35 Comments

Train wreck indeed.

Other than vintage military facilities, there is privacy in modern restrooms (walls and doors around the thrones, and even most urinals). I've never seen a changing room at a fitness center where there was not a clear view of people changing after showering. There are men who are self-conscious about their own endowment who would also be uncomfortable with a woman in the locker room. It's not just women who have the issue.

If a person (I'm including transgenders) sends a "dick-pic", unsolicited to a woman he could lose his job, be sued, and depending on age disparity be arrested, Yet Jared, with a straight face claimed that they should be able to present the real "thing" unsolicited to women and in some cases underage girls, in a fitness center locker room. He was writing about pre-op transgenders who would have unexpected genitalia in the locker room after all.

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Per usual, thoughtful and well written. Some people (Jared included) refuse to entertain a different point of view, even when presented with sound arguments and clear reasoning. I enjoy your writing and look forward to what you have in store.

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All of these arguments would be improved with semantics. Male / Female = Biology. Man / Woman = Gender. That said, if there is no relationship between sex and gender (biology and self concept) why is there any need for "Gender confirmation surgery" at all?

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Jan 28, 2022Liked by Steve QJ

Whoa. This was an intense and somewhat confusing (on the part of Jared) dialogue. You have an amazing ability to cut through the bullshit to the essence of truth. It takes courage, and in this case, exceptional stamina.

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Jan 25, 2022Liked by Steve QJ

Hi

Interesting discussion. I’m following you because you don’t often appear to follow many others with insults etc. So, it was fascinating to see how ‘worked up’ you got over the inability of someone to see ( and clearly respond to) the simple dilemma that you posed. That is that whilst many trans ( perhaps all) will never pose a threat- there are still two unresolved issues. One is the sensibility and sensitivity of penis’s being displayed in female spaces. And the second is that self declaration of gender opens up the possibility of an abuse by men ( not true trans folk who we hopefully all support in terms of equality etc) in gaining access to women’s spaces.

But the biggest debate that I have never seen aired relates to a comment you made about ‘feeling’ male or otherwise. Like you, I have no idea what it feels like to be male. I’ve spoken to most of the people I know and male or female they don’t have a clue. Or if they do they cannot express it. Please could someone out there tell me what one ‘feels’ as regards their gender.

Please could any trans person tell me why their gender ‘feels’ wrong and how on Earth they no with certainty that ‘their’ feelings correspond to the (whole population) of the opposite sex. I have read extensively but cannot find an answer to this seemingly central issue. What does it feel like to be a man or a woman? Is the problem that once someone says how that works others will contradict them and a massive argument ensure? Both of these are genuine questions.

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Jan 24, 2022Liked by Steve QJ

Please post the rest of it...

I love this part, "I am very empathetic to sex abuse survivors, but this also doesn’t justify the vilification of the penis. If it’s not erect and being poked in your face, you can easily ignore one even if a person is being shamelessly out there with it, as trans women aren’t known for doing. In any case you shouldn’t be looking at anyone’s crotch long enough to be intimidated."

I guess that logic leads me to wonder why trans women can't simply continue to use the men's changing room...ignoring the occasional glimpse of flaccid genitalia because of it's overwhelming insignificance...

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Classic male misogyny. One of the most interesting things about the trans movement is how it's made traditional misogyny socially acceptable again.

Anyone notice women are being asked, by guys like Jared (yeah, you can tell he's a guy even without the name) to once again put their own needs and wants aside to cater to what men want? Even otherwise in-your-face feminists will sit down and be good little girls when men (the kind with penises) demand equality, in women's-only spaces. Funny how transmen don't do that.

It's why, regardless of how you wrap it, even if you surgically change the genitals, we still always remain to a certain degree, our birth sex, if only between our ears.

Transwomen demonstrate this over and over and over again. It's always transwomen, not transmen, demanding what they want and you goddamn natal women are not going to get in my way! Sit down and shut up, you transphobic c--t!

Funny how transmen, also, aren't pushing to be included in men's sports. I guess for transwomen playing against a bunch of girls is an easier win. It's really all about what a bunch of men want, who want to be women but are unwilling to give up their male entitlement to the world revolving around them and *their* needs and desires.

I've been doing a lot of research into the transgender craze (and it *is* a craze) since I got kicked off of Medium for criticizing them (I'm willing to bet it was that more than defending Dave Chappelle, since about the only other Medium writer who did defend him was Rebecca Stevens, and she said nothing, IIRC, about trans jokes). What I'm learning is how our brains *are* different, and cause us to behave differently, although neuroscientists are quick to downplay the significance.

I also think we need to have more of a public discussion about autogynephilic transwomen, a subject that REALLY gets under their hairy little skins :)

So it's the transmen who sit on the sidelines, mostly silently, while a bunch of narcissistic awfully traditionally cis-het-acting transwomen steal the thunder and push allies away, as the left is superlative at doing.

BTW I'm not convinced transwomen aren't more of a threat to women than people think. Just as the media ignore white cops killing white unarmed men, I suspect they're not covering transwomen assaults against natal women. Some natal female lesbians have claimed transwomen *with penises* push them for sex and claim they're transphobic (!) if they don't have them (a flip from men pushing women for sex and claiming they're lesbians if they don't). As for transwomen in female prisons, just Google Karen White transgender prisoner for information on the UK's best-documented case of a sex offender taking advantage of new 'woke' laws allowing it, and the Regressive Left applauding it. Kid in a candy store.

Nice job, 'feminists'!

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Hello Steve QJ et.al. I’ve wandered over from Medium and at the risk of making a controversial first impression - isn’t this assumed now? I don’t even know anymore. Yesterday’s controversial is today’s championed and tomorrow’s who knows? For my part, I wish to ask an honest question of the assembled collective wisdom re: trans activism. My question is this “Does it not seem to you that radical trans activism seems like it was devised by true misogynists to undermine feminism?” Like a trolling got rolling and ended up morphing into, well, into something else. This is something that occurs to me as I’ve tried to make sense of it all.

Thoughts?

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While I fully understand your irritation at Jared, keeping your first rule is probably still a good idea. It doesn't help to get down into the mud with certain folks, slinging insults. Take the high road whenever you can; it's one of your strengths that you can make good cases which don't need the mud slinging; let others who cannot demonstrate the weakness of their position. (This is a constant struggle for me as well, I'm not looking down!).

I actually do think that Jared is trying to protect what he thinks is an exceedingly vulnerable population. He is not seeking to cause harm. So he's not a morally terrible person. However, no matter how noble the cause in his mind, he is using poor reasoning and evidence. For example pretending that the issue is seeing generic genitals without regard to sex - that was pretty blatant rationalization, which in a less fraught conversation he likely would not want to stand behind.

In Johnathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" (which btw has my highest recommendation!!), he writes at one point about how and why people try to find supposedly 'rational' arguments to support a pre-determined "moral" outcome, and how that has been researched. He gives an example used by researchers, a story about a brother and sister (I decided to let readers follow it for themselves, description deleted). It's really interesting seeing the kinds of desperate mental acrobatics that people go through to "justify" with reasoning, a conclusion which was not reached by reasoning and which is resistant to being dislodged by reasoning. They will say nonsense things which under other circumstances they would see as nonsense, but convince themselves it makes sense somehow at the moment. It's very hard to get them to see something they don't want to see.

Nevertheless, we try - sometimes more for other people who might observe the interaction and still be less attached to a conclusion, than for the conversant. Or sometimes to plant a seed which will later blossom (very rarely immediately).

In that spirit, I would like to calmly ask Jared how one can reliably tell the difference between somebody who is genuinely trans, and somebody who merely claims to be trans for some other reason or purpose. The other purpose could be getting access to women's spaces for sexual kicks, to women's sports for success purposes, to women's prisons to seek an easier prison time with more potentials for sex, or anything else.

Is there any real world objective test which can be done - lab tests, brain scans, reaction times, etc? Is there any psychological test which can distinguish fraudulent from legitimate trans identification? Or is trans identity entirely subjective with no possibility of real world validation?

If he brings up brain scans, there is some interesting discussion to be had about the actual state of the research, which will likely not please him. (As a short summary, some trans identified folks do show statistical differences from their biological sex, but also from the other biological sex; researchers can distinguish separate clusters for cis males, cis females, trans males, trans females. The do not match the other sex tho. And other trans folks may not even pass this test, being closer to their biological sex cluster).

These are simple questions; don't let him divert to an easier topic, don't follow him onto another thread until he can answer this.

If there was a reliable means of testing, I think a lot of the problems would go away. Those who had objective evidence of trans status could be given some of those rights, those who did not would not get the rights. Real trans folks would be supported, imposters would be punished and removed from women's spaces (and would seldom try).

If he admits that there is no such thing now, ask if he would support an effort to develop such a scientifically valid test, so that we could meet the needs of trans folk to do their thing, and women to be able to have their spaces. A win/win which would greatly ease things for trans folks by respecting women's spaces too. For example, we could try to develop some procedure using brain scans and algorithms to determine who received certain rights. Nobody would need to undertake this certification process unless they wanted access to women's spaces; if not, go on their way unmolested.

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Jan 24, 2022Liked by Steve QJ

Wow Jared you are a walking talking enigma in the worst way...each facet revealed of your core worsening in succession...Woke too weak a word for you...SteveQJ I so cherish your patience & wisdom!

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Hi Steve,

Just for a little context. I am working as a volunteer for the NHS (after finishing a mental health nursing career that ended with me as a Clinical educator.)

I have now contributed to the development, (and am now supporting the implementation) of the NHS Midlands Equality and Inclusion Strategy-focused around ‘anti-racist’ principles. A policy designed to help overcome both the overt (and the institutional racism) in the NHS.

And by the way I’m white (almost translucent actually😂) and heterosexual. So that’s me.

Having been teaching on ‘equality’ issues for years I too find some of the comments made on social-media crass, uninformed, often silly and more often pretty hateful.

But having a background in psychological interventions (through my mental health training training and training as a Therapist) I’m so much more interested in why people hold onto such venomous and hateful ‘states of mind’ rather than the specific ‘focus’ of that anger. Yes, of course we can all ‘lose it’ at times when confronted with some people’s bizarre arguments. Of course I’m no better than anyone else in that regard.

But I was always advised to ‘listen to the music-not the words’. Agreed, some angry people are often genuinely angry for the right reasons (oppression of certain groups, discrimination etc.) But then some people have this additional ‘super charged’ aggression-that feels less to do with social justice issue and more to do with their own psychology (for those that haven’t-see 12 Angry Men for a brilliant example)

And unfortunately that anger would still be there for them even if the world looked perfect to the rest of us.

Yes, Trans folk have rights, but so do all women and men. Yes, Trans folk are often discriminated against (amongst the many other groups in our society.)

But as Isiah Berlin says (rightfully) “freedom has two sides. Freedom ‘from’. In this case the women’s perspective. And freedom ‘to’. In this case the Trans perspective. So often those freedoms collide head on.” It seems that some people just don’t get that really simple point.

The other issue is that when we get angry with someone that’s stupid it can make us look even more stupid. Because It assumes that the person is actually making a conscious decision to be stupid. Most times we act stupid (and of course that includes me at times) we are not making a conscious choice at the time.

So when I used to work with very angry clients that were referred to me, I always wanted to find out so much more about the depth of the anger itself rather than the current ‘focus’ of that anger. Many times the root cause of that anger was discovered to be miles away from the rationale they originally offered me. But issues of social justice are a really good socially acceptable ‘hook’ to hang all that psychological angst on for those people.

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