real Patterns" paper at https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-zenon-pylyshyn/class-info/FP2012/FP2012_readings/Dennett_RealPatterns.pdf particularly his analogy starting on p. 37 with named patterns in a cellular automaton called "The Game of Life" where the underlying behavior of the cells is based on the simple rules described at https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life which make no reference to larger-scale patterns such as the "gliders" described at https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Glider ...this point is also discussed at length in the book "The Big Picture" by physicist Sean Carroll, which argues for an underlying objective description of reality in terms of physics and understanding higher-level descriptions as having a more 'poetic' sort of reality).
In the context of evolutionary biology specifically, it's useful to define sex in terms of gametes because all other forms of sexual dimorphism are understood in terms of different reproductive strategies that were selected for based on whether the individual has large or small gametes. But if you're dealing with some other area of biology, like trying to understand the development of various sexually dimorphic characteristics in the fetus, it may be useful to have a different more spectrum-like definition to reflect the fact that we can talk about hormones having a "masculinizing" or "feminizing" effect on many different body parts, in some cases going in a different direction than the gametes.
Thanks for the response. Well put. I enjoyed reading it.
I think part of the problem is people conflate "conceptual" with "perceptual." Race is a concept based on perceived physical traits. Gender (and hence social roles) is a concept based on perceived physical traits. Slavery was concept deemed natural based on perceived physical traits and/or nationality. Men conceived women as inferior based on religious doctrine, until evolution supplanted it (yes, Darwin used evolution to justify patriarchal misogyny - he was a product of his time). We could at least perceive evolution.
I have great respect for Dennett, much more than I ever will have for Dawkins. As I've said elsewhere, Dawkins' anti-trans rants is why I left CFI. The organization is nothing like what Carl Sagan helped found.
https://www.childrenshospital.org/conditions/vaginal-agenesis
"About 7 to 8 percent of patients with vaginal agenesis have a less common condition called androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS). These patients have a normal female appearance, but lack a vagina, cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries."
Please read my response in it's entirety, because I want you to be well-informed when you talk about this. I'm more than willing to clarify anything and point you to credible resources based on science and evidence.
=======
Reality is more nuanced than that. Are women (XX) who don't have ovaries female? When a woman has her ovaries removed, say because of cancer, is she still a female? Or does she become male?
Sex and gender (often used interchangeably by laypeople) are an array of varying traits, often layered. If you imaging a computer network, it has layers. See here: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DqOvu-wAAM0/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-BIAC4AOKAgwIABABGGUgXSg0MA8=&rs=AOn4CLC2aIpqiJdLYM4pmunQHnmzRoaFdw
Analogous to that (imperfectly, of course) are sex and gender.
The chromosomes are the physical layer upon which everything else is based.
From this comes hormones (estrogen, testosterone - and others) and the gametes, a different layer.
Then there are the physiological traits, or secondary sexual characteristics: genitals, appearance (masculine, feminine), hip size, breasts, etc.
Moving up layers, there is the presentation layer: gender/sex associated clothing (dress for female and priests, pants for men), hair length (in the West, short for men, long for women).
Then at the application layer, there's gender/sex associated toys, activities, and work.
All of this will determine the person's role in society, which will affect pay, reputation, status, and how they are treated.
People with DSD (Differences in Sexual Development), aka Intersex (the I in LGBTQIA+), develop, as the name implies, differences from the typically expected development.
There are several different DSD conditions. The one I'm most familiar with is AIS, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. AIS is a genetic condition which causes the body to not respond to testosterone. So a zygote with XY chromosomes will develop along the typical "female" path. This can be complete (CAIS) or partial (PAIS). Complete means the body does not respond to testosterone at all and when born will have all of the secondary physical sexual characteristics of a female, and develop as a typical woman. She will be assigned female at birth, based on what's outside, not inside. She might or might not have a uterus, ovaries, or vagina. She may also not experience a menstrual cycle. It's entirely possible for a woman with CAIS to never discover that she has DSD. PAIS results in a wide array of physical traits. She could have a large clitoris, or a micro-penis. The doctor has to make a determination on what gender to assign the baby.
For more information on how gender/sex is bimodal (bunching up at at two ends - imagine a barbell) and not binary (one of the other), here's a pretty good article to read that based on science:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-science-of-biological-sex/
The OSI model? That's an obscure comparison. There are probably more biologists who understand what you're trying to convey than CS majors and IT network folks that understand the OSI model.
I know. I'm a tech guy. That's why I linked the picture. The idea is to show the layers.
I'm still working on the analogy. If you have other ways to demonstrate interconnectedness that will work better, please share them.
You bring up a lot of good points. I could go on (I have, but I cut it), but I'll spare you.
Yes it is possible for a person to have XX chromosomes and a male phenotype. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development). There's like over thirty known ways for DSD to manifest, and even more ways genetics can be variable (XXX, XXY, XX), and even mosaic ism(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45,X/46,XY_mosaicism), where a person has at least two different sets of genes. If you have XX and XY, then who do you compete against?
The main problem isn't fairness, it's the politicizing and demonizing of people for their differences for (in this instance) right-wing christian agenda. This is a manifestation of a much larger and more insidious issue: Privilege.
Privilege (aka benefit or advantage) seeks to keep itself manifest. People with privilege don't want a "level paying field." If things are made equal, people with privilege claim they are being harmed. It's like in the movie The Incredibles, when Syndrome says, "...when everyone's super ... no one will be." That's like saying, "When everyone has money, then no one has money." And in a capitalist society where everyone is competition, who want to compete against a 1,000 people for a job when the system already reduces that number to 10?
Society says it wants fairness, but it actually practices privilege.
He is right, if Imane is indeed an individual affected by DSD disorder with XY chromosomes, he is a man.
Human beings are sexually dimorphic, there is no discussion to be had about this.
And from which planet's bubble gum machine did you receive such an advanced medical degree?
Obviously there is. No mic drop for you.
What discussion needs to be had? Some people are born with a Disorder of Sex Development, but all DSDs are sex-specific and affect either males or females. Everyone is either male or female, including people with DSDs. Yes, even ones with DSDs that result in ambiguous genitalia, which in some instances require a chromosomal test to determine sex.
In Khelif’s case, he is male but likely has 5-ARD. His chromosomes are XY, just like the IBA found when they tested him in two different, independent, CAS-accredited labs.
One of his trainers explained the situation in an interview two days ago. It’s now being picked up by other outlets. The trainer’s name is Georges Cazorla.
It’s embarrassing to read the OP and all the credulous comments agreeing, about how sad and shameful it is that Dawkins has gotten biology so wrong.
Citations and relevant degrees you hold, please.
I have to have a “relevant degree” to merely be *informed* on current events? Yikes. Guess I’ll keep this to myself then, and let you find out some other way.
That's the problem, you are not informed.
Read the interview for yourself, Lynn. If you disagree with any of the information in it, please provide citations and any relevant degrees you hold.
https://x.com/BerenHand/status/1822436430716539391
You are right, the discussion is over. Others have already debunked this, so I am not going to waste my time on it.
You admit to not having read all of the comments.
I have read all the comments.
No one has debunked anything to date.
Steve’s explanation is the most likely.
And we should be cheek swabbing athletes:
https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/a-simple-cheek-swab-can-protect-female-boxers-0fkdgv6st
Debunked what exactly?
I fear for Khelif's life for when she returns to her home country. Dawkins, Rowling, and other are accusing her of being a man for being good at her job.
That, sadly, just excites such monsters, they would like to get her killed.
Yes, that’s why.
Not IK’s male physique and bone structure.
Not IK’s lack of hips or breasts.
Not IK’s decision not to appeal a finding of ineligibility.
Alternatively…
Imane’s initially observed “female” genitalia (internal testes) plus subsequent male puberty - in a wholly and dangerously intolerant society- caused his parents to encourage excellence in a female sport.
As a “way out”.
As a way to be “celebrated” despite obvious sex/gender expression confusion.
https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/a-simple-cheek-swab-can-protect-female-boxers-0fkdgv6st
This man is such a hopeless crank.
The very same people claiming this boxer is transgender are also the same people claiming, just a week before, the opening ceremony was a direct attack on their messiah. They have no issue assuming Jesus turned blue but not that a woman can look like her without somehow being a man. They are being told what to think and what to get angry about and they accept it without question. And they claim that using weird against them, the independent thinkers of the world (yeah right), is akin to using the n word.
They’re weird, Dawkins is weird, the whole situation is weird. Anytime a woman excels at something, she’s cast as a man. Especially if she’s a woman of color. It’s almost like men cannot accept that women are people and they are not inferior and the mediocrity of men of privilege isn’t the pinnacle of humanity.
Beat me to it.
🎯👍
Dawkins, a once-respected figure in New Atheism, one of the Four Horsemen even, has devolved over the last few years into a conspiracy-spewing bigot. Maybe he and Rowling suffer from the same black mold disease. Whatever the case, any story about trans folk, or alleged trans folk, causes his brain to glitch, even to the point of elevating Russian disinformation.
It's astonishing that he calls for 'civilized argument' in response to the baseless vitriol he posts. He made his name countering the false claims of religion with logic and evidence, yet now he's willing to repeat any damn thing he hears, without bothering to check the facts, if it aligns with his bigotry. Sad to see a brilliant career come to such an ignoble end, but Dawkins has no one to blame but himself.
He didn’t devolve far, tbf. Neither did Hitchens.
They were always self-aggrandizing pricks who took a very traditionalist stance in academic virtue signaling, rather than making cogent arguments for…much of anything.
Even his meme theory was things psychology and sociology had worked with for literal decades and he just repackaged and sold as his own.
His sole, honest, claim to fame is being an outspoken atheist in a time it was still borderline taboo to out himself publicly in acadmemia - that still heavily drinks from its roots in the Catholic and Protestant churches.
It's become more and more clear to me that the whole business of sex and gender needs INFINITELY more study than has been rendered to it to this date. Everything from Christine Jorgensen to Imane Khalif tells me that there's more to what gives rise to our individual physiologies than an XX or XY chromosome in our 23rd pair. I"m not even a biologist and I can see that.
Why Dawkins can't, I don't know, and considering the value that he brought to the understanding of atheism, this blind spot of his astonishes me.
Maybe she's [wiki headache inducing lookup] 'XY gonadal dysgenesis' or one of the other myriad examples of the serious complications of this issue as you perceptively point out. It's an issue that should not be used as a political football or club and I'm sick of it especially as coming from the right wing religious fanatics that stems from their idea that their god doesn't make mistakes--barf! We really don't know enough yet to figure out how best to deal with a lot of this stuff. One thing's for sure and I can't repeat enough is that if they want to yell about biological sex determines gender then they have to stop calling that god of theirs a 'he'.
Here's the problem with all this kind of talk: it assumes the original, evidence-free allegation has some merit, and therefore people need to search for a 'reason' that Imane Khalif is tall, strong, and brilliant at what she does. You know, other than that she works hard, very hard, trains well, and performs better than anyone else in her sport.
Unless someone provides actual evidence, verifiable and from a reliable source, that there is, in fact, something to 'explain', there's no need for us to look for explanations.
As Christopher Hitchens once said: "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
Yes- exactly this.
Claiming that Khelif is actually trans, or intersex, as an excuse to disqualify her from a competition, absent any evidence supporting- and absent any evidence that even if she was, that her biology would have given her an unfair advantage, which has absolutely not been demonstrated either- is 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 the same as claiming there is a god without backing it up. We dismiss the one; why not dismiss the other for the same reason? The source is not credible and the claim is unsupported. There's no meat on the bone to even speculate about. There's not even a bone for there to be any meat 𝘰𝘯.
Khalif is the world athlete the world rejects. Yet she is a female with superpowers. She should be the record to aspire to since she is a living example of how varied in abilities females are. Marvel at what biological evolution can do. It is like in the movie 'Unbreakable' where evolution is shown to operate at the far tail of a normal curve. Producing, species relative, life with superior constitutions and strange ones. We'll need them both to ward off extinction.
Precisely, Bill.
If you look at women from different sports fields, their bodies - just like male bodies - develop, through training and exercise, to give them an advantage in that sport. Runners develop long, lean muscle mass. Boxers develop strong legs and upper bodies. Swimmers are often tall and have incredibly large shoulders. Gymnasts have thighs that could crack walnuts. IOW, not all female bodies conform to the S I swimsuit issue mold.
We should be celebrating the diversity of women instead of making false claims that some of them 'look male' so they must be trans.
🎯🎯🎯Diversity is beautiful.
Thank you, she doesn't have to prove anything.
Hitch was far from perfect but every time Dawkins or Fry says some bullshit these days I'm so glad he died before he reached this level of desperation.
It would have broken my heart to see Hitch decline to this level of thirst.
Yes that's why I'm glad he's dead because I'm not sure if he could have managed it but we don't ever have to know.
I'm perfectly content to call Yahweh "it" until and if it shows up and can demonstrate any sexual aspects it may have!
I suspect I'll be waiting a LONG while.
Just go by their own theologians who almost universally, I think?, claim that god is immaterial and therefore can't POSSIBLY be biological so QED. I've been trying to never use he/him but always it/it's but it's hard to change too many decades of habit. If they want to insist gender is the same as biological sex then they have to stop using he/him.
Use Pat. Our creator. Pat be thy name. God or Goddess? Who can tell, but it's all jump rope and slit wrists chasing after an answer.
Too pat...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiIXNNfpgLY
Or, you experience a karmic meaningful coincidence and your day ends with a happy ending. Sublime answers are best since we tend to reject an in your face answer. We can't handle the full frontal truth but if exposed to it realize it lacks whole truth.
I prefer calling the deity ze. Ze is a person, not an object. One of possibly no sex or at least indeterminate sex. And I don't really want to see zirs genitalia.
Heureusement que dawkins est un scientifique qui sait de quoi il parle...
You know what else I see ? Two non-white women targeted by the president, of an association, who is from a notorious racist country. I am sure it's just a coincidence.
About Russia reliability, read this https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-oldest-woman-controversy/frenchscientists-dismiss-russian-claims-over-age-of-worlds-oldest-person-idUSKCN1OX145/
Easy way to verify: cut her in half and count the rings. 🙃
Horizontally or vertically?
Diagonally.
Cut across the grain.... otherwise those old ones tend to be tough to chew.
It’s amazing how many conspiracies come out of Russia but not any countries that are allied with the US and its economic interests.
Just crazy man.
It’s well past time for Richard to STFU
I think he feel The God Delusion has run it's course and has moved into trans-outrage grifting to remain relevant.
C'est raté.
That's exactly what I think as well.
Sorry, but I'm about to unload...
I first reached that conclusion with Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptic Society. He also started in on the anti-trans rant. He did an "analysis" of the language of Walsh's pseudo-documentary "What is a woman?" (As if people are merely just a few words.) Not one single comment in Shermer's substack actually talked about his tripe. It was all right-wing, anti-trans BS. The only thing that mattered to him was getting responses, not the content. That's when I left the Skeptic Society.
I run in several skeptic circles, listen to a lot of skeptic podcasts, watch a lot of skeptic videos, and no one mentions him, except once to call him a sexual predator (several students have leveled allegations at him, and there is a very credible story about a particular incident). Shermer is irrelevant within the community outside of the Skeptic Society, which should really be called the Shermer Society.
Dawkins was arguably much more prominent than Shermer, and has lost a lot of "street cred" (self-inflicted). So he's gone the same way as Shermer. They're both after clicks to reinforce their narcissism; skepticism and critical thinking are just branding, nothing more. In the case of Dawkins, he's a board member of CFI, which also promotes free thinking and secular humanism. Two things very important to me. As a humanist, people matter. Transpeople, one of the most marginalized and attacked people, need our support. They are extremely vulnerable, suffer higher rates of depression and suicide, and are more likely to lose their entire social support structure for being who they are.
Dawkins and Shermer lack the empathy and humanity to have compassion for transpeople. They cannot equate being attacked for being atheists to being attacked for being trans. What matters is to them is the strawman argument of "you can't change your sex" (chromosomes). That's a very elitist, ivory tower view of reality. I think they believe they care, but it's just hollow words.
Shermer wrote that intelligent people are better are rationalizing their irrationality. Ironically, he's demonstrating it.
OT: Woo-hoo! I just won a raffle for a video game of my choice up to $100!
A little too giddy to pick so I’m gonna sleep on it right now and take the next couple of days to choose.
Have you played Pong? Check it out!
Excellent! WALL*E's favorite game!
May I suggest some ? Galaga, Sliders, Duck Hunt, Secret of Mana, Illusion of time, A Link to the past...
That man's playing Galaga...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Fy6AUMv8E
DM was very good at this game. Unlike me, she could play all week long.
I used to really enjoy playing it, myself, though how good I was is debatable!
I preferred Zelda, thought I didn't speak English yet at that time 🤣
That's a lot of quarters at the arcade.
Assassins Creed has a Japanese samurai storyline game coming out in November, I think it looks amazing.
Nooooooooooo!!!
Pretty misogynist to equate the difference in male and female athletes to the difference between a cheetah and a man.
And this is who Dawkins has always been. He's older, his filters are going, and he has access to social media so it's more obvious, but he was always an asshole.
Yep. He wasn't nasty when he was the center of attention. Showing his real self now.
He probably believes the litterbox hoax too.
What brought the transphobes here today? Is it because a well-known atheist is a transphobe or a well-known author is a transphobe or because the transphobe community is having a gigantic melt down over a female boxer? All I know is if you’re a transphobe you are probably a shitty human being about other people’s identities as well.
Where are they? I seem to have missed them yet again. Sometimes I do like to play. Edit: oops, ignore that I've just spotted one.
More are coming in all the time.
Yes, they move in swarms like Jordan Peterson fan boys.
hey, alex aqua, god family country, hibernia86 and a fifth who posted around the same time as the latter.
You forgot Graf. JAQing off as usual.
Claiming to be concerned with trans hate, but then repeating all the same talking points as the haters 'in the name of fairness'.
Does he pests on posts about clergy sexual abuse ?🖕
I don't read his bullshit. Plus, he is more like an annoying pet than anything else.
I ignore what he says and read/upvote those responding to him.
I wish I could figure out what the masochistic impulse is that keeps me responding to him on LGBT issues. He knows it's wrong to be anti-LGBT, but can't help supporting homo/transphobes whenever the subject comes up.
A wild pok... troll just appeared.
Some are a combo of transphobes and dawkins' groupies. It's tame compared to the number of trolls every negative mention of saint dawkins usually bring.
$3.41 and some pocket lint says they're waiting for the off hours, or for the next post to go up, so they can drive-by post without immediately getting pounced on by us locals.
2 things they have yet to understand amuse me :
1) Hemant has readers on several continents.
2) The concept of time difference.
Also insomniacs.
Tu quoque ?
Yes they used to that on Wonkette too, post on a dead thread so their nastiness would be the last word. Seems to be a troll trick.
Which is as much useful as pisser dans un violon.
Haad to look that one up Lol!
Vous finirez par parler français tous autant que vous êtes 😁
Well, you learn something new every day. :)
They have a Google alert for anything trans-related they swarm all articles with a comment section.
Why not both?
https://i.imgur.com/C1z7Wtd.jpeg
Do you really think anyone who doesn't believe a conspiracy theory that the IBA faked a chromosome test to punish a boxer who beat a Russian athelete, a theory that has no proof, is a transphobe?
From a boxer, who has followed the drama in boxing long before everyone got excited about it this year.
The IBA is easily the most corrupt organization in a very corrupt sport, and it’s not remotely the first time they’ve done similar. that’s why Russian athletes (whom they sanction matches of) have such a difficult time being respected anywhere else.
Because the bar set by the IBA is completely dependent on the whims of the IBA.
Literally the only organizations that will work with the IBA are ones that are functional appendant bodies of it. And it’s been that way for a very, very long time.
They’re not the group you want to champion as any sort of arbiter of fact. They live in their own little bubble of make-believe, and aren’t above DQing a fighter that beats one of their golden kids, or stands a very good chance to.
If it came from any legitimate body, I’d give a shit. The IBA is not such an organization. And anyone who’s followed the sport internationally for more than a few months is aware of that.
Do you really think there aren’t people who don’t buy into conspiracy theories that are transphobes?
To Richard Dawkins...
Stay in your lane, dude. Transphobia is just plain ugly.
Dawkins is a biologist. This should be his lane. But he's decided to forget everything, or intentionally misinterpreted everything he's learned to justify his transphobia.
Elmo Mush, The Stupid.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37ab5ed9fad91a3b2e9b1ec97d52e1a5ef0eec1fa6c0d924cd420c441eb40f39.jpg
Um, we do see the reality. That's why we're siding with the 'Resistance'. Typical conservative. Try to use popular culture to make your argument relevant and fail miserably by demonstrating you don't understand popular culture.
In all those cases the resistance were looking to overturn the fascist status quo Musk is fighting to maintain. He is the oligarch the resistance, from the emerald mines he got his money from to the disaster he is at running Twitter.
He’s also managed to manufacture another disaster for Tesla recently.
Dawkins is the reason I left CFI. I used to respect him. He f'd up when he went after Rebecca, but at least he issued something that could arguably be considered a type of half-apology (Rebecca is the arbiter of that value of that). Michael Shermer is the reason I left the Skeptic Society.
Both have jumped on the anti-trans bandwagon. I think in order to remain (Dawkins) or regain (Shermer) relevance (as measured in attention and thus converted to money), and the right is very much into outrage (for all their calling everyone else snowflake). This is called grift. It works well for Alex Jones. (I never thought I'd lump those two people in with Alex Jones.)
The problem, or part of the problem for there are many, is too many people on the right can't distinguish been anger that brings discernment (and seeks a resolution to make it go away) and anger that only seeks to fuel itself into bonfire*. They seek the thrill of righteous retribution. It's a drug to these people. It's why movies like Taken are so successful. But it's really about maintaining the high of the rage. I suspect it grants people (meaning anyone), a sense of empowerment in a world that is pretty much outside our control.
*Or as a friend who deep into Anne Rice's witch novel said, "Torrents of flame"
That want that dopamine rush, so they become anger adddicts, a phenomenon I call "Pout-rage."
"Why would Facebook punish him for something he posted on Twitter?"
The Extended Phucuptypo
He wrote a LOT of the books that helped shape how I think and now he's turned into this. Effing depressing.
I copy that. Snufs.