Category: Trans
Helen Joyce: All trans people break the world
It sounds metal, but actually, she just doesn’t like us. She compares gender transition to a contagious disease, lobotomy, and opioid abuse and calls us a disaster.
YouTube deleted the Peterson/Joyce ‘meat lego’ video
On ‘meat Legos’ and what’s older than trees. “That’s what people say about me,” Joyce says innocently, smiling, batting her eyes. “That I want to cause a genocide…When did I ever write such a thing?”
What we can learn about Helen Joyce in two sentences
That second paragraph on the book jacket of ‘Trans’. Whose feelings matter? It’s a premise of Helen Joyce’s book ‘Trans’ that cisgender people’s feelings matter the most. It’s right there on the book jacket.
On the 3rd anniversary of J.K. Rowling’s pledge for trans rights
She ‘would’ have marched with us, but when? Her supporters insist she can’t be transphobic, citing her tweet: ‘I’d march with you…’ Well, her tweet is three years old today. She hasn’t marched.
I’m disappointed in the ‘Witch Trials’
J.K. Rowling’s image-polishing podcast doesn’t grapple with the real problem. When someone accuses Rowling of transphobia, her team’s refrain is: When has she ever been transphobic? At this point, I hear it as a running joke.
The misrepresentation of compassion and solidarity
No, J. K. Rowling’s 2020 blog post wasn’t compassionate to trans people. ‘Gender critical’ ideology typically promotes hostility and ignorance. GC, of course, claims to be kind to trans people. But that’s disinformation.
Assume humanity, then ask about happiness
Trans people‘s say-so is evidence of our happiness. But no one should ask for evidence that trans people are people. Previously, I used Lydia Polgreen’s opinion as an example, and I identified and extracted these writing tips for you. Please note this key distinction.
No one needs ‘evidence’ that transition improves trans people’s humanity
Let’s distinguish scientific uncertainty from value judgment. Anti-trans prejudice doesn’t justify demanding evidence about trans people’s humanity. When we let go of prejudice, some common ‘questions’ dissolve.
Can an identity be true and not true?
On ‘constitutive tension’ in our concepts. Picking apart someone else’s identity? First ask: Why do you want to? What would be gained? And lost? What happens to your own identity in the process?
Gödel is sure Bach, and trans people are sure their gender
Reflections on the Pulitzer-winning ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’ (1979). Their objection is an infinite regress. They’re laying a trap. If we needed rules about rules about rules, none of us could ever use language at all.
How do we know who we are?
Do we learn it from a crystal ball—or from our guts? How do others state with certainty that they know who they are? Do they have a crystal ball? Of course, we’re jealous. How can we know ourselves, too?
Do we choose to be who we are?
And what, by the way, is choice? If you can’t snap your fingers to change, how do you change? What do we ask people to do when we ask them to change? Why should anyone change?