I’ve emailed the president of ACA, the vice president, and the board, and have received no response. We’ve discussed the matter on the FtB backchannel, and the comments there so far have been unanimous: the ACA is now incompatible with the mission of Freethoughtblogs. Therefore, and regretfully, I have disabled comments on the AXP blog and demoted all of their administrators. Nothing is irreversible yet, but I can’t imagine what kind of defense they could put up that would reverse our decision.
Ideally, they’ll contact me soon and we can make arrangements to transfer all of their blog content elsewhere. If the silence continues, I’ll simply archive everything and remove references to them from our main page by the end of this week.
There are many things we will not tolerate on any of the blogs here: racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia are all grounds for ejection from the network. The ACA is guilty of the last.
It is a real pity. I was especially disappointed with Matt Dillahunty. He should know that when women tell men they are doing feminism wrong, that the men should at least very carefully listen to them, and not to close the ranks with a transphobic bigot.
Charly: I share your disappointment with Matt. He seems to have contracted the “LIttle Tin God” disease quite badly.
Very sad. I’ve been out of the loop with AXP for a while, rarely read the blog, and never visited the Facebook page. But when the people I respect most from the ACA have all quit, it’s a pretty clear sign that the organization has some serious issues.
Disappointing but ultimately not a shock. After
Deep Rifts I should’ve dropped all my expectations of everyone, but I kept believing Matt D would remain one of the goodish ones. Guess he and the ACA prefer to preserve their income streams/fandom/allegiances over maintaining their integrity, like Tracie, Jen and others have done.
Have unsubbed from AXP and Talk Heathen since I can no longer support an org that treats longstanding members who contributed greatly to its success in such a cynical and cavalier fashion.
Congratulations! I’m strangely happy about this decision, and glad to know that there are still some communities who uphold progressive, rational standards.
What’s wrong with the Affordable Care Act?
This is a good demonstration of what speaking ones mind can achieve.
cervantes @ #6:
Atheist Community of Austin
…
Unless you were joking, in which case ignore me…
kkehno @ #7:
Fixed that for you…
Sad developments. My entry into internet atheism was through AXP. I saw a clip on YouTube and found out they had a weekly show. Started watching the show and found out that they had a blog. That’s how I found Pharyngula. This all happened in 2012.
If you have alienated Jen, Tracie, John and Phil, you have alienated the wrong people.
I will watch the program today, just to see if Dillahunty continues his ‘ nothing to see here’ shtick. Other than that, buh by AXP.
If misogyny is against The Rules, why is Heteronormative Patriarchy for Men still listed?
#8 Nathan I was referring to Jen, Tracy and others who finally spoke :) Someone needed to break the silence so the rest of us could make informed decision.
Add me to the list of people who are bitterly disappointed in Matt Dillahunty et al. I, too, got into Internet atheism via discovering AXP, which then led to me discovering Pharyngula. This was post-Deep Rifts™, so I considered myself lucky that I’d found a few of the (apparently) good Internet atheists. But if the A.C.A. has so thoroughly alienated the likes of Jen and Tracie, then I have no choice but to write it off.
@WMDKitty
Can you say more? I’d like to see what you are referring to. If a part of this community needs to consider changing a rule or explaining a blogger/commentator behavior that should always be worth hearing out.
The writing was on the ACA wall when Russell Glasser bowed out and “retired” from active involvement with ACA. It’s really a shame to see them going the IDW Centristy route blazed by David Smalley. I miss the halcyon days when Thunderf00t was one of the good guys trashing creationists like VenomFangX…..and hadn’t yet outed himself as the antifeminist creepy weirdo he turned out to be. The transphobic shit with AXP is a new low and deplorable. Matt’s management of this crisis has left a lot to be desired. The libertarianish assholes were always there, I guess, but now they’re driving the bus and I want off.
Paula Ronald, @14:
I was afraid that something like this would happen when Matt kept talking about Seth “Freeze Peach is more important than nazi threats to minorities” Andrews as a dear, dear friend, and he continued to participate without hesitation in debates with resounding atheists who were mentioned in abuse allegations, as well as proudly mentioning his collaborations along with Richard “Dear Muslima” Dawkins.
It’s a shame. Matt has provided interesting material against believers over the years. Glossing over the recent problems of the ACA is not a good presidential entry in his résumé.
@WMDKitty
I just checked out the About This Blog page for “Heteronormative Patriarchy for Men”:
https://proxy.freethought.online/hetpat/about-this-blog/
It seems clear from that page that the blog title is intended as ironic. The content seems unobjectionable, but I can see how the name could be read as offensive, though I certainly did not read it as endorsing so much as ridiculing patriarchy. That does raise some interesting questions, and I might be persuaded to agree with a suggestion that Ally Fogg consider editing the name, but I do like ridicule as a weapon. Please check out the blog and consider communicating with Fogg directly. Just my two cents.
WTF! I stop watching for a few months and Tracie, Jen, John, and Phil are gone?! The best hosts! Over Rationality Rules’ typical horseshit? That’s fucked up, but I’m glad for the stand they—and FTB—have taken. Welp, here lies the corpse of AXP. Thanks and condolences to Tracie, Jen, John, and Phil: y’all are beautiful people. At least there’s still Matt “If I Were God” Dillahunty… if indeed? 😌
[Thanks, Sky Captain, for detailing events in the relevant threads for the social-media-to-127.0.0.1ers among us.]
Can someone explain to me what has actually happened? Like why did Tracie/Jen/John/Phil leave? Why is this post being removed?
@David McDonald:
There are some parts of the backstory that aren’t fully covered, but the video chat that PZ supplied in the last post on this topic is right here, and it gives Tracie & Jen & Clare lots of time to explain exactly why they left the ACA and the AXP show. (For the record, a couple of them were voted off the ACA board, but that didn’t require them to fully leave the ACA which has lots of people participating who aren’t on the board.)
John has also spoken about being voted off the board and the heartbreak he felt at that meeting. I haven’t heard anything directly from Phil, though I would very much like to. (And just because I haven’t come across it doesn’t mean he hasn’t made his own videos, given his own interviews, or written his own account. If anyone knows where to access Phil’s story in his own words, I think that would be a lovely addition to this thread.)
If you’re interested in why they left, you should listen to their own words. But if you’re interested in the details on some “triggering event”, well, that was how ACA responded to criticism of one of their AXP special guests, who goes by the internet name Rationality Rules. Several people, including IIUC correctly at least two of Tracie, Jen, and Clare, were delegated the responsibility of responding to that criticism with an official ACA statement. They did the job that they were assigned, but many people didn’t like that they thought some of the criticisms of RR were well-founded. A new statement was drafted apologizing to RR for having ever thought any criticism might be reasonable – in the name of fostering critical engagement, of course.
The rest of what happened is best told in their own words, but it’s no spoiler to say that it shows that the ACA has had some problems for a while now, otherwise the last few months simply would have played out very differently.
Brony
He’s a Men’s Rights Activist, for starters. He endorses the idea of “reciprocal abuse” — like, it’s not even a thing, it’s a more sophisticated version of the child’s “She hit me back, she’s just as bad!” He literally refuses to acknowledge that self-defense against an abuser does not make the victim an abuser too.
Petesh — I did and I have. He may defend it as “irony”, but he shows his true face in the comments.
I watched the Atheist Experience for a while but gave up because it was almost impossible to avoid Matt. When he was on, no matter who his partner was, he would constantly talk over them (especially the women), interrupt them, completely dominate answers. One way and another this spilt is unsurprising.
@WMDKitty 20
I can work with those categories.
I don’t deny that MRA comes.with baggage and Ally might be happy to answer questions about it. In my impression they don’t make excuses about the abuses committed by other people who like to talk about men’s rights.
I’d be happy to look at your examples of problems related to abuse and self defense.
kkehno @ #11
Ah that’s fair. I misread you… I apologize.
On Ally Fogg… I remember when he first joined as a blogger, here… before I did, I think. I noticed he hasn’t written anything since 2018. Maybe a discussion about his blog does indeed need to be had, though, given that he is indeed an MRA.
<url=”https://youtu.be/__n1ziZeW5c?t=2134″@17 / #17, elysof wrote:
BZZT. How smarmily flippant. Having now listened to the video Crip Dyke linked to, the hosts did not leave because of RR’s typical horseshit.
“Horseshit” is putting it too lightly for starters, as if RR was trotting out flat-earth or reptilian conspiracies – conspiracies which don’t engender beliefs and behaviours that dehumanise, strip rights from, or actually threaten people. Flat-earth/reptoid conspiracies don’t add to the extreme danger faced by a global minority. Jen points out that RR’s comparison of his wrist-slap to Galileo’s persecution is fucking ridiculous compared to everyday trans persecution.
Rather, the hosts left because the ACA leadership failed to denounce its transphobic elements or clearly espouse trans equality, instead prioritising RR and his fanbase’s feelings throughout the debacle. The ACA fucked up badly, clearly, and repeatedly. In addition to the four AXP hosts, many more members/allies quit their positions within the ACA.
Apologies for trivialising the issues in play and the decision of ex-ACA members.
WMDKitty — OK, I’m convinced. I had thought you were just reacting to the name, since it wasn’t clear you knew more about it. Since Fogg is apparently no longer posting, it’s a dead blog that is not doing good and, by merely being there, can do some harm. I support yanking it.
Goodbye ACA. I don’t look forward to seeing what new depths you can sink to now that you’ve successfully driven away the best folks in your organization. Also, at this point I guess I can just go ahead and put Dillahunty in the same category as Dawkins and Harris… really depressing that it ended this way.
On the upside we can finally get all the white, male, smug, “logical” dismissal of minority concerns and obsession with dehumanizing conversations we’d been needing in this movement! Thank goodness! /s
Silverfeather @27:
It’s not much of a stretch, really. Matt has talked with much pride about debates in which he participated with both… even long after their attitudes towards women and people of color were publicly denounced by other, more principled atheists. At this point, silence regarding their bigotry is tantamount to complicity or, at the very least, willing ignorance.
It is a shame that once was an inspirational and inspiring blog has descended in to an echo chamber where any questioning of the orthodoxy is met with burning at the stake.
We are expected to accept, without evidence, that men magically become women by uttering an incantation. This is exactly the type of “truth claim” we will not accept from the religious.
Yes, I believe trans people exist, they are as entitled to the same human rights as the rest of the population, but that doesn’t give them a free pass to piss all over women and tell women they aren’t doing feminism right.
Nor does it give a fully intact male the right to have an intimate wax performed by a woman who only offers her services to women, and when she refuses, to lay a complaint of discrimination against her.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/accusations-fly-at-human-rights-hearing-into-transgender-womans-brazilian-wax-complaint
Considering MD has been thoroughly dishonest about how this whole “kerfuffle” went down, I somehow think he isn’t being honest in his communication to the ACA Facebook groups. “ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE PRESIDENT.
“This came as a bit of a surprise. I’m not sure who PZ contacted, but no email was received by the board regarding this subject.
I’ve contacted one of our admins and we hope to move our content to a private archive.
FTB is free to remove anyone they like, though it’s a shame that this was done without any communication with the current ACA directors.
Any further questions can be directed to board@atheist- community.org.”
#24 Nathan no biggie :) One can be quite frustrated after reading the thousanth time “well, I dont think it was transphobic at all”.
And don’t forget, when we are not permitted to ask questions of those who self identify as women, we cannot protect our children from pedophiles using their assumed trans status as a shield.
Do you support or condemn Jonathon “Jessica” Yaniv?
How can we call out his/her actions and not be labelled “transphobic”?
https://womenarehuman.com/male-transgender-trans-activist-called-out-for-years-of-sexual-predation-against-adolescent-girls-jonathan-jessica-yaniv/
Before you start in on me, I accept that few, if any, genuine trans people are pedophiles. I am sure they are no more represented in criminal activities that any other coterie, but questioning and discussion MUST be part of a rational, freethought community.
@29: Careful with the clique-baiting, now. ;-)
Specimen @29:
Might as well have written “burning the steak”, would make about as much sense.
(Yeah, I get it. You’re appalled! Outraged! What is it with these people and their principles!?)
—
Funniest part is, you are the orthodoxy, reacting about its questioning. Heh.
[curbyrdogma, too late. Because I’m nothing if not cliqueish]
[Come on, chewtoys. I’m bored]
@ 34: So, then. Define “orthodox freethinker”. Is that what you meant? Or something else?
curbyrdogma, why do you ask me? Ask the specimen that brought up orthodoxy.
Anyway, that’s an oxymoron if taken as a compound term, if nonetheless a potentially-useful qualified term in some contexts. Term at hand, however, was [definite article, noun] which kinda makes sense if taken to mean status quo.
So, to put it more bluntly, the other (possibly sock, who knows? PZ will!) specimen was attempting to do a Trumpian inversion of reality, where “the orthodoxy” is trans acceptance.
—
Two can bait, but I can bite.
@ jess, #29, #34, and #88 of the previous thread on this topic
You know, no matter how you try to dress it up, bigots like you always sound exactly the same. You think we can’t see right through you?
You think transgender people are icky. You’re coming into these threads screaming it at the top of your lungs, thinking yourself very clever for scraping up a couple of stories from tabloid rags that seem to support your prejudices, when they’re nothing but tawdry trash that exists solely because bigots like you hate being made to feel like bigots. We hear you loud and clear; you haven’t hidden your hate half so well as you think.
You claim you accept the humanity of trans people. Why, then, do you then turn around and demand that every trans person be a perfect saint in return? No one has made the claim that transgender people can’t do bad things, same as any other human being, so I don’t know what you think it’s going to prove by producing stories of trans people doing bad things. ‘People sometimes do bad things’ is not a revelation.
You’re a bigot. Everyone can see you, bigot. How about you either A.) stop being a bigot or B.) get the fuck out?
Maybe I’m just a little short of patience right now, but jess, can you please fuck right off? Thanks.
In the hopes of being a little more constructive, this:
…Indicates to me that you haven’t bothered actually listening to trans people at all. Maybe you should try doing that. It’s easy these days, what with blogs, podcasts, and youtube channels. Maybe you should listen to what people say before declaring that they’re wrong.
Maybe the reason you’re getting short shrift from people is that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Are you OK John Morales? You seem to be having a stroke.
The person meant orthodoxy as is ‘the status quo’. Now go take some blood thinners and have a lie down.
@Jess Don’t be an idiot, what’s between your legs has nothing to do with child abuse. And I can cherry pick news stories of straight people doing evil sh-t all day too, your “points” are mute.
Alt-X, heh. Way to keep things on-topic.
Me: “Term at hand, however, was [definite article, noun] which kinda makes sense if taken to mean status quo.”
You: “The person meant orthodoxy as is [in] ‘the status quo’.”
(You think that was me being apoplectic? O ye of little imagination!)
Re: Ally Fogg
I tried reading his blog when it first started up, but he was definitely focussed on the perceived injustices suffered by manly men, and he was very friendly to misogynists, so I stopped reading it. It’s too bad FtB (or some similar blog collective) can’t find someone to write about men’s experience and what they suffer under Teh Patriarchy withou blaming it all on disadvantaged groups and women especially.
Re: Jess
Your “contributions” are not so much unwelcome because they violate some sore of “orthodoxy” as because they have nothing new to offer. All of your comments so far have consisted mainly of content-free sneering, and what “content” there is is not just hateful, but consists of ignorant claims and lies and arguments that we’ve encountered and answered so often we’re just bored with it. At some point, we can’t be bothered to do more than say, “F- off!” You are obviously someone who has his mind made up and has no intention of listening to facts, anyway, so what’s the point? You’re a waste of our time and you aren’t even any good as a chew-toy. Life’s too short to waste time on someone like you.
For Tracie and Jen, two long term, dedicated, fair minded, rational women to call out what they saw and experienced. Listen to their accounts it is unbelievable. I literally cannot believe it. They have no reason to lie. I will never be able to watch Matt up there anymore talking anymore, his credibility is shot. Everything the ACA stands for and does is now tainted. They are infected with bigotry.
Alt-X, No. 43:
“And I can cherry pick news stories of straight people doing evil sh-t all day too, your “points” are mute”
Yes you can, but I’m not sure that’s the point.
In any other context, the very idea that a woman can be compelled by law to touch male genitalia that she doesn’t wish to touch would be seen as the blatant and obvious misogyny that it is. But because the male genitalia happens to belong to someone who identifies as female, any such criticism risks getting one labeled transphobic. And that’s the danger here: It is possible to support transgender equality and transgender rights while at the same time recognizing that not every demand made by someone who is transgendered is a reasonable demand. But, anyone who says, “That’s not a reasonable demand” risks getting attacked for being a transphobic bigot. And by the way, there is room for honest disagreement over what is, and is not, a reasonable demand.
I support full legal equality for the transgendered. I also think that someone with a penis is not entitled to an intimate wax job from a woman who doesn’t want to do it. I’m prepared to tell anyone who thinks that makes me a transphobic bigot to fuck off. What it really makes me is someone who thinks that cis women have rights too.
jess, in order that there be a center a center to occupied, it is necessary to have an operational fringe. See also, Overton Window.
Can we stick to the subject of the thread (AXP no longer being hosted here) and stop debating the validity of trans people’s lives?
Paula Ronald @14:
One thing to remember about Thunderf00t’s feud with VenomFangX was that the latter was a minor at the time. The first couple of videos I remember seeing on the issue were vaguely amusing, but it quickly became cringeworthy, at least to me.
The other thing was that Thunderf00t’s videos never seemed to actually have much depth to them: he generally seemed to go after low-hanging targets and his stuff seemed to usually lack the depth of other people who were also making videos at the same time but had solid backgrounds in science that he lacked.
One time, one time can trans issues come up here without the transphobic assholes popping up? Or at least skip the “I support trans people, but…” nonsense? We get it, you hate trans folk but being called a bigot makes you sad
Heads up: I see that the blog But-TERF-Lies & Wheels has made a post about AXP’s blog being removed from FTB. I expect some of that blog’s crew of merry pranksters will be dropping by. (The blog in question is run by a TERF who used to be a blogger at FTB.)
@51 Aoife_b
Right? It’s as if they think reframing civil rights as if they are “special privileges” is some new fangled idea that hasn’t been employed by literally every group of bigots for centuries.
@Thirdmill301:
First:
“Transgender” is not a verb. “Transgendered” is not the past participle of that word, as adjectives don’t have past participles. If you’d like to come across as knowledgeable on this topic, you might at least get your terminology right.
Second:
So fucking what?
Perhaps a bit more helpfully, from Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge:
[totally OT]
“… reframing civil rights as if they are “special privileges” …”
The religious do the converse.
—
In any other context, eh?
Scene: local clinic, after hours. Man is helped in by friends; his glans is shredded due to an unfortunate accident with a vacuum cleaner. The only doctor at hand is a woman.
Can I be a transphobe too? It’s not clear if I’m included on the list at this point, but it would delight me to be included.
@thirdmill301 You skipped all the other claims (trans are pedos etc) and went to the only one issue you have. A trans person getting their balls waxed. Hey, if the business is unable to wax balls because they don’t have the training, then OK. Trans people have been around forever, and your only defence is ball waxing. That’s weak. It doesn’t carry any weigh against trans ppl argument to exist.
Crip Dyke, without being drawn down the rabbit trail of what is and is not proper terminology, the answer to your “so fucking what” question is this: It has become impossible in some quarters to have an honest conversation about what is, and is not, a reasonable demand because anyone who questions any demand is simply branded as a transphobic bigot. Which is why people who occupy those quarters are increasingly being tuned out by people who really aren’t bigots; they just don’t happen to think it’s reasonable to expect an unwilling woman to have to touch male genitalia.
And what I’m increasingly hearing from those quarters is that the legitimate interests of women — including not touching male genitalia they don’t wish to touch — simply don’t matter; that cis women must be sacrificed on the altar of transgender rights. Which strikes me as deeply misogynistic. In fact, whenever there is a conflict between the interests of women and some other group, women are fairly consistently told their interests take second place. If you want another example, Islam is probably the single most misogynistic institution on earth, but you better not say that here. Any white guy who calls out misogyny among blacks males is going to be attacked for being a racist, even though large numbers of black men do tend to be misogynistic and do need to be called out about it. It’s remarkable to me that the left, which claims to care so much about women’s rights, so consistently places everyone else’s interests first.
But hey, I’m just a transphobic bigot, so what do I know?
Alt X, I did not make the claim that “trans are pedos” because I don’t believe that trans are pedoes, or at least not in any greater proportion than the non-trans. I used the ball waxing example because it’s the most egregious of the recent examples.
Do you disagree with me that a woman should not be required to handle male genitals if she does not wish to do so, whether she’s trained to or not? If you do, then your lack of respect for women is breathtaking.
@ Andrew Molitor, #57
So it would delight you to be defined by the fact that you hate people for being trans?
Huh. Well, let’s not mince words: You’re bigoted scum, and a fool too.
I do hope I’ve been able to brighten your day.
Yay! Thanks, your label was delicious.
thirdmill: So fucking what? was not a question.
(She’s as much as invited you to her blog, therein to make your case if you dare)
You know you are a transphobic bigot, you just said so. And you know those talking points, PRATTish as they may be.
I will repeat, um, someone else’s remark that this all rather off-topic. I can be located on the internet with the greatest of ease, and am open to conversation with, you know, all comers.
@Thirdmill:
Yawn.
Wait, so you’re saying you haven’t been honest in this conversation? And you’re saying the reason you haven’t been honest in this conversation is because you’re afraid someone will say words you don’t like?
How… interesting. You sound like a worthy conversation partner. How much must we all be missing out on because you are entirely unable to write honest words on the internet?
Which is why there was actually a hearing in that case where the professional waxer was, like, allowed to speak and proffer her legitimate interests to the court? Is that also why the court didn’t issue an immediate decision for the plaintiff, but instead chose to actually consider the testimony and legal argument? Is that what you mean by “the legitimate interests of women … simply don’t matter”?
Hmm. Very interesting again. You know, sometimes interests matter a great deal, they just don’t matter as much as other persons’ interests. Sometimes fisherfolk are put out of business by restricting fishing licenses in a certain area so that local species don’t go extinct while providing a final 5 years of income to a fisher near retirement.
Even when an interest is legitimate, however, it can be used illegitimately. Imagine someone writing in 1965 something like this:
Do white people have a legitimate interest in how much they are taxed? Do they have a legitimate interest in how that money is then spent? Of course they do. And yet we can dismiss their concerns as antithetical to the creation of a just society without denying that they have a legitimate interest… because they are attempting to use their legitimate interest in an unjust and racist way.
Of course women, cis or trans*, have a legitimate interest in not touching genitals they don’t want to touch, but non-discrimination laws in British Columbia prevent doctors from refusing to treat patients on the basis of religion, and thus although I don’t know of any case law offhand, would almost certainly find that a doctor who treated genital conditions but refused to treat someone with a circumcised penis was breaking the law. The HRT will consider this case using similar legal principles that give weight to the interests of the business proprietor, a cis-woman in this case, but the decisions that they make will have to comport with the relevant law – laws created by legislative bodies in Victoria, Ottawa, and London that included cis-women members but no trans members. I don’t know what the decision will be, but it’s clear that cis-women’s interests will have had more effect on the decades-long process of determining how such claims are made, structured, argued, and decided than trans* interests.
Crip Dyke, you are way too intelligent to have so completely misunderstood what I wrote about having an honest conversation some quarters, so I’m going to conclude that you deliberately misrepresented my meaning. I’ve done my best to honestly engage the viewpoints I disagree with rather than twist them beyond all recognition; kindly show me the same courtesy. Or find someone else to talk to.
Since you obviously do understand the concept of competing interests, let’s talk about the competing interests here, and why your analogy to racism is so completely inapt. We’re not talking about necessities like medical care or education. If the defendant were a physician refusing to treat a patient, you’d have a much stronger argument. But no, this is a Brazilian wax job, which is basically a luxury item. Not only that, unlike education, it requires intimate physical contact. The most hardened racist who absolutely loathed the idea of writing a check to the tax authorities to educate black children at least didn’t have to be physically intimate with them. Medical care also requires intimate physical contact, at least some of the time, but medical care is a necessity rather than a luxury.
On the other side of the ledger, the reason we allow people to choose with whom they will have intimate contact is because intimate contact goes to the very core of a person’s identity, self image, and self respect. That’s why a rape may only last a few moments but the emotional scars are forever. An undesired bit of physical intimacy is simply different from an undesired tax bill. Please tell me you understand that.
So, we have a plaintiff who, if she loses, has to look elsewhere for a luxury item, and if she wins, we have a woman who will be forced into intimate contact that will have the same effect on her as other undesired intimate contact, which is to say quite a bit. I don’t think this is a close case. I think the plaintiff suffers far less from losing than the defendant does. So under the competing interests analysis, I think the plaintiff loses.
And you’re right, there was a trial, and the defendant was allowed to make her case. And I hope the tribunal tosses the case. Part of my point, though, is that in a sane, rational world there wouldn’t have been a trial because the case would have been tossed as soon as someone looked at it.
I’m actually perfectly aware that you couldn’t possibly have been telling the literal truth when you said it is impossible to have honest conversations.
The reason I said that was not some evil anything. The reason I said that is because even if you’re engaging in hyperbole, your speech matters. I don’t want you to tell people that discussion is impossible when it clearly is possible. I don’t want you to spend all your time yelling, “I can’t talk!” I want you to actually talk about the substance.
And look, instead of villifying people on FtB as impossible to talk to, you actually talked. And you actually made an argument! It appears my sarcasm actually had its intended, productive effect.
Is it possible that in the future you could likewise refrain from making up categorical, absolutist accusations that aren’t grounded in reality? Because if you actually care about discussion, then you should know that doing that isn’t helping. Here’s hoping.
The comparison wasn’t the brazilian waxing case to a case of similar discrimination against black people.
The comparison was that you’re using absolutist rhetoric, like this:
There is a VAST difference between
and
You are far too intelligent not to understand the distinction, and yet your absolutist, categorical language that refuses to name names or even mention specific examples that might support the argument that your concerns exist and are valid has the effect of painting huge communities as anti-woman and anti-feminism in principle when in fact they may be no more anti-woman than 1960s Blacks were anti-white.
The comparison isn’t about the waxing case. There’s a reason I copied and pasted much of your language. It’s because even legitimate concerns (like preventing rape) can be and have been used in racist ways. It is necessary for you to acknowledge, if you want to have an honest conversation, that people can criticize you, can even have a good faith belief that you’re acting out cissexism, and yet also believe that cis*-women have legitimate interests as both plaintiffs and defendants before administrative tribunals like the BC Human Rights Tribunal as well as before judicial courts that hear civil matters related to anti-discrimination law.
You are constantly asserting that there is no good faith by anyone who isn’t supporting you, doing so with various phrasings like
And yet, later you make it clear that you don’t, in fact, believe these things. Take that last one. You very specifically say,
But then in response to me, you elaborate,
How can I have a “much stronger argument” if in literally any other context
here it is, another context, yet the law is compelling a woman to touch male genitalia. And yet you actually think that there’s a strong argument to be made that the law can acceptably impose a fine if she chooses not to touch male genitalia.
Look, I understand sarcasm, I use it all the time. If I thought your statement was sarcastic, I wouldn’t be calling it out for being literally false. Sarcasm is intended to be literally false, but it still effectively communicates (in many instances, obvs. on the internet sarcasm is less reliable). But your statement wasn’t sarcastic. You write as if you honestly believe your false statement right up until the moment when the obvious falsehood begins hurting your argument instead of helping it.
Why is that? What does lying about the complex realities of human rights law do for you that being honest about the complexities does not?
From my perspective, the only purpose that it appears to serve is that it allows you to paint others as being worse human beings than they actually are. If there is another purpose for your deliberately false statements, please let me know. I’d be happy to base my conclusions off of your direct testimony rather than reading your statements and making the best available inference given all the evidence.
Finally, these two things are impossible to square:
vs
Cis people file laughable claims in court all the fucking time. Your assertion that trans* plaintiffs shouldn’t get a hearing when they file claims you think are baseless is a different standard than cis people face under the law.
The law has ways of handling baseless claims, including through counter-claims. Denying trans people the same legal system that is available to cis people is the very opposite of “full equality for [transgender people]”.
It is, frankly, outrageous the way you simultaneously hold yourself out as someone who supports “full equality” and yet also supports entirely different procedural standards and access to courts than others receive, in a manner in direct conflict with many decades of administrative case law under HRTs and jurisprudential case law in the BC Supreme Courts, the BCCA, and the SCC.
I think you need to make up your mind about whether you support rule of law or whether you support discretionary denial of access to courts at the expense of trans persons. You really can’t have it both ways, and trying to have it both ways is providing significant negative context for how the rest of your writing will be interpreted.
Crip Dyke
Sorry – sincere question. I honestly don’t know the answer to the question for sure, and so I ask it to confirm it. What would be your preferred outcome in this case under your ideal laws? It seems to me as if you carefully avoided answering that question. (If anyone else wants to take that too, I’d be really interested and thankful too.)
I’m trying to explain this new position as best as I could on a reddit thread, and someone brought up this story and asked me “this too?”, and I said something like “yea, to the best of my understanding the trans rights activists that I have been talking to on FTB would say ‘operating a waxing business only to cis-women (women without penises) is transphobic and such discrimination from public businesses ought to be legally forbidden, even for waxing services that cover the genital area’ “. I really don’t mean to strawman, and I’m trying to learn. I think my understanding is correct, and I think my understanding is especially correct in this case because this case seems to be based entirely on “disgust” or “animus” against trans people. Do I understand correctly?
Gerrard to CD,
Fraught. Have fun.
Presumably you are silently appending “… given the facts you have at hand”, which are media reports and commentary, since it can be no other way. Best you can expect is a hypothetical response, I suspect, but we’ll see. ;)
@68 Gerrard
I honestly don’t know enough details about the case in question to know how it should be ruled, but I do have a couple of general thoughts.
The way a lot of people talk about this, and other similar cases, is as if they are sexualizing the whole event, as if the expectation of service in this regard is exactly the same as sexual assault, and as if the trans women are doing this to get some kind of sexual thrill or meeting some desire for controlling women’s bodies. This isn’t an uncommon reaction from a certain kind of transphobe, because they think the entire reason that trans women “pretend” to be trans is because they want to invade women’s spaces and view the entire thing as an extension of misogyny and “male” entitlement. I shouldn’t need to explain why this whole view of things is rather absurd. Hair removal on one’s genitals hurt, and trans women, even if they are lesbians, are no more interested in sex when having any kind of hair removal done than a cis-lesbian would be while that process is being done.
Second, I personally think it’s entirely reasonable to deny service if they simply aren’t trained properly to work with your genitals, and as I understand it the process and training is different between a penis and a vagina, so if the person isn’t trained and doesn’t think they can do it it’s reasonable for them to say so. However, if they are trained, and it’s an expectation of their employer to work with penises then they should do the job, or get a different job. That’s how employment works, and it’s not sexual assault because, having had lots of hair removal done, I can say that the whole thing is done in a rather dispassionate and clinical fashion. I can’t imagine either party getting anything sexual out of the process. My only thought when I’m having electrolysis or laser done is “when will this be over” I can’t imagine it’s much different with waxing.
As for whether or not it’s trasnphobic for businesses not to do waxing on penises, I’m honestly not sure. I suspect that it’s often just done because people with penises, most of them being men, rarely have waxing done in this culture so people often don’t train to do that kind of work. Of course I would like businesses to be more sensitive to trans issues, but I’m not sure how the legal issues should play out regarding that because there are a lot of details to consider.
There’s a shop downtown that does brazillians and manzillians, perhaps I’ll give them a call to see if they price by gender or morphology. Given that the prices are different, I speculate freely that it’s morphology. Plenty of trans folks in this town, there is basically zero chance this hasn’t arisen (although, it’s a big world, and much is possible, of course).
@jess 32
As you say, only some trans people do bad things. Why does that matter with any old random trans person? Group prejudice for individual crimes look like bigoted reasoning to me.
Why does that matter here?
harpermae, hairy penes are not a thing, it’s the scrota or the pubes.
</pedantry>
@Gerrard:
Thanks for the sincere question. I haven’t answered questions about how I would want the case decided because I really don’t know. If the business operator is licensed and has signed a pledge not to discriminate on the basis of sex, then even if no trans* person ever showed up they might be breaking their professional licensure agreement. What you may not understand is that this is a case under the Human Rights Code of BC, which is somewhat different from how anti-discrimination cases are handled in the US. While the HRC does outlaw discrimination, some cases which are affronts to dignity go through an administrative tribunal first. That tribunal with jurisdiction over those HRC-based cases is called the Human Rights Tribunal. It mostly deals with cases where there are little to direct monetary damages, like this one.
In these affronts to dignity cases, the professional standards upheld by your licensing body weigh pretty heavily on the HRT in determining what is or isn’t an affront to dignity. If this person is professionally licensed, and the professional standards forbid discrimination based on sex, the proper thing to do is probably find for the plaintiff and then have the licensing body review its professional standards to create a more carefully crafted standard that allows for more flexibility for individuals working on their own in a business that they own as sole proprietor or majority shareholder. You would have to find for the plaintiff in this case, however, since the professional standard would have equally required services to be provided to a cis* man. In that situation it wouldn’t matter if the salient fact was whether the trans person is legally recognized as a woman, since even if the court decided that genital shape was more salient than gender identity, the professional standards would still require the business owner to provide services.
In that case, for the court to do anything other than find for the plaintiff would be the court discriminating against the trans woman for being a trans woman and not a cis man. That would not only be illegal in BC, I think we should be able to agree that a court treating someone differently on that bases would be acting unjustly.
In the absence of professional standards from a licensing board, determining what is an affront to dignity is more difficult. In that case, I’d want to see literally all the facts before making a decision, and I don’t have those. I know it seems silly, but one of the things I’d like to see is the nature of the business license (there are many different types of corporations and they are regulated different based on corporation type as well as size, in either gross receipts or number of employees, whichever is more appropriate to the particular legislation or regulation).
But this is about directly addressing the first part of your question, “What would be your preferred outcome in this case?”
But your fuller question is, “What would be your preferred outcome in this case under your ideal laws?”
I might still change my mind upon learning more facts about this case, but say that all we know and all we will ever know is that,
1. a sole proprietor,
2. working from home,
3. provides personal cosmetic services,
4. that can be intimate in ways that include but are not limited to touching genitals, and
5. wants to discriminate in choosing her customers in ways not currently allowed (including by anything – genitals, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, whatever)
Should that be allowed? Well, yes. And I would have to check the law, but it’s probably allowed right now under certain forms of incorporation. It’s likely that part of the legal jeopardy for this owner is based on the choice of a public, commercial business charter. If the owner had had better legal advice (or possibly any legal advice) when setting up shop, she might have been able to understand that you really don’t want to let people into your home that you don’t both trust and feel comfortable with. Anti-discrimination laws don’t give a fuck about your comfort, and for very good reasons. Most kinds of public, commercial business organizations will subject you to those laws and are therefore a bad choice for a sole proprietor operating out of their home. Of course, they also have some advantages (or everyone would chose that and escape the threat of HRC liability), and if she knowingly chose that, fully aware that it meant she would be subject to the code in order to get a benefit she wanted more (such as a tax benefit, a banking benefit, or protection against other kinds of liability), then she got to choose and she chose to be subject to anti-discrimination law, and that’s that.
So… I would want it to be possible, but its probably possible already. What this means is that the legal community has fallen down on the job explaining what the benefits and disadvantages might shift when owning and operating different types of business organizations. In this case, the villain is not the plaintiff, but the legislature and the lawyers and the business consultants who might be giving bad advice. The plaintiff would, in this scenario, simply want the law applied to her benefit in the same way it would be applied if the proprietor refused to wax a muslim woman, or a woman with cerebral palsy.
Of course, while some businesses might be able to escape liability through certain methods of incorporation, if a professional license is involved, incorporation type might not matter, and you might need to reform the professional standards of that licensing board in order to allow exceptions when running certain types of businesses or when operating out of one’s home or when one has no employees (and there would certainly need to be exceptions in the case where all three are true). In this case, the villains of the story are neither the plaintiff nor the legal community, but instead are the members of the licensing board responsible for creating its professional code. Rewriting the professional code with certain limited exceptions would be the proper way to handle this situation.
What I’m writing here, however can’t reasonably be understood without a contrasting case. So let’s take up a different hypothetical. Let’s imagine that someone is running a business on their own property, in the same building as their home, but it’s in a larger, divided building so that providing access to the business area does not provide any access to the private home.
Further, let’s assume that the person intentionally chose to incorporate the type of business organization that makes her business subject to anti-discrimination law. Finally, let’s assume that this proprietor has at least one non-owner employee who provides the same services as the proprietor.
In this case, consistent with how I’ve argued other things in the past, I believe the business should be required to provide services, but not the individual proprietor. This puts the onus on a proprietor to choose to hire an employee who is willing to handle those cases that the proprietor does not wish to handle, but hiring someone willing to serve customers without discrimination is a bona fide job requirement, and if a prospective employee can’t do that, it will be necessary for the employee to go elsewhere where her desire to pick and choose customers can be accommodated by whatever business hires her without any denial of services or any affront to any customer’s dignity.
I actually don’t give a fuck, for instance, about the recent spate of bills that allow a pharmacist to decline to fill a specific medication as long as this happens in a way invisible to the customer, with no denial of service and no affront to dignity. If your pharmacy is open and you only have one employee available and someone comes in to fill a prescription, the fact that they have a car and the nearest other pharmacy is only a 3-minute drive away is irrelevant. You don’t get to deny your customer service because your religion doesn’t like the choices that your customer’s religion allows that customer to make.
Is that inconvenient for the business owner? Sure. But we’ve seen the damage that apartheid does to a society, and when you are granted incorporation of your business you get a whole slew of benefits. Society has the right to ask that if we grant an owner those benefits, the owner won’t sabotage society in return.
This means that discriminatory employees are less hirable because they cannot work independent shifts, but it does mean that they are still hirable in their chosen careers. Maybe they don’t like that, but choices carry consequences. For some professions (like cosmetology) it might be easy to open up your own business in your home and gain all the benefits of your career without being subject to anti-discrimination law. In other professions (pharmacology) this might not be possible, and you might have to depend on the grace of your employer, probably requiring you to apply for jobs only with large companies. Choices carry consequences.
So, yeah. My ideal resolution is that the current case is judged fairly under current law, but that a review take place to make sure that there’s a way for sole proprietors, especially but possibly not only sole proprietors operating out of their own homes, to create personalized businesses that permit much greater client selection than other forms of business, including the ability to select only clients of a single religion or sex or gender identity.
I’m not sure if there’s any legitimate need to allow people to discriminate on race, but I’m willing to consider arguments in the case of sole proprietors operating out of their homes. Right now, I’m against it. It seems different to me than, say religion. Imagine a mohel who doesn’t want to circumcise some random Christian’s baby for non-religious reasons. I can understand that. Imagining a mohel who doesn’t want to circumcise a sephardi jew’s child because sephardim are dirty apes is something completely different. But I’d be willing to listen to some argument on that.
Finally, even if discrimination through denial of services is allowed (and I think it should be in some circumstances that I’ve illustrated above), verbal abuse is not. There’s no excuse for it. If it turns out that a client shows up that you’re allowed to decline, do so respectfully, explain your policies, and (if you don’t want to be thought a jerk) maybe hand them a list of people you’ve previously identified as providing competent and friendly service to the population in question. What you don’t do is start yelling at them about how they belong to a population you hate. That would still constitute an affront to dignity even if the denial of service, in that particular context, did not.
John, you gotta go hang out with some more penises. I mean, a penis-goatee would be pretty unusual, but some har on thar ain’t.
Andrew, heh. I was kinda waiting for that.
CD, !
(A pleasure to read. You taking nootropics or something?)
Thirdmill, it would be easier to have an “honest conversation” about things if there weren’t so many transphobes showing up with lies, bigotry, and disingenuousness. Maybe you could help us combat them, so your wanted conversation becomes more possible?
To Crip Dyke
Thanks for the lengthy, clear, and thorough explanation. I don’t think I deserve it.
If it matters, I thought you deserved it.
A Timeline Of Rationality Rules’ Transphobic Meltdown & ACA Fallout
by Essence of Thought
Looking from the outside, having seen the episodes, the podcast at the top, and the linked video, it seems like a community has been attacked and destroyed by huge numbers of external players and just the wrong people in the wrong spots on the inside.
Is there anything that can be done to repair the ACA/ I guess its up to them but here needs to be some way to support the many good folks in that community. Perhaps Traci is right and its irredeemable but it brakes my heart to think so.
What lessons can we learn as we strive to form rational communities about the world? The Atheist Foundation of Australia is also in meltdown due to destruction from the top. Is there a problem with how we structure our groups? Is there a problem with how we discuss issues? Do we need to understand the strategies and tactics used by the darker side of all this?
@thirdmill if the company is a specialist in female genitalia, forcing them to work on male genitals isn’t fair.
The issue is isolated, and doesn’t have any bearing on the greater rights of trans people. Again, like i’ve already said, cherry picking news stories isn’t going to convince me against trans rights.
Crip Dyke, absolutist rhetoric is a rhetorical device used to make a point and not intended to be taken literally. If I say “Donald Trump has never done an honorable thing in his life,” that’s probably not technically true; if we went over his life with a fine-tooth comb we could probably find isolated incidents here or there in which he did something honorable. But are you really going to take someone to task for using rhetorical absolutism to make the generally true point that he’s mostly a disreputable slimebag? Excuse me for saying so, but you’re being a pedantic asshole.
Alt-X, I’m not trying to convince you, or anyone else, against trans rights. I support trans rights. I’m fine with trans people using the bathroom of their choice, of dressing in a way that makes them comfortable, of being addressed by their preferred pronouns, of not being discriminated against in employment or housing. I just don’t think those rights include forcing an unwilling women to handle male genitalia, and I’m afraid we’re heading in the direction in which reasonable line-drawing will become increasingly difficult.
And Crip Dyke, you are correct that cis people do bring frivolous lawsuits too (although I’m not really sure what would be the cis equivalent to this particular lawsuit). The difference is that if a cis person brings a frivolous lawsuit, and someone says “My goodness, what a frivolous lawsuit this is,” that person is not going to have to defend herself against claims of anti-cis bigotry for saying that it’s a frivolous lawsuit. If the cis person involved happens to be male you might, depending on the facts, have some MRAs claiming it’s anti-male bigotry, but it will pretty well be recognized that being cis does not insulate one from being called out for filing a frivolous lawsuit.
I don’t think the Brazilian wax plaintiff should go to jail for filing what I think is a frivolous lawsuit, but I’m fine with heaping scorn and ridicule on her. Which is exactly what would happen to a cis person who brought a comparable lawsuit.
thirdmill, you sure are slow.
You @82: “Crip Dyke, absolutist rhetoric is a rhetorical device used to make a point and not intended to be taken literally.”
CD @67: “The comparison was that you’re using absolutist rhetoric.”
(A bit like one of those old Get Smart episodes, where 99 proposes some plan and is ignored, and a while later 86 triumphantly proposes that very same plan, having hitherto ignored it)
thirdmill/301 has also made a bit of a slip there. Who else would have similar but different acct names? Perhaps twitter avatars with ‘just joking’ pepe the frog, milk glass or 1488 avatars maybe? Could 3rdwindmill here have perhaps other similarities with such acct holders too? I’m just asking reasonable, logical, rational questions here. Not my fault if you draw any other completely unwarranted conclusions. What’s a dog whistle?
Asshat.
@ 85 indianajones
Also, “Jess”, I think? “thirdmill301” began responding for “Jess” (@32) from comment 47. Then became “thirdmill” from comment 59. “Jess” attempted the same derail (without success) in a previous thread. I think someone’s having a bit of trouble keeping their sock drawer straight.
@Thirdmill:
Wow. If things were different, you’re saying they would be different? Hmm. Quite the powers of observation you have there, Sparky.
I’m also very concerned about this situation you describe, one where someone says nothing more than “This is a frivolous lawsuit” and then is not accused of bigotry if the filer is cis, but is if the filer is trans*. Can you tell me more about the extensive history of social consequences that have befallen people who have in the past argued that a particular trans* plaintiff filed a frivolous claim?
You don’t have to list every single one of the murders, destroyed families, or careers ended. Just some stats on the number of these events per year would be good. I want everyone here to know just exactly what consequences you’re worried might befall.
Well, I haven’t looked into the facts of this case and am therefore not at all convinced it’s frivolous in the first place, though it might be. Given that, I can hardly be expected to offer an “equivalent” to this particular lawsuit, but we could start our efforts with this one:
Overton v. Anheuser-Busch Co. 205 Mich. App. 259 (1994)
“My fantasies don’t magically come to life when I drink Bud light” is rather more stupid and frivolous and misogynist than, “I was denied service by a Brazilian waxing cosmetologist on the basis of sex, and then was subject to demeaning comments that constitute an affront to dignity under well-established provisions of the BC HRC.”
And yet, look! The courts accepted the filing when it was made and the filing fee paid. And then they scheduled a hearing, as the HRT is wont to do. Wait, I’m confused. You’re not opposed to that, are you? Oh, yes. Yes, you are:
And how is dismissing trans* persons’ lawsuits without examination by the courts at the whim of whomever the fuck (presumably the filing clerk, or if not, the judge’s law clerk) “full legal equality,” when cis people get the time and attention of a judge and a hearing with competing motions before such a qualified judge professionally determines the suit to be baseless?
What? You now say it isn’t equal? Are you seriously implying that “full legal equality” means that even if the action brought in the waxing case is ultimately found baseless, the claim must go though the same administrative process accessible by cis people to determine that?
Huh.
Fuck your, “I don’t think this person should go to jail,” crap. This bullshit about how you’re merely for scorn and ridicule because you haven’t yet called for imprisonment excludes the middle to a dishonest degree. You don’t think that the plaintiff should be allowed to have her case heard by a competent authority. Conceding that you don’t want her to go to jail is a red herring, since no one has said you want her to go to jail.
What I’ve said is that you have specified that “in a sane, rational world” the plaintiff’s claim would be dismissed without the same consideration that courts all over the world give to the stupid claims of cis folk every day. (And, by the by, this is completely true as anyone reading this thread can see.) This is relevant not only because dismissing a claim without due consideration is unjust, but because you have asserted simultaneously that you’re for “full legal equality” and that you’re for different treatment of trans* persons’ legal claims. Whether the different treatment is jail or being forced to listen to Lawrence Welk for 60 hours or simply having one’s legal claims rejected without due consideration doesn’t matter.
It’s. Not. Fucking. Equal.
So blather on if you like about what a magnanimous cis person you are: you didn’t insist that a trans person go to jail for filing paperwork! How noble! How generous! How just!
The rest of us are fully able to see through your misrepresentations because this thing called “the internet” keeps a handy record of your previous statements for comparison.
Crip Dyke, everyone has the right to file a lawsuit against anyone for anything, in the sense that if you have the ability to draft a complaint and the filing fee (and even that can be waived if you’re indigent), the clerk will accept your lawsuit for filing. The question is at what point in the process should a frivolous case be dismissed. I don’t think this one should have gone to a full evidentiary hearing; I should it should have been dismissed earlier in the process. This is why we have motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment, and one or the other should have been used to toss this case.
And as a now retired trial attorney who has significant amounts of my time wasted by other people’s frivolous filings, to say nothing of the cost to the system itself, I’m in favor of heaping scorn and ridicule on anyone who files a frivolous lawsuit. It’s just about the only deterrent there is to frivolous filings. I was once sued for sedition and high treason by a Bible thumper for being the attorney of record on a gay rights case; Thumper’s legal theory was that since God is the King of the Universe, and God says homosexuality is an abomination, anything that furthers the gay agenda is sedition and high treason against God Almighty. Are you opposed to scorn and ridicule for that plaintiff too, or do you accept that at least some frivolous filings deserve scorn and ridicule? Don’t forget that the defendants who are the victims of these frivolous filings have to spend not just time but also money defending against them. It’s my understanding the defendant is now out of business.
And by the way, you’re still being a pedantic asshole rather than responding to my actual arguments.
thirdmill, CD is never, ever, ever, going to address anything of substance that you put into this thread.
That is not the method.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s progressives, conservatives, religious zealots, or simply people who prefer one camera brand over another. The method explicitly avoids a progressive discussion in which one point follows from another, and the goal is not “discourse” in any reasonable sense. It is to drive you off, and score points with the in-group.
That said, oddly enough, I approve of FtB efforts despite disagreeing with much of what goes on here. The Overton Window demands functioning fringes which are spread far enough apart to bracket a set of ideas that are actually functional, useful, or if you prefer “right.” Fringes gotta fringe, and the activity we’re seeing here is important to their functioning. Without outsiders to drive off, the group loses cohesiveness and energy and risks collapse as a functioning fringe, to detriment of all.
@Thirdmill:
And where did you practice? You might be aware that small claims courts in the US have different procedural rules. The Human Rights Tribunal of British Columbia (“BC HRT”) functions in a manner roughly analogous to a small claims court, but for minor cases of discrimination or affront to dignity.
Like small claims courts, the HRT’s procedures are designed for expedited hearing and disposition. There simply is no point in the process before the initial HRT hearing at which a plaintiff’s claim can be dismissed unless you were to unilaterally empower clerks to dismiss claims sua sponte.
If I understand you correctly now, you’re not actually arguing that trans* persons get different treatment under BC law, you’re simply entirely ignorant of what it means to have a hearing before the HRT and are thus judging the laws of a jurisdiction in which you don’t practice (and have never practiced) based on erroneous assumptions.
Or maybe you are or have been licensed to practice in BC, but then I’d expect you to actually know something about civil procedure up here, and the difference between the BC HRT and the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Obviously I was wrong about why your statement regarding the case was fucked up. I should not have assumed that you knew anything about the procedural posture of the case you were criticizing for its procedure. In the future I will ask you more questions about whether or not you know anything about the procedures you’re criticizing before I judge your comments on those procedures.
Heap away. My objection was to the seeming oxymoron of insisting you were for equal treatment under law while simultaneously insisting that a trans* person’s claim should be dismissed before any judge would have had opportunity to review the facts and arguments. This apparent conflict is resolved now that evidence has made it more likely that you just didn’t know what you were talking about.
But also … I notice that this most recent statement also seems at odds with earlier statements you’ve made. If you simply wanted to heap scorn on someone for filing a frivolous claim, you could have simply quoted the law and relevant precedent and all of us would have had a good laugh. It really looks to me as a reader as if you wanted to heap scorn upon the legal system itself.
Mind you, I’ve got plenty of criticisms of various laws and institutions and if you want to heap scorn on the legal system that is also fair game. Nonetheless, shouldn’t you be honest about what you’re attempting to do?
Talking about frivolous lawsuits, how is the one made by Carrier going on?
@Andrew Molitor:
Really? Tell me, is it that you have no idea that this thread includes a comment #74, or is it that you simply don’t have any faith that Thirdmill will ever be able to make the substance of their argument sufficiently clear and coherent to gain a response like I provided to Gerrard?
Thirdmill is the one who announced,
only to later insist that they never honestly meant that it is literally impossible to have honest conversation. Thirdmill engages in smears here. If Thirdmill wanted honest conversation, it would be easy enough to name a specific person and quote a specific statement that disallowed honest conversation so that their admittedly untrue statement wouldn’t become a general denunciation of a nebulous “they”, necessarily reflecting badly on folks for whom the criticism is undeserved, yet always flexible enough to escape accountability with a quick, “But I didn’t mean you” qualification. This is quite odd behavior for someone who has made a primary criticism in this thread that unjustified labeling shuts down conversations.
In turn, I’ve quoted Thirdmill’s own words and made specific responses, blaming no one for Thirdmill’s statements other than Thirdmill. Yes, some of those responses involved sarcasm, but addressing via sarcasm is still addressing.
So what evidence do you actually have that I’m unwilling to address substance? Any at all?
@kkehno
I understood that he provided notice he was going to refile in California (after it was originally dismissed in whatever state it was first brought -I can’t remember for sure, but it was midwestern, possibly Ohio or Indiana), representing himself. It may be that he has actually refiled by now, but I haven’t really heard of anything happening in the suit since the notice. You could maybe check out the Skepchick blog, they might have more up to date info.
Crip Dyke, it occurs to me that you may not understand the concept of pendantic assholery, so perhaps I should explain it.
If I say, “It takes three hours to drive from Seattle to Vancouver,” everyone will understand that I meant three hours if I don’t have an accident, run out of gas, get held up by highway construction, have engine trouble, or stop for a two hour lunch on the way. Everyone. And if I had to spell all of that out, conversation would be impossible because every word would require qualifications, and those qualifications would require further qualifications. So you either accept standard linguistic conventions, or conversation grinds to a halt.
So then you come along and say, “But what about if you have an accident? You didn’t think of that, did you, you stupid idiot.” Well, I did think about it, but since it had no relevance to the comment I was actually making, I chose to ignore it. And everyone who isn’t a pedantic asshole understands that as well.
Andrew Mollitor is right. You’re not interested in having a substantive conversation. So fuck off.
@Thirdmill:
If you (the hypothetical “you”) say,
I don’t have to be a pedant to care more about that statement than about the statement
Both are unqualified statements (though only the first is really of the absolutist form of your “impossible” statement), but one unfairly disparages people and one does not. I can be fully aware that you can’t possibly have met and loathed every single Canadian, AND still object to your statement. That’s not pedantry, that’s caring about people. The pedantry is just the method used to show you your statement is over broad, it’s not the justification for disliking your over broad statement.
If the hypothetical “you” continues,
then it’s entirely reasonable – at least to me – to point out that the person advocating gentleness and care and respect in language in order to avoid unfairly tarring people is, in fact, engaged in making ungentle, careless, disrespectful statements that unfairly tar people.
This points to the possibility that there is special pleading going on, of the type,
Any rhetorical strategy that makes you decide to actually suck it up and take care in your own phrasing so that you’re making claims that don’t cause the level of splash damage you’re causing seems reasonable to me. If the strategy that works is pedantically pointing out that your words, as written, are actually false, well, the fact that your falsehoods seem like immaterial exaggerations to you isn’t going to stop me.
However, if all that’s necessary for you to quit a conversation is for others to accurately point out mistakes that you consider to minor to notice, I don’t know why you’re on about accusations of transphobia (or cissexism). After all,
so you’re going to be scared away from conversations all the time whether transphobia is mentioned or not.
thirdmill, CD literally isn’t talking to you. CD is managing their social status within the FtB self-enclosed community, attempting to gain or maintain status by “taking you on.”
There’s a whole bunch of research on this, it’s one of about three common models that radical activist groups fall in to. It is not the model that effectively produces social change, but that’s a separate issue.
You are correct that some sort of “honest discussion” is impossible, because such a thing is not even remotely the point. This is a social group that is, in my judgement at any rate, fully self-enclosed, and is now engaged in purely social activities revolving around internal status. Possibly they have BBQs sometimes as well. This produces periodic cleansings, of which we’re merely watching the latest example. The goal is, ultimately, to avoid being cleansed in subsequent rounds. It’s genuinely fascinating stuff.
Arguably you should not even be offended. You are merely a convenient object that happened by to be seized as a tool and, to be blunt, you’re the dumbass that walked by and allowed yourself to be used.
Smelling a lot of slyme here right now.
Re: people using bigotry and transphobia
The way thirdmill301 brought up their problem with people using the words bigotry and transphobia is interesting. Rather than wait for the problem of illigitimate use of the word bigotry to occur and then act, they brought up an abstract without concrete examples.
That’s interesting to me because it looks similar to the strategy of posting examples of trans people doing bad things, get the bad association out there without a reason in the current situation. I wonder why they did that. Because unless there’s an actual example of that here that’s relevant to conversations here, that seems to be poisoning the well.
In this conflict I had to deal with “dictionary athiests”, people who kept citing the dictionary definition of athiesm when they saw people suggesting or talking about things they didn’t like, “what’s that got to do with athiesm?”. I waited until I had a bunch in one place before I attacked the behavior. Not this manipulative looking garbage.
@Andrew Molitor
Oooooooo! Can you outline the method? I love seeing people break that kind of thing down.
Where is CD only acting politically for attention and avoiding substance? Because those are different things and can done for good and bad reasons as well as being present together and separately.
Well, I am disappointed with the whole kerfuffel. But I stand against transphobia, and therefore, I have to support FreeThoughtBlogs.
I hope that there is a place for former AXP and Talk Heathen aficianados can go.
Pogg.
I can, Brony, and I think it’s a good idea to write it up. I haven’t got space in my sched for long form writing at the moment, though. I will pull something together on medium over the next couple of weeks, though. If you do a decent job of stalking me, I’ll probably push a link to it around someplace, and of course you can email me directly. I won’t be offended if you use a burner email address.
@Andrew Molitor
You can do it here with CripDyke’s words. If you can’t describe the behavior competently when you’re trying to point it out as bad behavior you shouldn’t be bringing it up at all. Why should you get any benefit of claiming a problem that if you can’t point it out in the place you say it exists?
You need weeks to support your claim about CripDyke’s behavior here?
That’s a hard no, Brony. That is, as I suspect you are fully aware, exactly the game that is being played here.
You wish to draw me into an endless time-sink of rambling, endlessly shifting parsing of words, and that is a game I explicitly do not play. I will, however, write up some discussion of how the well understood workings of insular activist groups work translate into online environments, and share same. It will take a few thousand words, and some skull sweat. It’s not gonna happen in a few idle minutes here and there.
You will immediately deride this as LIES TO DODGE THE ISSUE, of course, but it happens that I am slowly pulling together my household to go on vacation for a period of time at this precise moment, and therefore will not have the necessary several hours to do the work.
If you care enough to pay attention, though, you will see it turning up eventually.
To put it another way: I have committed to several hours of work at your request, and you have (so far) responded with a querulous demand that I do it immediately. I don’t take that shit from my kids, and I’m certainly not going to take it from so internet rando. You get the same answer my kids get: in due time, in due time.
I think you already hinted at the answer back in #98: To get the idea out there, but in a form vague enough that it can’t be easily addressed or rebuffed. If anyone tries, you get to accuse them of misrepresenting you. It’s the Sam Harris/Jordan Peterson thing all over again.
Brony, No. 98, but we do have a concrete example: Someone with male genitalia who identifies as female seriously thinks that because she identifies as female, that she has the right to expect an unwilling woman to handle her male genitalia. And instead of being laughed out of the room, some people are actually taking her claims seriously, and calling transphobic bigots anyone who isn’t jumping on that bandwagon.
Now, that does not mean that all trans people behave badly, but it does mean that one specific trans person is behaving badly, and is being taken seriously only because she identifies as female. Someone with male genitalia who identifies as male, and who insisted that an unwilling woman handle his equipment, would risk ending up on the sex offender registry.
I for the life of me cannot see why expecting an unwilling woman to handle male genitalia is any less outrageous because the owner of the genitals identifies as female than it would be if the owner of the genitals identified as male. But whatever.
@Andrew Molitor
Put as many words next to it as you want, you’re still acting prejudiced. I’m aware of no game that you’re referring to, though political posturing does have elements that look like a game.
If you can’t show what’s wrong with what people are saying in concrete terms you are not useful beyond subjective characterizations. Until you get concrete you’re a shit talker to me.
@thirdmill301 106
Damn. You’re not even going to try to give an example of misusing bigotry and transphobia are you?
You’re just going to act like that situation has something to do with this one without even trying to create a logical connection are you?
Personally I find your position hard to respect after John refuted it with an example from the medical profession. Aparently to you it’s ok to force a cis-woman to touch genitalia if they have an important job. That’s aparently ok according to your principles.
To me the answer is that both professionals be protected by laws that deal with predatory patients and customers, and that they act like professionals otherwise.
Someone seems to think to be a beautician is analogous to being a doctor and that because a doctor has to treat all comers then so must a beautician, even though she hangs out a shingle offering her services to women only, not men.
A pediatrician is not obliged to accept geriatrics as patients. Age discrimination?
A gynecologist is not obliged to accept males as patients. Sex discrimination?
A cardiologist is not obliged to accept trauma victims as patients.
These are not discriminatory acts, they are specialiations, and our harrassed beautician is in the same boat; she has chosen to offer her services to women only (her specialty) and has rightly refused service to a MAN! Wiggle with words all you like, but I reckon a bloke ain’t a chick.
This poor woman is only one of 16 that Yaniv has chosen to target as he feeds his narcism. He has needs, and his needs are to denigrate and belittle others so he can feel better about himself. Quite Trumpian, really.
Perhaps most horrifying of all is Yaniv’s latest gambit– trying to arrange a swimming event for children where parents will be barred and clothing will be optional. Yes, you read that right. He has applied to hold what he is describing as an “All Bodies Swim” for LGBTQ youth aged 12+ at the civic pool in Langley Township. Parents and guardians will not be allowed to attend and “Individuals will be permitted to be topless”.
A 32 year old man wants to be alone in a swimming pool full of semi-naked children.
https://glinner.co.uk/the-war-on-women-yaniv-special/
I am left wondering if Yaniv is a narcissist or a Poe – but let’s go alphabetically and N comes before P, so narcissist it is. A defining trait of all TRA’s.
Ugh. Clean up required at 109.
We got that you were a bigot the first time, jess. You don’t have to keep clarifying.
I just got done watching Essence Of Thought’s hosting of testimony from former members and moderators of the ACA/aexp,
https://youtu.be/x0-yDOBDyuc
And then I look to see what thirdmill, Andrew Molitor, and jess want to talk about. No wonder two want to redirect attention to trans individuals acting badly, and one wants to disparage behavior without having to show the behavior in question. A bigoted swarm changed the behavior dynamic and that looks like shit.
And it’s not an uncommon thing. That’s what minorities have to deal with.
@Brony: Have you even read the details of the case? You’re making a pretty major false equivalency. A professional health care worker is educated, trained and licensed to do that job. The estheticians, on the other hand, were in some cases running home businesses and had no experience or training with… “outie” genitalia.
“The procedure … [uses] a different kind of wax and a different technique,” noted the lawyer.
The whole reason this story made the news is because the would-be customer made a complaint about alleged “human rights” being violated.
Among the defendants were a single mom and an immigrant working out of their homes, as well as a salon who employed a Muslim woman (whose religion forbids her to touch no one else but her husband).
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2018/06/07/trans-woman-sues-canadian-spa-over-muslim-beauticians-refusal-to-wax-her/
https://www.dailywire.com/news/38105/transgender-woman-files-human-rights-complaints-amanda-prestigiacomo
https://torontosun.com/news/national/balls-to-that-human-rights-hearing-in-b-c-trans-waxing-war
https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/18/transgender-brazilian-wax-jessica-yaniv-predator/
@jess 109
Your analogies makes no sense, and so desperately need to attach this situation to trans people in general. You haven’t even touched the issue of logically connecting that to this situation with the ACA/aexp.
Asking a doctor to treat a patient outside of their specialty would be like asking a beautician to do something outside their specialty with a client. I see nothing wrong with someone refusing a service they’re not trained to do.
Hair removal from penis or vagina having people isn’t that sort of situation.
And finally, what if it was a 32 year-old woman? Do you have some sort of bigotry against clothing optional spaces and people in that lifestyle?
Do you have something showing that this person preys on children? If that’s the case I would understand the paranoia, but so far you’ve just pointed out that they’re trans and a naturist.
@curbyrdogma 113
See my last comment. I’m not going to give a shit when people are using that case to politically manipulate this situation without a lick of work to show relevance or why it matters more than the trans people and CIS WOMEN who were harassed while dealing with transphobia.
I’ve had people use that case to distract from this situation with the ACA/aexp without doing anything more than insisting it’s relevant without showing it. It might be terrible in ways I don’t understand but if it’s being used to distract from other abuse I choose not to give a fuck in this thread so the manipulative use isn’t rewarded.
#114: “what if it was a 32 year-old woman?”
I realize that it’s just a slip of the tongue as it were, but, hmm.
I don’t know the details of the situation, but I do know that it IS a 32 year old woman, and I can certainly imagine scenarios with 12 year old kids, parents explicitly excluded, and 32 year old women that make me pretty uncomfortable. I have a 5 year old and a 9 year old, and I am working through the people I know and trust to see if it would feel right and… I dunno. I’m not coming up with anyone I’d feel good about it with.
It’s like with the sexist trolls for me. If you’re bringing up men getting sexually assaulted in order to change the subject from women getting sexually assaulted, I’m not going to be on your side in this situation. And I told that to people all over the internet, it’s a political behavior.
I’m going to do that when people distract from trans abuse too. Principles can be politically inconvenient to some people.
@Andrew Molitor 116
Oh I realized that referring to a 32 year woman had some layers. It was no slip since there are different kinds of women.
And the kind doesn’t matter when someone is doing a “think of the children!”. Either there’s evidence of predatory behavior or there’s not. Is it terrible when a naturist community puts a 32 year-old man in charge of a children’s group? In general, pretend the background check looks good.
Having mentally run through my female friends, AFAB, trans, and none-of-my-business, and now some male presenting friends (all of whom I trust just fine) I arrive at this every time:
“Well, hmm, it sounds OK, but man that ‘parents excluded’ clause doesn’t sit well with me”
Now, I have no idea is the parents excluded clause is even real, and I am treating this as 100% hypothetical. But, you know, IF it was there, that seems to be how I’d feel.
@Andrew Molitor
Investigation of that “parents excluded” clause seems reasonable, and utterly irrelevant to the situation involving the ACA/aexp. Good luck with that. I’m not interested in prejudicing my thoughts about this situation with one that for all intents and purposes seems chosen just to make cis people feel icky about trans people.
@ jess, #109
You do realize that any tiny glimmer of a real point you might have is completely lost in the howling cacophony of bigotry you deliver it in, right?
Deliberately misgendering someone is NOT acceptable, even if that person is an asshole (“asshole” assumes facts not in evidence, because I’m not going to trust that any information provided by a reactionary transphobe is accurate).
Make that “icky about trans women”.
A certain group of people certainly do use trans people, trans men, and trans women differently. Trans men just aren’t good enough tools here, not so scary.
All this irrational behavior coming up when trying to communicate about abuse towards trans women and allies. All that fear driven irrational behavior, and it’s the people mentioning bigotry and transphobia that are trying to shut things down?
That’s not my experience at all. We’ve got people who can’t deal with parallel discussion about bigotry and ways that trans women might be hurting women’s sports. I saw that “discussion” over and over at the athiest experience show blog and facebook groups. What do you think happened when I started applying pressure on people to actually back up the negative feelings they had about trans women while pointing out that unsupported beliefs are irrational?
It wasn’t a discussion about data that was for sure.
To Brony
Again, one of the very first things that I did in that discussion on the AXP blog before it was locked was to make very specific fact claims that I believed to be true, and I also offered to go find those citations for you, but I did first ask something like “before I do all of this hard work, would it even matter for this discussion? Would it even matter to you if it were true?”, and you basically said “no”. I made this offer several times in that thread. And then you made the same claim that you’re making here, that no one tried to have a fact-based, evidence-based discussion with citations. As I did in the other thread, I’ll repeat here: You’re being a fucking dishonest shit. Stop it already.
Gerrard, were you familiar with Brony, you’d realise he’s not neurotypical.
When you respond to him as if he were, it doesn’t help matters.
In particular, “You’re being a fucking dishonest shit.” is your interpretation, one with which I don’t personally agree. Your theory of mind is being missaplied, he doesn’t think the way you think.
The only meeting place is in the intellectual domain; you are both intelligent people.
That you are neurotypical doesn’t mean others aren’t.
(Sheesh)
@GerrardOfTitanServer 124
You wanted me to tell you what sort of evidence would satisfy me with respect to your concerns about trans women in women’s sports.
I told you I wasn’t going to tell you that because I wanted what already convinced you to express concern about trans women in women’s sports.
I do not see this as dishonesty. Yes I said I was willing to consider what other people had to show, but there’s simply nothing to tell you there. Frankly it looked like you were trying to put a price on me for asking you about your concerns about trans people, and I repeatedly mentioned that to me it was also about putting pressure on people to show if their concerns were relevant.
@ John Morales 125
I appreciate the support but I’ve been ok from the neurodiversity perspective. Maybe there’s some role-modeling benefits but I prefer to defend myself because when it comes to confrontation the tourette’s syndrome gives me more privileges than drawbacks. Ethics requires me to to be explicit about this because I don’t want an advantage I don’t need, people should know that there isn’t that sort of neurodiversity issue here, and we will have to get more complex about this stuff eventually.
You are right that I don’t think like other people though. There’s something weird going on with respect to seeing lots of little pieces of repeated social behavior. We don’t individually seize on the same things to the same extent.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29053770/
Oh my goodness. Really? What special status does Thirdmill have that “taking [thirdmill] on” provides such great social leverage?
Although, I have to admit, gaining social status within FtB would be useful. I might even be able to parlay that into my own blog! Maybe with enough attention I could double the money that writing on FtB pays me now!
Not least because it could help my more explicitly and thoughtfully plan to entice victims to FtB so I can use them as means to my nefarious social ends, I eagerly look forward to your exposé about how nothing I’ve said in this thread is of substance, and the listing of arguments of substance made by Thirdmill that I left unaddressed. I’m sure the specific arguments that Thirdmill made (you know, the ones that Thirdmill doesn’t admit were mere generalized puffery designed to cast aspersions on the ability of others to communicate without providing any evidence of any specific misdeed by any specific person, or indeed even one single consequence any person has suffered as a result of having once used the internet to ask about a trans* person’s actions, “Is this reasonable”) that I’ve left unaddressed are important, expressed with clarity, and supported by evidence. I’m sure once you single them out in blockquotes the world will see exactly how much of Thirdmill’s production has been unfairly ignored, returning the world to its ordinary state of justice once again.
[No worries, Brony. FWIW, I wasn’t white-knighting. Or not intentionally, anyway.]
@John Morales
Seeing as every time I see someone use “white knighting” and I grill them on what the illigitimate defense of a person is, and that I’ve yet to get a description, I guess you’re not. It’s probably something like “stop defending someone I don’t want you to defend”.
Brony, exactly. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=white%20knighting
@John Morales
Huh. I wonder if it evolved. I haven’t looked at a definition in about a decade and I thought there was something about the “rescue” being due to irrationality or something. I thought it was more complicated than “for any reason”. Eh, my challenge still works.
Brony, no need to wonder. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/white-knight
PS yes, it works. And I hope Holms re-reads your first paragraph @126, where you sum it up unambiguously, if he ever cares to respond.
(It was more about me telling Holms where he might be misperceiving things than about defending you, that’s for sure. I have hopes for Holms)
[um, brain-fade, obviously. Not Holms, Gerrard]
Sorry, Gerrard. I had hopes for you too, and you’ve more than lived up to them.
I mean that.
(I am in my dotage)
The nuance makes this wrong. No. I did not ask “what sort of evidence would satisfy you?”. I asked you “would this specific evidence satisfy you?”. You basically said “I’m not going to answer that question because I’m not interested in having a fact-based discussion with you on this topic at this time”. I thought “whatever, ok”. I’m not going to bother myself to do research for someone who isn’t interested in the facts. I’m not complaining that you’re not interested in what the facts are.
I’m complaining that you dishonestly portray what happened with this factually incorrect description that you posted. I’m complaining that you’re continuing to make this same error even after I explained it to you.
I’m also complaining because you described several people, me included, as unable or unwilling to produce evidence that underlined my beliefs because I offered many times to produce that sort of evidence – so long as it producing it would actually accomplish something. Because you said that you were not interested in having a discussion about the evidence and facts, I did not do that hard and lengthy work to do that research to find the facts and citations. And then, you come here and say that your conversation opponents which included me didn’t have facts or evidence or citations. So, again, fuck your dishonest obstinate shit. Stop incorrectly characterizing my behavior already. Stop saying that I didn’t have facts underlying my beliefs. Stop saying that I was unable or unwilling to produce citations. I offered to produce citations many times, and you refused every offer. You don’t get to complain that I didn’t produce citations when every time I offered, you refused the offer.
John Morales
Brony is lying. Brony has proven themself quite competent enough at reading comprehension, and yet they refuse to accept the numerous corrections that I’ve made. This is not the first, or even second, or even fifth time that I’ve made these corrections to Brony, and Brony simply does not even acknowledge these corrections. Brony has their head so far up their ass.
Are people here seriously trying to equate having ones pubic hair ripped, possibly by someone without training on your sex’s genitals, out with recieving necessary medical care? What the actual fuck?
@GerrardOfTitanServer 136
How does “…this specific evidence…” change anything? I refused to answer the question on principle and you interpret that as not being interested in a fact based discussion that’s on you. I’m not going to take any role in you presenting what already supported your desire to speak.
You and everyone else in that thread never posted anything in support of your concerns about trans women in women’s sports. When pressed you couldn’t do the one thing that could have remotely justified your part in that mess.
And you followed it up with something in quotes I don’t recognize as having posted. Where is that paraphrase even from?
The thread is still accessable and can be copied and pasted from. Where are the lies? Show me the nuance?
Why would I do this differently? Someone unprepared to back up their concerns about a minority group should be looked at as adding to the bigotry affecting trans people. People with irrational fears need to be confronted and I put myself in the position of confronting a whole thread at once.
If I’m doing something wrong you’ve got an opportunity to fix it but you need to do more than you are now.
So a thread about a blog being removed turns into a battle about one case in BC that makes trans women look bad. In reality no one on this blog knows the full details of anyway. A case entirely irrelevant to the original subject btw. This is life for trans women. Just keep changing the subject to flog us some more. When you think it’s ok to do this you are participating in bigotry even if you don’t think of yourself as a bigot. See? Someone used the accusation. Now you can say we always call you that and feel better. Pat yourself on the back for showing that trans women are meanies.
I’m not trans, nor do I know any (I think) but I just wanna second Anna. It’s been pretty gross at times.
elysof #17:
*waves*
To All:
I had something of a political madness thread going on at Axp. Now that it’s locked down, would anybody mind if I continued here, in this one? Also, how many links does Pharyngula allow in a comment without resorting to code tags?
Trans people are just people but you wouldn’t know it by some of the comments in this thread. I’m starting to better understand the slogan “trans rights are human rights”. I never much liked that statement because it seemed redundant to me. But after reading through these comments I get why people are using it.
@Sky Captain:
I believe 6 links triggers the spam trap and 5 is acceptable.
But it might be 5 & 4. I’d try 5 at first. If that works, you’ll know for sure because I’m absolutely positive that 6 is too many.
As for political madness, why not just contribute to the actual Political Madness thread? Anyone is welcome there…
@Crip Dyke #144:
Sorry. I should have linked what I was referring to.
Thread: Axp 23.19
I had started chronicling specifically ACA / RR events at #196 when I became aware of the first ACA Statement. Lots went on prior, of course. Anyway, ctrl-f will skip through my posts. From #346 everyone else had moved on, and I merely likened my chronicling to a niche Political Madness thread.
I get it now.
This is PZ’s show and thus ultimately on he can say what’s acceptable on Pharyngula (just like me on Pervert Justice), but I’d be surprised if he would be opposed to the kind of archival work you appear to be doing over there. This does seem to me to be one appropriate place for it (another might be the “drifting away” thread, but I wouldn’t know if one of them is better than the other).
Why not write up in a comment in this thread a brief summary of what you’ve done in that other thread, and then continue on here with whatever else needs adding?
The blog silently ignored my attempts to post it. I’m not sure how to interpret that.
There was no “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” message.
I think that means it’s stuck in the spam filter, i.e. too many links.
Thread: Axp 23.19
#196: ACA Statement (first statement) (May 9)
+ EoT’s response to RR’s original video (Apr 6)
#230,238: Two articles illustrating the dearth of research
#240: RR’s heretic video
#272: RR retitled, demonetized the original video
~ Pinned comment was 7 hrs after the heretic video (first draft).
~ Twitter announcement was 8 hrs after that.
#273: RR’s ominous Twitter interactions after the announcement
#277: EoT releases DMs they’d exchanged with RR
~ Correction: these were May 9, the day of the ACA Statement. (time zones)
~ RR said he’d release more.
~ EoT released everything back through April to preempt deceptive editing.
#316,341: Callie Wright’s Statement + misc comments
~ Now inaccessible. Quoted in full at Axp 23.20 #32.
#317: Jamie Boone’s Axp opening message
#~~~: Board votes to cease active moderation + retract the ACA Statement (May 14)
~ This means only modding when something is reported.
#324: Matt Dillahunty’s comment back in March, below RR’s original video
~ Written less than 3 hrs after it was published.
#326: EoT’s “Addressing RR/ACA” video
#327,330,333,334,341: The lists
#336,337: ACA Clarification (second statement)
#338: Queersplaining, Callie Wright describes conversation she’d had with RR
#339: Jamie Boone’s NonSequitur appearance
#340: Kendall Hopkins’ response to the original video + summary
~ She was a host of Parenting Beyond Belief.
#348: Godless B**ches – 05.10 Unusual Athletes
#349: ACA Clarification, amended
#350: Walkout Statement
~ One moderator left (May 1), just after RR’s first show (Apr 28).
~ All Social Media Specialists left together (May 7).
~ Other volunteers had left individually later.
~ Chelesa Rodriguez (board) wished she had signed it.
~ Tanjil Wright was the only FB moderator to remain.
~ Ix and Stitics (Discord) remained.
#~~~: ACA Board Elections (May 18)
~ Existing board members remained in office until May 31.
~ This includes Chelesa Rodriguez, who quit crew duties May 15.
#351: Awkward Axp call for Jen Peeples and Tracie Harris
~ At this point, they’d both put in notice they would leave.
~ Vivian will say Matt complained about her in the chat. I dunno what, deleted.
#352: EoT’s Summary
#353: RR’s “Debunked” apology video
#354: Objectively Subjective’s response to that apology
#355: Progressive Secular Alliance is announced
~ Janet Reyes (former FB / YT SMS) created the PSA.
~ Fabian Elfeld (former FB moderator) & Jela Lipps run the Twitter account.
#356: Chrisiousity finds problematic statements in RR’s earlier videos
#358,359: Queersplaining, Callie Wright’s response to RR’s apology
#361: PSA’s Summary on Twitter
~ The end of active moderation order was delivered to mods by Jamie Boone (then President).
~ It was decided by the board on May 14, as a motion by Eric Pearson (board).
~ It was not announced publicly, except for a mention after the fact on NonSequitur.
#362: Matt gives his perspective on Talk Heathen and Axp
#363: RR’s “Mistakes of Many” video
#364,365: Poly-Ology panel of polytheists watch RR’s “Mistakes of Many” video
#366: FB chatter amongst Matt and some board members
#367: Godless B**ches – 05.11 Intersectionality I
#~~~: New board takes over (Jun 1)
#371: EoT’s response to RR’s “Mistakes of Many” video
#372,373: John Iacoletti announces he’d left (host, ex-board)
#375: Discovered late, Kendall Hopkins had left after the ACA Clarification amendment
#379: EoT retweets lineups of female athletes with varied body types
#380,385: RR’s “Unfair Advantage” video, and shocking citation
#381: Clare Wuellner (host, ex-board), Jen Peeples & Tracie Harris (hosts) resign
#382: Phil Session resigns (host, ex-board)
#384: Godless B**ches farewell statement
#386: Responses to RR’s “Unfair Advantage” video, from Xevaris and EoT
+ New FB mods.
#387: Rhetoric & Discourse’s response to RR’s “Unfair Advantage” video
#388: Matt Dillahunty acknowledges the Axp hosts who left
#392,393: RR denies responsibility for the ACA situation, praises and reaches out to Joe Rogan to discuss transgender athletics
#394: Selina Soule, student athlete RR had featured, files complaint with the Department of Education, represented by a faith-based anti-LGBTQ organization
#395: Matt Dillahunty announces he’s president + other board shuffling
#396: Drew McCoy’s legitimacy on the board is publicly questioned
#397-399: Tracie Harris’, Jen Peeples’, and Clare Wuellner’s Summary
~ (1:42:50, Chelsea Rodriguez): We were intimidated into voting the way we did.
~ (1:43:19, Janet Reyes): Matt caused this. He’s the one who invited RR to the damn show.
#400: EoT’s testimonies video
#401: FtB considers dropping Axp from their network
/ It was “Godless B**ches” that got me.
Yep. That one’s gotten me before as well.
@John Morales Why do you write like a crazy person?
Alt-X, I thought I wrote like myself.
Before I can attempt to address your unexpected question, it would be helpful were you clarify whether you meant the term in the sense of mad, foolish, angry, super-enthusiastic, outre, or other. Care to do so?
What’s the latest position regarding FreeThoughtBlogs & The Atheist Experience ?
colinb, TAE is no longer hosted at FtB. There’s a post to that effect on its site.
Feel free to see for yourself, link is still in the sidebar.
FB Comment: Tanjil Wright (Jul 21)
It was mirrored on reddit as well.
Reddit Comment: ddollarsign (Jul 25)
* Tanjil Wright is the only FB moderator who had remained.
* ddollarsign is a Reddit moderator who had remained.
Video: EoT – Matt Dillahunty’s Dishonest Defense Of RR’s Transphobia (Jul 27)
Pinned comment:
Tweet: (Jul 27)
Tweet: [Someone] – Removed FB comment (Jul 27):
Tweet: Janet Reyes (Jul 27)
I won’t transcribe it here.
When summoned, rather than remove it, Tanjil Wright arrived and said, “please explain what you mean by [redacted]”. And left it up, for 9 weeks. Under this post. It has only just now been removed after the tweet.
Tweet: Janet Reyes (Jul 24)
If Jonathan Haidt read this page he would probably comment that it’s natural that the AXP blog is being expelled from FtB.
AXP is against blind faith in a religion, and evidently some left-wing values have become like a religion too, in the sense that they cannot be questioned in any way.
It’s sad that you don’t see the irony of having a “Freethought” that does not allow thoughts that are not completely aligned.
Sad uglygeek. Ah well. So it goes.
Perhaps, were you to realise that an ethical stance is not a religion, you might become less sad.
(Sad that this blog collective upholds its stated ethos, you are, because talking the talk is enough for you but walking the walk is just a step too far)
Video: Kevin Logan – John Iacoletti, Chelsea Rodriguez (1:35:20, Jul 28)
(01:23): Introductions
(06:57): Becoming aware of RR
(16:47): No mention on-air
(24:38): ACA Statement
(33:09): Retraction
(49:57): Moderation
(1:01:11): Election
(1:13:40): Bylaws issues
(1:27:29): Final Thoughts
Article: Pharyngula – Axp has been axed (Jul 28)
Welp. My old thread got nuked.
Thread: Axp 23.19 (Archived)
John Morales @160
Your reply could be in an encyclopedia as the definition of the “Righteous Mind”.
@uglygeek 159, 164
How do you post like this in good conscience? You know that it’s impossible to respond to any of this right? What’s you goal beyond pissing on fences?
WTF is “blind faith in a religion” here? Can you be any more useless? What’s the specific behavior? Why is it a problem?
What “can’t be questioned in any way”?
“Freethought” is a philosophical tradition and had nothing to do with allowing all thought. You and everyone else who thought you were so clever to post this look like an ignoramus.
What is like a “like a righteous mind” and why?
Without more I see gossip and whining. Another critic from a community of critics that can’t take the criticism.
@ uglygeek, #159
Haven’t read his work, but given its popularity among the National Review crowd (and what they use it to defend) I think I can pretty safely say it’s crap. Why should we give a fuck what Haidt has to say?
You can question “left-wing values” all you want. We argue about and discuss them all the time, here. The problem isn’t that people were questioning. The problem is that asking questions that boil down to “Are those people really human and deserving of basic human rights, really?” is bigotry, pure and simple. It’s wrong, it’s cruel, and it’s hurtful to those whose basic humanity is being debated.
Questioning values is fine. What we objected to is questioning, and often denying, the humanity of trans people- that’s not acceptable here.
You’re only like the hundredth or so jackass to say exactly the same thing, and it always reveals the same ignorance- we argue here all the time. Check out almost any discussion of the punching of Nazis, and you’ll find a long and heated argument. Look for posts that mention impeaching Trump, and you’re bound to find more arguments. Hell, look up the thread on pizza toppings- not much alignment there.
Also, I am a religious person, and I’ve discussed that on occasion in comments on appropriate posts. Obviously this puts me at odds with our host and many commenters here, but I’ve not been banned or torn apart in comments for it.
There’s plenty of freedom and diversity of thought here, but if you’re looking for a place to spew bigotry without suffering consequences, this ain’t it.
@vucodlak 166
Ever since elevatorgate I’ve noticed how most atheists who use comparison to religion as an insult are incompetent when it comes to identifying and describing that behavior. For such supposedly science minded people they can’t seem to deal with the fact that religion is a natural human behavior that includes things like group celebration and behavior codes that define groups. The behavior problems common to both groups are things they remain blind to. It’s so very disappointing.
Video: EoT – Holy Koolaid Defends Transphobic Abuse & Roots Out ACA Dissenters (34:21, Aug 7)
The rest covers damning things Holy Koolaid had said in non-ACA contexts.
In his Logan interview John Iacoletti said a number of people had joined just before the election vote (#161, at 1:14:15).
Tweet: Holy Koolaid (Jul 9)
Tweet: Holy Koolaid (Jul 9)
Tweet: Holy Koolaid (Jul 9)
Tweet: EoT (Jul 11)
YT Comment: Tracie Harris (Aug 17)
YT Comment: Tracie Harris (Aug 17)
YT Comment: EoT (Aug 18)
Tweet: EoT (Aug 18)
See EoT’s “Holy Koolaid” video (10:09 to 20:46, #168) for more on Friedel’s behavior and financial entanglements.
Gah, botched my HK tweet links in #168.
Tweet: Holy Koolaid (Jul 9)
Tweet: Holy Koolaid (Jul 9)
Tweet: Holy Koolaid (Jul 9)
Does this blog still work ?
No answer, came the loud reply…