“A BBC News presenter was quick to correct the phrase ‘pregnant people’ to ‘women’ live on air — punctuating the moment with an eye roll as she read from the teleprompter.
As far as I know Martine has been permitted to keep anchoring … I mean, presenting (cue my eye roll) the news in an unprosecuted and non-crucified manner.
That might have gone quite differently for her two years ago, I think.
I suspect it would have gone very differently indeed. We are definitely seeing positive signs that things have changed and even the most ardent of gender loons might be sensing their time of dominance is over.
I've said this again and again. Covid was excellent in exposing all the frauds. Yes, fear can short circuit people's critical thinking faculties, but they really pulled all the puppet strings during covid times and I think we can all agree that S Fry was an excellent actor. Truly independant thinker, with some sense of morality and ethics? Nope. It got many people to show their true colours.
I'll always remember the line from 'V for Vendetta' - "Orders were passed down"... I'm living in a conservative Asian society, where the govt said there was not going to be any lockdowns, no mask wearing... and within a week or two of US imposing its restrictions, Singapore followed suit. The propaganda that was enacted against stuff that worked treatment-wise (e.g. VIM the magical elixir) followed the same script in country after country... Singapore, Sweden, they barely changed some of the words in the official country press releases telling people that the horsepaste was poisonous. - the irony being that both Singapore and Sweden are not big horse-owning countries with such supplies. Again - orders were passed down and the drones in pretty much all the western-dominated sphere of countries just did as they were told.
Yup - the level of *co-ordinated* propaganda was horrendous. It's things like this that make me question the whole 'it was just organic based on a overblown fear reaction' sort of narrative that eschews any hint of 'conspiracy'.
We witnessed specially timed and co-ordinated messaging in country after country. One week it was the "I wish I'd taken the vaccine" bollocks, next week it would be the "don't take the horsepaste you fools" crap, and so on. I doubt whether any of this was truly 'organic' - it was like every country marched in lockstep with almost identical messaging.
Something about the timing just jogged my memory, and I had to check some dates. Some background - I've always been interested in international relations, history, how societies tick, what makes things work well or not for the people. When I travel, I never saw the point of a weekend jaunt to some place just to booze out, as I prefer to stay a couple weeks to months at a locale to watch, interact and learn the local ways of life in both developed and developing countries, picking up a smattering of local languages. I have a good sense of the history and events impacting many countries, especially in the last century or so.
Shinzo Abe... Japan's longest serving Prime Minister. This train of thought was triggered by a picture I just saw of Putin consoling the widow Akie Abe. Given that Putin has seemingly died of cancer or a bunch of other issues, been overthrown in imagined coups countless times, demonized as a 'thug' in the western press, we can be pretty sure that Putin is on the opposite side of whoever had been calling the covid shots (pun intended). Shinzo Abe suddenly resigned in 2020, out of the blue, claiming health issues. That didn't pass the smell test then... independant-minded politicians in Japan have a habit of getting 'suicided'. In this case, Shinzo Abe stayed active, or too active in politics after stepping down as Prime Minister, and somehow someone managed to assassinate him in a country where gun crime is pretty much unheard of. That happened in 2022.
During that same time, 2 western politicians who were totally villified by their constituents were Dan Andrews in the Oz state of Victoria... and Jacinda Ardern in NZ. They imposed really harsh lockdowns and restrictions.... the folks there couldn't stand their guts and protesters were harshly beaten down (without MSM coverage). Yet the western press lauded them, especially Ardern... aka they followed orders without question and serious zeal like good soldiers and the system rewarded them with extended tenure. The point is to compare and contrast two extremes on the political spectrum of responses... even after Ardern suddenly stepped down from her position, she was immediately rewarded with cushy positions in one of those WEF type think tanks or similiar. Both Andrews and Ardern resigned in 2023. Again, coincidences abound.
The peak of the system's power was around mid 2022 (time of Abe's assassination). After that, they had to start playing defence.... giving up pawns here and there (Andews/Ardern etc) to reduce and deflect public anger due to the mounting injuries/deaths and other social consequences. Studies showing the harm of the jabs that sat in preprint since 2020 were finally allowed to be published from 2023 and we finally got the flood of actual data confirming our shared anec-data.
Anyways, this is a very simplified timeline of events just to give an overview.
Do 36 horses per 1 000 inhabitants count as a lot or a little? (Nat. total is over 350 000.)
Honestly asking - your passus about Sweden not being a big horse-owner country made look it up, since here in the countryside you see horses in every village.
But you are correct: overnight, Hydrochloroquine and Ivermektin became "untested drugs with unverified effects". I even wrote to our eq. to the FDA and pointed out that there's been hundreds of millions of doses of Ivermektin administered all over Africa for decades now, and it one of the cheapest, safest and most well-studied drugs there is. Paraphrased reply:
"The new Covid-vaccines are safe and effective. Contact your nearest health care provider for scheduling of an appointment."
Drones is too polite a term though. Ants and bees have not free hoice - we do.
You're right... my bad in assuming that a relatively 'cold' country like Sweden would have less horses due to the cost of winter upkeep. Instead, it's a huge outlier. Would you guess that Swedes would treat their horses differently from folks in US/UK, where it's mainly the privileged class who would own horses and would usually treat them better than their human servants? That horse paste with apple flavour ain't half bad...
I don't know how horses are kept/handled in UK/US so I can't make that call but seeing as the UK banned horses in mining before they banned children being sent down mines, I'd guess they have strict rules and value horses highly.
Here, they are positively pampered even if they are used for riding or for labour. Which is as it should be: we do eat horse here.
> RR: "I distinctly remember telling a former girlfriend that her womb had been beautifully socially constructed."
Seem to recollect that some "journalists" were eavesdropping on Prince, now king Charles saying he'd like to be a tampon inside consort, now Queen Camilla -- a man's gotta have a goal in life ...
> RR: "... but that’s as clear-cut a case of immutability as we could possibly have."
You're generally a clever fellow Rudolph, and you make some solid points in your latest. But you seem unwilling to consider that whether sex is "immutable" or not depends entirely on how the categories are defined, and what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for category membership. If we go with the standard biological definitions, most of the intersex, all the prepubescent, and some third of "ciswomen" are neither male nor female -- they're sexless, hardly "immutable".
In addition to which, you seem rather reluctant to consider that there's some merit in defining "gender" to denote various sexually dimorphic psychological and physiological traits which are some brute facts attested to by some solid science. Refusing to consider that just makes it more difficult to turn the transloonie tide. Apropos of which, an oldish Telegraph article:
"A third of Britons don’t know that transgender women were born male
Survey reveals ‘high levels of misunderstanding and confusion’ around terms commonly used to refer to trans people";
We've been round and round this semantic merry-go-round before haven't we Steersman?
We're not going to agree. However one defines 'sex' or whatever semantic games are played with that subsequent definition, the material reality is that pretty much from the moment of conception the developing embryo is set upon one of two pathways. We call those on one developmental pathway male and those on the other female.
I don't believe there is much merit in concretizing something like 'gender'. It is an extremely fuzzy and subjective categorization that draws from overly crude stereotypes. It's not that I'm 'reluctant', I just don't think it makes proper sense to elevate 'gender' to the level we have. It would be like trying to learn about Quantum Field Theory from the Ladybird Book of Science.
Dizzying ... 😉🙂 Battles for hearts and minds and all that. But relative to "gender, it seems the best way unhorsing the transloonie nutcases is to steelman the concept and show it doesn't at all support the claims made of it.
Unfortunately you seem to be in the "don't confuse me with facts" camp which isn't helping much. You may wish to read this post by an American biologist, even if there are flaws in his position:
"There is 'Biological Evidence for Gender Identity...' but it’s not what you think; Some smart people have confused the issue":
As for "sex", you likewise seem "reluctant" to consider that the issue boils down into a question of the definitions for the sexes and criteria for category membership. And absolutely no reputable biological journal, encyclopedia, or dictionary says anything at all about your "developmental pathway" -- not even wrong. Only grifters, charlatans, scientific illiterates, and political opportunists like "biologists" Heather Heying and Colin Wright.
I read that article a while back - just refreshed my memory. I'm not sure why you think it's saying very much relevant. It's an interesting and excellent article, but doesn't anywhere properly define what 'gender' is - it is taken as an assumed known quantity. In the article it's essentially used as a synonym for sex.
His argument basically boils down to 'identities' derive from our brains, our brains are biological. It really isn't much more profound than that. I'm being overly simplistic, of course, because it's a good article, but it doesn't argue that 'gender' is a meaningful quantity at all. It's an article all about the perception of one's own sex.
You're really hung up on the whole 'definition' thing when it comes to sex. I have a fairly simple view on the matter. There are two sexes and this is observably so (material reality). If biologists come up with some definition that says otherwise (or could be interpreted otherwise) then they've fucked up their definition. They haven't, of course, and the standard definition, alongside the *standard* interpretation of it (i.e. not your interpretation) is perfectly fine.
You really think biologists are not aware of the two sex-development pathways? Jeez. There were a whole load of articles and videos (by biologists specializing in these things) explaining this when the Imane Khelif thing happened, because DSD's all arise when there's a problem arising on these developmental pathways - things like hormone receptors not working properly etc.
Being on a pathway is still rather significantly different from arriving at one's destination. In the case of the sexes, that means possessing the trait, the property that constitutes the necessary and sufficient condition for category membership -- which even Trump's EO on "restoring biological truth to government" asserts is "producing gametes", present tense. No gametes, no sex category membership cards.
Might be somewhat academic were it not for cases like Tickle vs Giggle -- where the "judge" ruled that "Ms." Tickle's brand-spanking new neovagina justified "her" claim that she had changed sex -- and similarily Imane Khelif's where the issue is whether she has testicles or ovaries despite having had, at birth, something that looked like a typical vagina. Whence the need for specific, unambiguous, and biologically justified criteria for category membership. And the rather risible "developmental pathway" simply doesn't even cut the mustard.
Not quite sure why you're so "obstinate" in refusing to accept brute facts and fundamental scientific principles. You "think" I'm saying transwomen change sex by cutting off their nuts? Or, more likely, you're horrified that the standard biological definitions deny sex category membership cards to the prepubescent, most of the intersex, and all menopausees?
Biologically speaking, the sexes denote only the presence of functioning gonads -- the destination and terminus of that "developmental pathway" 🙄 -- and not any sort of an identity which too many, including you and various transactivists, seem rather desperate to turn them into.
Your interpretation of the definition of sex, shared only by a handful of biologists, is most definitely NOT the standard one. But even if it were not it would not matter. Every biologist in the world can distinguish between a male child and a female child - as, indeed, can everyone else.
You have missed the point of the pathway argument. Ignoring the case of DSD's - which do not invalidate the sex binary anyway and which affect only around 0.02% of the population - then pathway is equivalent to sex (in humans), even if it's not used as a 'defining' feature by biologists. There's a good reason for this though, because although humans cannot change their 'pathway' there are animals who can and so a more general 'definition' of sex is needed because, after all, at the end of the day it's all about reproduction and understanding sexual reproduction across all species.
We can do a kind of regression - take a male, of any age, and you can, at least in one's imagination, trace his path backwards through history. At what point on that path can we say he's not male in an *objective* and measurable sense?
The only place we'd be able to point to would be the moments after conception. I don't know how long it is after conception the sex-determination processes start kicking in, but I know it's matters of seconds and not days.
Anyway - I'll leave you to have the last word and let the readers make their minds up which of our respective positions they agree with. I won't reply further.
RR: "Your interpretation of the definition of sex, shared only by a handful of biologists, is most definitely NOT the standard one."
Horsefeathers. Most of the biologists working with sequential hermaphrodites recognize that sex category membership has diddly-squat to do with "pathways", and everything to do with what type of gamete is currently being produced.
You -- and/or some of your commentariat more open-minded, or with more appreciation for biological principles -- might want to read philosopher of science Paul Griffiths' take on "What are biological sexes?"
RR: "Every biologist in the world can distinguish between a male child and a female child - as, indeed, can everyone else."
Bully for them. The question then is what criteria they've used and whether they're the same as everyone else's.
RR :"Ignoring the case of DSD's - which do not invalidate the sex binary anyway .."
Most of the intersex are sexless. You and too many other people -- including a bunch of so-called biologists -- are unclear on the concept that a binary category isn't necessarily exhaustive. If there were only two religions -- Christianity and Islam, a binary -- then atheists are outside that binary without in any way "invalidating" 🙄 that binary.
Judith Butler is just trying to stay relevant. She was The Voice of Truth(tm) in the 1990s, but past 2010 or so her star has been on a declining arc, as the new breed must one-up and out-radicalise their fore-bears, as it ever was and ever will be, ah-em.
(If you care to read about Judith & Holofernes, how her image and iconography within Christian tradition has changed since the first century to present is quite fascinating.)
The game, dear professor, is the same as toddlers and puppies play with their parents and siblings:
[If I can make you accept my claim as true and right, I have gained in power vis-a-vis you.]
That's really all it is, and it is fully congruent and logically following from Butler's own Voice of Truth(tm): the French homosexual pedophile philosopher Foucault. A man who in philosophy ought to be thought of as the Anti-Nietzshe: unmanly, selfish, egotistical, egocentric.
Where Nietzsche spoke of Power as a function of Will and that the value & ethics (or want thereof) of Will and Power is manifested through the actions (not) taken -
Foucault inverted it to if it feels right for him, here and now, then he can use language as a tool to make it right, true and ethical here and now. It doesn't have to have been true before, and it doesn't have to be true later; only now counts, and only the one getting to have his/her way counts.
Personally, I believe Foucault created his rather elaborate and verbose collection texts saying essentially the same thing as a way to avoid admitting to himself that his instinct told him his urges were morally and ethically wrong and corrupt, and that he had a moral duty to resist and refrain from acting on them; instead, his guilt was resolved by deconstructing his feelings as something imposed on him from outside (Catholic French upper class background I believe, but I might misremember) and thus without intrinsical validity and justification since it was imposed without him being asked if he wanted that value-system ingrained in him or not.
Which obviously is pure sophistry: the child is unable to make that choice. It is the academics' version of the teenager-tantrum to the tune of "I didn't ask to be born!".
Butler is following in her Master's footsteps, as I said. She is very much a has-been on her way to becoming a footnote in lists of reference-materials and isn't even required reading in Women's Studies, as far as I'm aware.
And if I seem verbose. . . go thou to French and German philosophers and shudder.
I tend to try to steer clear of philosophers. The little I've read has almost always confirmed my suspicions that they're a bunch of overly verbose theoreticians who construct fantastical panoramas out the flimsiest of cloth.
I suppose it's the sort of thing we all do, with words of fewer syllables, after a few pints at the pub. The difference is that in the morning most of us groan and think "did I really say all that shit last night?"
I honestly don't really know what philosophers are for - although I suppose I need to qualify that a bit because some writers/philosophers have made important arguments in the past on things like free speech and the like
The original Greek meaning has been lost and found over the centuries, and has mutated from "love of wisdom/learning/knowledge" to meaning a specific system of ideas/thoughts (which should be more properly called ideology or at least "idea-ology").
As a physicist you have more in common with those philosophers who tried to find out and reason out how things are and why they are that way, and when they are not, than with the modern crop of post-WW1 era philosophy.
It's also quite correct to say that from Sokrates, Plato, Diogenes (my personal no. 1) and Aristotle to Nietzsche, pretty much nothing of importance was said that wasn't just a repetition of what the Ancients had already mulled over and arrived at.
And yes, the man down the pub is usually quite the thinker. If you haven't read Pratchett's "Small Gods" I'd recommend it. It's one of his earlier novels and is free-standing, not part of any specific series beyond the general Discworld-setting. It's quite the subtle tour-de-force on religion and philosophy, both as theory and practice.
Here's one that got me in hot water with a philosophy-tutor once:
Tutor: "The meaning of life.... the ultimate question. What is the meaning of life?"
Me, raising my hand: "To live"
Insert long rant about over-simplifying and smart-Alec students here.
Obviously a simple binary of male plus female is required to instantiate a pregnancy. That's a no-brainer. That's how human life begins, but is also where the simplicity ends.
Columns like this one endlessly pour vitriol upon trans people with no evident understanding of the "science", nor of the human cost inflicted upon them in terms of societal ostracism, and yes, extreme, unprovoked violence frequently occasioning death at four times the national average: https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/
I don't understand how you think it benefits you in particular or society in general to whip up hatred against an already stigmatised minority. You are a hugely bigger threat to trans people than they could ever be to you. I know trans people at work. They have never threatened me in any way, yet they have to be careful which street they walk down to get safely home.
Forcing a trans female (born male) to enter a men's bathroom or to play in men's sports is going to result in them being beaten up. Take Rebekkah as an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoB0D2jfAk4
She would be crushed if forced to play in the men's hockey team.
You can also google transgender male bodybuilders: for example, Zach Brookes, Gianmarco Negri, Ajay Holbrook, Aydian Dowling - all born female, yet now manifesting an award-winning six-pack, hairy legs, a baritone voice, a beard, a surgically engineered penis, and a handshake that would turn coal into diamonds. They present as male, and win bodybuilding competitions as males. How does it benefit women for these trans men to be forced into women's spaces?
A friend whom I have always known as a heterosexual man married to a woman who bore his biological kids, disclosed to me a while ago that he was a "biological woman". In his teens, when he hit puberty, he started growing female breasts to his understandable dismay. When lactation started to become torrential, he was forced to have a double mastectomy. Only then did his surgeons discover that despite having all the external paraphernalia of a man, and a fertile heterosexual one that, he had no Y chromosome - he is XX, the chromosomal make-up of an adult human female. According to the Supreme Court, he must use the women's bathroom.
The UK Supreme Court have obviously not done their research by declaring that there are "only 2 biological sexes" - as according to biology and science:
- Studies estimate that the prevalence of 46,XY DSD in females is around 6.4 per 100,000 live-born females, which makes them 'biological men': https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27603905/
- Approximately 1 in 500 men may have an extra X chromosome, leading to Klinefelter syndrome.
XYY Syndrome:
- About 1 in 1,000 boys have an extra Y chromosome (XYY).
- Swyer Syndrome (XY) is a rare condition, affecting about 1 in 80,000 male births, results in individuals having an XY chromosome combination but developing female reproductive structures.
- In the UK, the estimated percentage of intersex individuals is around 1.7%, which translates to about 1.1 million people. This is comparable to the prevalence of twins. Intersex individuals are born with sex characteristics that don't fit typical binary notions of male or female.
Trans women represent 0.1% of the population, yet received the most vitriol.
The 2021 UK census data indicates that approximately 48,000 people in England and Wales identified as trans women. This figure represents 0.1% of the population. The census also showed that another 48,000 people identified as trans men, and 30,000 identified as non-binary. In total, 262,000 people in England and Wales (0.5% of the population) reported that their gender identity was different from their sex registered at birth.
In England and Wales, a higher proportion of women experience sexual assault, stalking, harassment, and domestic abuse compared to men. Specifically, in the year ending March 2023, 3.2% of women reported experiencing sexual assault compared to 0.9% of men. Similarly, 4.4% of women reported experiencing stalking compared to 2.4% of men. A larger percentage of women (13%) also experienced at least one form of harassment, compared to men (7.2%). Additionally, women were more likely to experience any domestic abuse in the last 12 months (5.7%) compared to men (3.2%).
All by men.
Not trans women.
Not trans men.
Not gay men.
Not lesbians.
The figures above relate to cis straight (& at times bi) male violence towards women.
I will pour as much scorn and vitriol on the toxic and harmful ideology behind trans as I can, because it is a very dangerous and harmful ideology. I do not, however, wish any harm on trans people at all.
Fundamentally we're talking about a delusion and there's no reason at all we should 'pander' to a delusion. Rejecting someone's delusion is not 'hate'.
What 'science' am I misunderstanding here? There is not a single shred of genuine scientific proof that something like a 'gender identity' exists - even if we could consistently and coherently define what that term means, which we cannot. There is no scientific proof whatsoever that someone who is male is actually female 'inside' - that's a subjective feelings-based claim.
The claim itself doesn't even make proper sense. How is it possible for someone to 'know' or 'feel' that they are the opposite sex? What does that feel like? We can all certainly try to *imagine* what it might feel like to be the opposite sex, but we have no way of knowing whether we're even close. And even if we were 'close', the best we could say is that we've successfully imagined how *some* of the opposite sex feel about themselves.
I also find this continual claim that trans people are the most marginalized and vulnerable in society to be a bit inconsistent with the facts. They're celebrated by almost every official institution and organization to the nth degree. They wield considerable institutional and societal power even to the point of being able to get people fired for not believing they have changed their sex (or 'gender'). It's perhaps the most non-marginal 'marginalized' group in history as LGBQWERTY flags and propaganda is everywhere.
I understand you have your anti-trans homophobic audience to play to, but I ask you to step back and try to understand the situation for trans people. I know several trans people personally, and evidently you do not.
You say you "do not with any harm on trans people", but then argue that there is no such thing as a trans person, and they're merely a "harmful ideology".
It also appears you replied without properly reading my abundantly researched post, or following the links I provided. Please go back, and open the links I shared, including the one from the Williams Institute showing that trans people are assaulted or killed at 4 times the average rate of cisgender people.
You have not explained how a heterosexual man grows female breasts during puberty, and has XX chromosomes (i.e. a biological woman):
As they are a "biological woman" (XX), they presumably should use the Ladies, but they will of course be arrested.
That's just one of many sex and chromosomal variants. I know such a person, but it is clear that you do not.
You have not clarified whether someone born with the genitalia of both sexes (intersex) is male or female, or which bathroom they should use.
You have not answered why trans bodybuilder males (born female) should use the women's restroom and why cisgender women would prefer that.
You didn't explain why trans girl Rebekkah in the video I shared should use the men's, and should join the men's hockey team. Watch the video, and seriously consider what would happen to her.
How do you know you're a man? By looking in the mirror? Or do you just know it inside?
I know I am a man, and yet I also know I am not attracted to females. Why would I make a "choice" like that, if it were possible to merely choose to be attracted to females and then I would become acceptable to you? You can tell me till you're blue in the face that I should be exactly like you, and like the same things you do, but that doesn't change my reality. Why is it only you who have the right to dictate to me whom I should and shouldn't like, when you would never accept me doing that to you?
All males start out life in the womb with female genitalia:
"During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. After approximately 6 to 7 weeks of gestation, however, the expression of a gene on the Y chromosome induces changes that result in the development of the testes. Thus, this gene is singularly important in inducing testis development."
What if this gene doesn't show up on time, or at all? This means the man is born with a woman's body. Sex is wired into you, the genitals are only ratified after 7 weeks. What if the gene manifests when it shouldn't, and the female ends up with a penis?
Your assertion that Nature never gets anything wrong is not based on reason or evidence. Nature does random stuff all the time, and messing with gender is just one of them.
I ignored the DSD stuff because it's irrelevant for the trans issue and nor is it anything to do with the sex binary, as such. DSD's are estimated to occur at around 0.02% of the population and there are a wide range of DSD's that can occur. I think the original acronym meant disorder of sexual development which is actually a more accurate phrasing than a 'difference' of sexual development.
All males do NOT start out with 'female' genitalia - differentiation of genitalia is a fairly late stage development of the embryo/foetus - other sex-related changes have already occurred. So, in the case of someone like Imane Khelif, for example, it is very likely he went through the usual male foetal developmental stages and then something went wrong with this later stage. This can result at birth in either a micropenis or external genitalia that appear to be female. Individuals with this condition experience a male puberty however, as they are male in all other respects.
I do know some trans people - what of it? Am I supposed to suspend my scientific judgement or my beliefs simply so as not to offend them? I've had plenty of conversations about the nature of 'trans' with them.
There are trans people - they do exist - but it very much depends on what one means by the phrase 'trans person'. Do I think there are people who have a delusion that they are members of the opposite sex? Yes, of course. Do I think they *are* members of the opposite sex in any meaningful way? Not at all.
If it is a delusion then continual affirmation, propping up their fantasy, is going to be harmful (just like propping up the delusional body image of an anorexic person is harmful). The problem is that trans as delusion is vastly more scientifically plausible than that they have, somehow, been 'born in the wrong body'.
This is my problem. There is no evidence, in a scientific sense, for the claims of trans (and gender) ideology. There is also very little evidence that denying so-called "gender affirming care" to minors is harmful - and plenty of evidence to the contrary.
And then we have other societal issue that we really have to deal with like the whole 'bathroom' thing. Which group should take precedence in any balancing of 'rights'? The 50% of the population who are female, or the 1% (or whatever it is) of the population who are trans women (i.e. males who believe they are women)?
As FTM transition tends to be more visually successful in terms of outward appearance and, in general, blokes don't really give a shit, I think it's more sensible to allow trans men (i.e. females who believe they are men) to use the male facilities. It's definitely not a symmetrical situation because of the risks involved.
Most of the serious consequences of trans fall upon women as a sex class. For most day-to-day interactions who gives a toss? But there are situations where sex really does matter - and it matters way more than some supposed 'gender identity'. It's almost exclusively women, as a sex class, who bear the brunt here.
Males should not be competing in women's sports, for example. Very straightforward and the scientific evidence is overwhelming here. Males have an advantage, a very significant one - and even before puberty there are some advantages although these are greatly amplified by puberty.
Here's the thing, would I, as a parent, have wished my daughters to have turned out to be 'trans'? Or my granddaughter who has just turned 1 recently? Do I wish her to be 'trans'?
Of course not - it would be a disaster. I'm going to do everything in my power to ensure that my granddaughter is never swept up in this ideology and grows up to be confident and happy in the body she is born with. And so is her mum who is very firmly against allowing her to have a smartphone, for example, until she's something like 16 or even older.
No parent should be wishing for 'trans' - just as no parent should be wishing their child grows up with some other disorder. So, yes, I would wish a world free of this trans disorder, just as I would wish no child would be born deaf, or blind, or develop a condition like anorexia, or any one of a myriad of medical conditions.
This is, of course, not saying that I wish for such people not to exist - it's saying that I would wish that whatever medical/psychological condition they struggle with does not exist. The problem is we've wedded these various conditions very strongly with 'identity' and so when you make a statement that you wish deafness to not exist it's greatly misinterpreted to mean you wish deaf people not to exist. I wish deafness not to exist - a very profound difference.
Do I have sympathy for people who believe themselves to have been 'born in the wrong body'? Of course - I can't even properly imagine that. Do I have sympathy for that viewpoint as an ideology - not one shred. You can, I hope, see the difference.
You are reducing the differentiation of the sexes down to the external manifestation of genitalia, without accounting for the chromosomal variants that Nature delivers. You have not accounted for
Each manifests a heterogeneous mixture of chromosomes, genes, testes, ovaries, womb, vagina, penis. It is absurd that you are shrugging all of this off as "ideology".
Imane Khalef is not "he". She has female genitalia, and a womb that can deliver children. Khalef's is a similar situation to that of Ewa Kłobukowska who was disqualified for 'being a man', despite later giving birth to a son:
You are also wrong about foetal genital development, and provided no source for that or any of your other claims.
The standard chromosomal construct for a male is XY and for a female, XX, but not every person with a Y chromosome is male, and not every person with a double X is female. There are many other combinations: XXY (or Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (or Trisomy X), XXXY and so on. There’s also androgen insensitivity syndrome, a condition that keeps the brains of people with a Y from absorbing the information in that chromosome. Most of these people develop as female and might not even know about their condition until puberty — or even later. I already told you about my heterosexual male friend who unexpectedly started growing female breasts at puberty, and had to have a double mastectomy to stop the uncontrolled lactation. Only then was he told he had XX Chromosomes, making him the textbook definition of a "biological woman".
Refer to this article from the National Library of Medicine:
"All human individuals—whether they have an XX, an XY, or an atypical sex chromosome combination—begin development from the same starting point. During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. After approximately 6 to 7 weeks of gestation, however, the expression of a gene on the Y chromosome induces changes that result in the development of the testes. Thus, this gene is singularly important in inducing testis development. The production of testosterone at about 9 weeks of gestation results in the development of the reproductive tract and the masculinisation (the normal development of male sex characteristics) of the brain and genitalia."
Failure of the Y chromosome + testosterone to instantiate the development of a penis can mean that a male can be born with the body and genitalia of a woman, and vice versa. It is not until between the 18th and 22nd week of pregnancy that the sex of the foetus can be determined via ultrasound:
"Up until about week 7 to week 8 of pregnancy, both sexes have what’s known as a “genital ridge” — i.e., an identical preliminary set of genitalia that will eventually differentiate to become either male or female sex organs.
"That means that our sex organs come from the same foundations: The testes in men are equivalent to labia and ovaries in women, and the penis is the equivalent of the clitoris."
You also never justified why Rebekkah should join the men's hockey team. Please actually watch the video I already shared:
Thanks for the reply and the links Derek, but I'm really baffled now as to what you think I've written - either my writing is impossibly unclear or you have fantastically misinterpreted what I've written.
I am reducing the differentiation of the sexes down to external genitalia? Eh?
How am I 'shrugging off' DSD's as ideology?
I thought I'd made my position clear. DSD's, whilst fascinating, do not have any relevance for the 'trans' issue, and nor do they invalidate the sex binary.
I really don't know why you harp on about DSD's so much - they occur at an estimated rate of 0.02% (about 1 in 5,000) - and not all of these have really serious consequences as I understand it. They're examples of where something has gone wrong with the normal healthy developmental process. And there are lots of different kinds of DSD - and you have listed some of them.
The 46,XX version your friend seems to have suffered from is an interesting one and underscores that whilst OK 99.98% of the time in humans chromosomes are not fully adequate as a defining feature of sex. The issue with biology is that it needs to classify male vs female across *all* sexually-reproducing species (sexual reproduction is a binary process), not just humans, and that's why the gamete distinction is the one that has emerged to be the definitional one.
DSD's say nothing about the ideological and science issues I have been trying to discuss. Their existence does not at all imply there is some kind of third 'sex' or that sex exists on some kind of 'spectrum'. They are completely irrelevant to the claims made by trans ideology.
What I have got a little mixed up is the timescales of development. You're right in that up to around 6 weeks the foetus is in a kind of undifferentiated state as far as the main sex structures are concerned. Before this point it seems that there is the potential to produce either a male or female body.
After the development of the testes or ovaries at around 6 weeks the foetus is flooded with the sex hormones which will promote the sex-specific structures of one sex and eliminate the sex-specific structures in the other sex. It's my understanding that that before this process the foetus has both structures that could develop along either a male or female pathway - and then the SRY sex determination process kicks in - and even this can (very rarely) get messed up a bit as seems to be the case with your friend's 46,XX DSD.
I'm not really sure on the timescales because developmental biologists have stated that some form of sex-differentiation is happening pretty much from the moment of conception. I'll link to one such interview below.
We don't really know about Khelif but it seems very likely he has a very specific form of DSD known as 5-ARD. This is a male DSD.A male DSD is where the developmental pathway was as a male and then something went wrong.
The really relevant thing as far as sports is concerned is whether Khelif has undergone a male puberty and it's pretty clear he has. I have no idea where you get the idea that he has a uterus - but never say never - maybe you will turn out to be right and in the fullness of time Khelif will pop one out, but I won't be holding my breath.
This interview with a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester gives a really good examination of the developmental issues
The fundamental issue with 'trans', as I see it, is whether it's just a delusion or whether there really is something akin to a gendered 'soul' that can differ from the male or female biology they possess. The vast majority of trans people do not have a DSD. And so it's a wholly different issue.
The thorny question here is to do with evidence. What evidence do we have that trans is NOT a delusion? Note that the burden of proof, as it should be, is on the side making the extraordinary claim (that 'trans' is something more than a delusion).
To your "thorny question", it is nearly impossible to "prove a negative". For example, suppose I were to declare, "The Greek gods rule the Universe." Can you prove the Greek gods do not rule the Universe? No? That means they exist and they do rule the Universe, unless and until you prove otherwise, according to such reasoning:
When a person makes a claim, and declares it to be true unless others prove it wrong, instead of proving the case themselves with evidence from reliable sources, this is known as Argumentum ad Ignorantiam Fallacy. The fallacy is committed when one asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or vice versa. Such a person often makes their claim, but then tells their audience, "Do your own research" to disprove it:
What evidence can you adduce that being homosexual "is not a delusion"? What evidence can you offer that left-handedness is likewise not "a delusion"?
Dismissing the validity of trans existence because they're "only 1 in 5,000" violates the principle of equality before the law, as enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. This was coined by President John Adams as 'tyranny of the majority". For example, only 14.4% of the US population are African American. Does that mean they have only 14.4% of the rights enjoyed by Caucasians and others, or do they have equal rights to everyone else? Gay people are only 5-10% of the population, similar ratio to left-handed people - same question: are our civil rights unenforceable because we're massively outnumbered by you guys? Every human being is a minority of 1, because there is no-one on this planet who is exactly like you, not even a twin.
As you mention, not all trans people suffer DSD, making the incidence far greater than 1 in 5,000, but their condition may instead arise out of something going awry during week 7-8 of pregnancy, where a boy keeps the incipient vagina instead of growing a penis, or vice versa.
I already gave you sources for the percentage in UK identifying as transgender. Given the life-changing consequences, nearly all negative, of identifying as a sex that doesn't match your genitalia, I cannot see any benefit whatsoever accruing to an individual for doing so without overwhelmingly cogent reasons. Why would a heterosexual, cisgender man, who sexually, emotionally and romantically desires women and wants to start a family, suddenly decide they were a woman, with all the disenfranchisement, persecution and falling victim to violence that connotes? What's in it for them?
The only absolute binary when it comes to sex/gender, is that spermatozoa fertilising an ovary is the only way to trigger conception - but even that is not always a given, considering that many couples struggle to conceive.
Your use of the pronoun "he" for Khelif is premature. Khelif states she is a "biological female", but will have to undergo mandatory sex testing to have the medal result confirmed. Khalef has been beaten 9 times by "biological women", and would be destroyed if entered in the male class. I already told you about the Polish athlete accused of being a man, who later gave birth to a son.
As Khalef's home country Algeria criminalises homosexuality and cross-dressing with torture, incarceration and flagellation as legally condoned punishments under Islamic jurisprudence, the likelihood that they would enter a transgender athlete for the Olympics must be assumed to be zero:
If it turns out Khelif has a vagina, ovaries and breasts, then that is the way sex is now determined "at birth", which was recently ruled by the UK Supreme Court to be the sole determinant of actual sex, irrespective of chromosomal variants, or intersex and other genital non-conformities. Whether we agree with the Court or not, that is the reality now for trans people. A trans man bodybuilder (born female) with a six-pack, a beard and a surgically engineered penis is now required by law to use the female toilets, and compete in women's sports.
I was going to write 2 words, Judith Butler. But then you mentioned her..
I was forced to read a little of Judith Butler a few years ago and my overriding thought was what a load of absolute codswallop. But maybe my comprehension skills are lacking, who knows?
My brother in law's immune system is shot to shit, since around the time of the first round of covid 'shots'. And he keeps getting yet additional shots now because his immune system is suddenly compromised, and therefore he needs them just in case... but he seems incapable of joining the dots.
I hope you sued the bastards who forced you to read it 🤣
Doesn't that come under the category of "cruel and unusual punishment"?
I think it can be quite hard to properly join the dots, particularly when we're operating from incomplete information or, worse, from distorted information. The distortions of science during covid were legion and egregious. It's one of the reasons I really struggle to accept the 'no conspiracy' versions of the covid farce - every time I try to 'join the dots' on a supposedly 'natural' explanation I end up with an inconsistent mess.
Yes, but it just did not make sense. And I'm not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination (I don't think an 'O' level in Physics consititutes an 'ability in the sciences') but after having 2 of the bloody things even I realised that it was just utter bollocks. But even without being a scientist, it still didn't make sense. The shots, the requirement for more shots, the requirement for everyone to be shot otherwise everyone will die, the requirement for tests, the people who had all their shots and fudged the tests because they wanted to go on holiday and oddly enough, they didn't die (they'd say because they had their shots) and neither did the ones who wouldn't have the shots but also fudged the tests because they wanted to go on holiday. Just complete bollocks. And so so much more which is beyond my comprehension.
A few days ago:
“A BBC News presenter was quick to correct the phrase ‘pregnant people’ to ‘women’ live on air — punctuating the moment with an eye roll as she read from the teleprompter.
“Martine Croxall, who has worked at the BBC for more than three decades, was seen rolling her eyes at the language used in the original newscast’s script — before she swiftly took matters into her own hands.” https://nypost.com/2025/06/23/media/bbc-news-presenter-martine-croxall-refuses-to-say-pregnant-people-corrects-script-live-on-air-women/
As far as I know Martine has been permitted to keep anchoring … I mean, presenting (cue my eye roll) the news in an unprosecuted and non-crucified manner.
That might have gone quite differently for her two years ago, I think.
I suspect it would have gone very differently indeed. We are definitely seeing positive signs that things have changed and even the most ardent of gender loons might be sensing their time of dominance is over.
I hope . . .
I've said this again and again. Covid was excellent in exposing all the frauds. Yes, fear can short circuit people's critical thinking faculties, but they really pulled all the puppet strings during covid times and I think we can all agree that S Fry was an excellent actor. Truly independant thinker, with some sense of morality and ethics? Nope. It got many people to show their true colours.
I'll always remember the line from 'V for Vendetta' - "Orders were passed down"... I'm living in a conservative Asian society, where the govt said there was not going to be any lockdowns, no mask wearing... and within a week or two of US imposing its restrictions, Singapore followed suit. The propaganda that was enacted against stuff that worked treatment-wise (e.g. VIM the magical elixir) followed the same script in country after country... Singapore, Sweden, they barely changed some of the words in the official country press releases telling people that the horsepaste was poisonous. - the irony being that both Singapore and Sweden are not big horse-owning countries with such supplies. Again - orders were passed down and the drones in pretty much all the western-dominated sphere of countries just did as they were told.
Yup - the level of *co-ordinated* propaganda was horrendous. It's things like this that make me question the whole 'it was just organic based on a overblown fear reaction' sort of narrative that eschews any hint of 'conspiracy'.
We witnessed specially timed and co-ordinated messaging in country after country. One week it was the "I wish I'd taken the vaccine" bollocks, next week it would be the "don't take the horsepaste you fools" crap, and so on. I doubt whether any of this was truly 'organic' - it was like every country marched in lockstep with almost identical messaging.
Something about the timing just jogged my memory, and I had to check some dates. Some background - I've always been interested in international relations, history, how societies tick, what makes things work well or not for the people. When I travel, I never saw the point of a weekend jaunt to some place just to booze out, as I prefer to stay a couple weeks to months at a locale to watch, interact and learn the local ways of life in both developed and developing countries, picking up a smattering of local languages. I have a good sense of the history and events impacting many countries, especially in the last century or so.
Shinzo Abe... Japan's longest serving Prime Minister. This train of thought was triggered by a picture I just saw of Putin consoling the widow Akie Abe. Given that Putin has seemingly died of cancer or a bunch of other issues, been overthrown in imagined coups countless times, demonized as a 'thug' in the western press, we can be pretty sure that Putin is on the opposite side of whoever had been calling the covid shots (pun intended). Shinzo Abe suddenly resigned in 2020, out of the blue, claiming health issues. That didn't pass the smell test then... independant-minded politicians in Japan have a habit of getting 'suicided'. In this case, Shinzo Abe stayed active, or too active in politics after stepping down as Prime Minister, and somehow someone managed to assassinate him in a country where gun crime is pretty much unheard of. That happened in 2022.
During that same time, 2 western politicians who were totally villified by their constituents were Dan Andrews in the Oz state of Victoria... and Jacinda Ardern in NZ. They imposed really harsh lockdowns and restrictions.... the folks there couldn't stand their guts and protesters were harshly beaten down (without MSM coverage). Yet the western press lauded them, especially Ardern... aka they followed orders without question and serious zeal like good soldiers and the system rewarded them with extended tenure. The point is to compare and contrast two extremes on the political spectrum of responses... even after Ardern suddenly stepped down from her position, she was immediately rewarded with cushy positions in one of those WEF type think tanks or similiar. Both Andrews and Ardern resigned in 2023. Again, coincidences abound.
The peak of the system's power was around mid 2022 (time of Abe's assassination). After that, they had to start playing defence.... giving up pawns here and there (Andews/Ardern etc) to reduce and deflect public anger due to the mounting injuries/deaths and other social consequences. Studies showing the harm of the jabs that sat in preprint since 2020 were finally allowed to be published from 2023 and we finally got the flood of actual data confirming our shared anec-data.
Anyways, this is a very simplified timeline of events just to give an overview.
Do 36 horses per 1 000 inhabitants count as a lot or a little? (Nat. total is over 350 000.)
Honestly asking - your passus about Sweden not being a big horse-owner country made look it up, since here in the countryside you see horses in every village.
But you are correct: overnight, Hydrochloroquine and Ivermektin became "untested drugs with unverified effects". I even wrote to our eq. to the FDA and pointed out that there's been hundreds of millions of doses of Ivermektin administered all over Africa for decades now, and it one of the cheapest, safest and most well-studied drugs there is. Paraphrased reply:
"The new Covid-vaccines are safe and effective. Contact your nearest health care provider for scheduling of an appointment."
Drones is too polite a term though. Ants and bees have not free hoice - we do.
You're right... my bad in assuming that a relatively 'cold' country like Sweden would have less horses due to the cost of winter upkeep. Instead, it's a huge outlier. Would you guess that Swedes would treat their horses differently from folks in US/UK, where it's mainly the privileged class who would own horses and would usually treat them better than their human servants? That horse paste with apple flavour ain't half bad...
I don't know how horses are kept/handled in UK/US so I can't make that call but seeing as the UK banned horses in mining before they banned children being sent down mines, I'd guess they have strict rules and value horses highly.
Here, they are positively pampered even if they are used for riding or for labour. Which is as it should be: we do eat horse here.
> RR: "I distinctly remember telling a former girlfriend that her womb had been beautifully socially constructed."
Seem to recollect that some "journalists" were eavesdropping on Prince, now king Charles saying he'd like to be a tampon inside consort, now Queen Camilla -- a man's gotta have a goal in life ...
> RR: "... but that’s as clear-cut a case of immutability as we could possibly have."
You're generally a clever fellow Rudolph, and you make some solid points in your latest. But you seem unwilling to consider that whether sex is "immutable" or not depends entirely on how the categories are defined, and what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for category membership. If we go with the standard biological definitions, most of the intersex, all the prepubescent, and some third of "ciswomen" are neither male nor female -- they're sexless, hardly "immutable".
In addition to which, you seem rather reluctant to consider that there's some merit in defining "gender" to denote various sexually dimorphic psychological and physiological traits which are some brute facts attested to by some solid science. Refusing to consider that just makes it more difficult to turn the transloonie tide. Apropos of which, an oldish Telegraph article:
"A third of Britons don’t know that transgender women were born male
Survey reveals ‘high levels of misunderstanding and confusion’ around terms commonly used to refer to trans people";
https://archive.ph/2023.08.07-140028/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/06/third-of-britons-dont-know-trans-women-born-male/
We've been round and round this semantic merry-go-round before haven't we Steersman?
We're not going to agree. However one defines 'sex' or whatever semantic games are played with that subsequent definition, the material reality is that pretty much from the moment of conception the developing embryo is set upon one of two pathways. We call those on one developmental pathway male and those on the other female.
I don't believe there is much merit in concretizing something like 'gender'. It is an extremely fuzzy and subjective categorization that draws from overly crude stereotypes. It's not that I'm 'reluctant', I just don't think it makes proper sense to elevate 'gender' to the level we have. It would be like trying to learn about Quantum Field Theory from the Ladybird Book of Science.
Dizzying ... 😉🙂 Battles for hearts and minds and all that. But relative to "gender, it seems the best way unhorsing the transloonie nutcases is to steelman the concept and show it doesn't at all support the claims made of it.
Unfortunately you seem to be in the "don't confuse me with facts" camp which isn't helping much. You may wish to read this post by an American biologist, even if there are flaws in his position:
"There is 'Biological Evidence for Gender Identity...' but it’s not what you think; Some smart people have confused the issue":
https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/there-is-biological-evidence-for?triedRedirect=true
As for "sex", you likewise seem "reluctant" to consider that the issue boils down into a question of the definitions for the sexes and criteria for category membership. And absolutely no reputable biological journal, encyclopedia, or dictionary says anything at all about your "developmental pathway" -- not even wrong. Only grifters, charlatans, scientific illiterates, and political opportunists like "biologists" Heather Heying and Colin Wright.
🤣
It's always fun reading your replies Steersman.
I read that article a while back - just refreshed my memory. I'm not sure why you think it's saying very much relevant. It's an interesting and excellent article, but doesn't anywhere properly define what 'gender' is - it is taken as an assumed known quantity. In the article it's essentially used as a synonym for sex.
His argument basically boils down to 'identities' derive from our brains, our brains are biological. It really isn't much more profound than that. I'm being overly simplistic, of course, because it's a good article, but it doesn't argue that 'gender' is a meaningful quantity at all. It's an article all about the perception of one's own sex.
You're really hung up on the whole 'definition' thing when it comes to sex. I have a fairly simple view on the matter. There are two sexes and this is observably so (material reality). If biologists come up with some definition that says otherwise (or could be interpreted otherwise) then they've fucked up their definition. They haven't, of course, and the standard definition, alongside the *standard* interpretation of it (i.e. not your interpretation) is perfectly fine.
You really think biologists are not aware of the two sex-development pathways? Jeez. There were a whole load of articles and videos (by biologists specializing in these things) explaining this when the Imane Khelif thing happened, because DSD's all arise when there's a problem arising on these developmental pathways - things like hormone receptors not working properly etc.
Being on a pathway is still rather significantly different from arriving at one's destination. In the case of the sexes, that means possessing the trait, the property that constitutes the necessary and sufficient condition for category membership -- which even Trump's EO on "restoring biological truth to government" asserts is "producing gametes", present tense. No gametes, no sex category membership cards.
Might be somewhat academic were it not for cases like Tickle vs Giggle -- where the "judge" ruled that "Ms." Tickle's brand-spanking new neovagina justified "her" claim that she had changed sex -- and similarily Imane Khelif's where the issue is whether she has testicles or ovaries despite having had, at birth, something that looked like a typical vagina. Whence the need for specific, unambiguous, and biologically justified criteria for category membership. And the rather risible "developmental pathway" simply doesn't even cut the mustard.
Not quite sure why you're so "obstinate" in refusing to accept brute facts and fundamental scientific principles. You "think" I'm saying transwomen change sex by cutting off their nuts? Or, more likely, you're horrified that the standard biological definitions deny sex category membership cards to the prepubescent, most of the intersex, and all menopausees?
Biologically speaking, the sexes denote only the presence of functioning gonads -- the destination and terminus of that "developmental pathway" 🙄 -- and not any sort of an identity which too many, including you and various transactivists, seem rather desperate to turn them into.
Your interpretation of the definition of sex, shared only by a handful of biologists, is most definitely NOT the standard one. But even if it were not it would not matter. Every biologist in the world can distinguish between a male child and a female child - as, indeed, can everyone else.
You have missed the point of the pathway argument. Ignoring the case of DSD's - which do not invalidate the sex binary anyway and which affect only around 0.02% of the population - then pathway is equivalent to sex (in humans), even if it's not used as a 'defining' feature by biologists. There's a good reason for this though, because although humans cannot change their 'pathway' there are animals who can and so a more general 'definition' of sex is needed because, after all, at the end of the day it's all about reproduction and understanding sexual reproduction across all species.
We can do a kind of regression - take a male, of any age, and you can, at least in one's imagination, trace his path backwards through history. At what point on that path can we say he's not male in an *objective* and measurable sense?
The only place we'd be able to point to would be the moments after conception. I don't know how long it is after conception the sex-determination processes start kicking in, but I know it's matters of seconds and not days.
Anyway - I'll leave you to have the last word and let the readers make their minds up which of our respective positions they agree with. I won't reply further.
RR: "Your interpretation of the definition of sex, shared only by a handful of biologists, is most definitely NOT the standard one."
Horsefeathers. Most of the biologists working with sequential hermaphrodites recognize that sex category membership has diddly-squat to do with "pathways", and everything to do with what type of gamete is currently being produced.
You -- and/or some of your commentariat more open-minded, or with more appreciation for biological principles -- might want to read philosopher of science Paul Griffiths' take on "What are biological sexes?"
https://philarchive.org/rec/GRIWAB-2
RR: "Every biologist in the world can distinguish between a male child and a female child - as, indeed, can everyone else."
Bully for them. The question then is what criteria they've used and whether they're the same as everyone else's.
RR :"Ignoring the case of DSD's - which do not invalidate the sex binary anyway .."
Most of the intersex are sexless. You and too many other people -- including a bunch of so-called biologists -- are unclear on the concept that a binary category isn't necessarily exhaustive. If there were only two religions -- Christianity and Islam, a binary -- then atheists are outside that binary without in any way "invalidating" 🙄 that binary.
Judith Butler is just trying to stay relevant. She was The Voice of Truth(tm) in the 1990s, but past 2010 or so her star has been on a declining arc, as the new breed must one-up and out-radicalise their fore-bears, as it ever was and ever will be, ah-em.
(If you care to read about Judith & Holofernes, how her image and iconography within Christian tradition has changed since the first century to present is quite fascinating.)
The game, dear professor, is the same as toddlers and puppies play with their parents and siblings:
[If I can make you accept my claim as true and right, I have gained in power vis-a-vis you.]
That's really all it is, and it is fully congruent and logically following from Butler's own Voice of Truth(tm): the French homosexual pedophile philosopher Foucault. A man who in philosophy ought to be thought of as the Anti-Nietzshe: unmanly, selfish, egotistical, egocentric.
Where Nietzsche spoke of Power as a function of Will and that the value & ethics (or want thereof) of Will and Power is manifested through the actions (not) taken -
Foucault inverted it to if it feels right for him, here and now, then he can use language as a tool to make it right, true and ethical here and now. It doesn't have to have been true before, and it doesn't have to be true later; only now counts, and only the one getting to have his/her way counts.
Personally, I believe Foucault created his rather elaborate and verbose collection texts saying essentially the same thing as a way to avoid admitting to himself that his instinct told him his urges were morally and ethically wrong and corrupt, and that he had a moral duty to resist and refrain from acting on them; instead, his guilt was resolved by deconstructing his feelings as something imposed on him from outside (Catholic French upper class background I believe, but I might misremember) and thus without intrinsical validity and justification since it was imposed without him being asked if he wanted that value-system ingrained in him or not.
Which obviously is pure sophistry: the child is unable to make that choice. It is the academics' version of the teenager-tantrum to the tune of "I didn't ask to be born!".
Butler is following in her Master's footsteps, as I said. She is very much a has-been on her way to becoming a footnote in lists of reference-materials and isn't even required reading in Women's Studies, as far as I'm aware.
And if I seem verbose. . . go thou to French and German philosophers and shudder.
I tend to try to steer clear of philosophers. The little I've read has almost always confirmed my suspicions that they're a bunch of overly verbose theoreticians who construct fantastical panoramas out the flimsiest of cloth.
I suppose it's the sort of thing we all do, with words of fewer syllables, after a few pints at the pub. The difference is that in the morning most of us groan and think "did I really say all that shit last night?"
I honestly don't really know what philosophers are for - although I suppose I need to qualify that a bit because some writers/philosophers have made important arguments in the past on things like free speech and the like
The original Greek meaning has been lost and found over the centuries, and has mutated from "love of wisdom/learning/knowledge" to meaning a specific system of ideas/thoughts (which should be more properly called ideology or at least "idea-ology").
As a physicist you have more in common with those philosophers who tried to find out and reason out how things are and why they are that way, and when they are not, than with the modern crop of post-WW1 era philosophy.
It's also quite correct to say that from Sokrates, Plato, Diogenes (my personal no. 1) and Aristotle to Nietzsche, pretty much nothing of importance was said that wasn't just a repetition of what the Ancients had already mulled over and arrived at.
And yes, the man down the pub is usually quite the thinker. If you haven't read Pratchett's "Small Gods" I'd recommend it. It's one of his earlier novels and is free-standing, not part of any specific series beyond the general Discworld-setting. It's quite the subtle tour-de-force on religion and philosophy, both as theory and practice.
Here's one that got me in hot water with a philosophy-tutor once:
Tutor: "The meaning of life.... the ultimate question. What is the meaning of life?"
Me, raising my hand: "To live"
Insert long rant about over-simplifying and smart-Alec students here.
Obviously a simple binary of male plus female is required to instantiate a pregnancy. That's a no-brainer. That's how human life begins, but is also where the simplicity ends.
Columns like this one endlessly pour vitriol upon trans people with no evident understanding of the "science", nor of the human cost inflicted upon them in terms of societal ostracism, and yes, extreme, unprovoked violence frequently occasioning death at four times the national average: https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/
During childhood, trans girls (born male) get told "you're not a real man" yet after they transition, are told, "you're not a real woman". There's only so much of this that a young person can take: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12282819/Noah-OBrien-teenager-committed-suicide-denied-gender-affirming-care-Westmead-Hospital.html
I don't understand how you think it benefits you in particular or society in general to whip up hatred against an already stigmatised minority. You are a hugely bigger threat to trans people than they could ever be to you. I know trans people at work. They have never threatened me in any way, yet they have to be careful which street they walk down to get safely home.
Forcing a trans female (born male) to enter a men's bathroom or to play in men's sports is going to result in them being beaten up. Take Rebekkah as an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoB0D2jfAk4
She would be crushed if forced to play in the men's hockey team.
Forcing a trans man (born female) into a women's bathroom or to play in women's sports is going to result in them being arrested, and forced to produce a birth certificate every single time: https://thefightmag.com/2025/04/bernardo-rabello-makes-history-as-first-transgender-man-in-mister-brasil/
You can also google transgender male bodybuilders: for example, Zach Brookes, Gianmarco Negri, Ajay Holbrook, Aydian Dowling - all born female, yet now manifesting an award-winning six-pack, hairy legs, a baritone voice, a beard, a surgically engineered penis, and a handshake that would turn coal into diamonds. They present as male, and win bodybuilding competitions as males. How does it benefit women for these trans men to be forced into women's spaces?
A friend whom I have always known as a heterosexual man married to a woman who bore his biological kids, disclosed to me a while ago that he was a "biological woman". In his teens, when he hit puberty, he started growing female breasts to his understandable dismay. When lactation started to become torrential, he was forced to have a double mastectomy. Only then did his surgeons discover that despite having all the external paraphernalia of a man, and a fertile heterosexual one that, he had no Y chromosome - he is XX, the chromosomal make-up of an adult human female. According to the Supreme Court, he must use the women's bathroom.
The UK Supreme Court have obviously not done their research by declaring that there are "only 2 biological sexes" - as according to biology and science:
- Studies estimate that the prevalence of 46,XY DSD in females is around 6.4 per 100,000 live-born females, which makes them 'biological men': https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27603905/
- Approximately 1 in 500 men may have an extra X chromosome, leading to Klinefelter syndrome.
XYY Syndrome:
- About 1 in 1,000 boys have an extra Y chromosome (XYY).
- Swyer Syndrome (XY) is a rare condition, affecting about 1 in 80,000 male births, results in individuals having an XY chromosome combination but developing female reproductive structures.
- In the UK, the estimated percentage of intersex individuals is around 1.7%, which translates to about 1.1 million people. This is comparable to the prevalence of twins. Intersex individuals are born with sex characteristics that don't fit typical binary notions of male or female.
Trans women represent 0.1% of the population, yet received the most vitriol.
The 2021 UK census data indicates that approximately 48,000 people in England and Wales identified as trans women. This figure represents 0.1% of the population. The census also showed that another 48,000 people identified as trans men, and 30,000 identified as non-binary. In total, 262,000 people in England and Wales (0.5% of the population) reported that their gender identity was different from their sex registered at birth.
In England and Wales, a higher proportion of women experience sexual assault, stalking, harassment, and domestic abuse compared to men. Specifically, in the year ending March 2023, 3.2% of women reported experiencing sexual assault compared to 0.9% of men. Similarly, 4.4% of women reported experiencing stalking compared to 2.4% of men. A larger percentage of women (13%) also experienced at least one form of harassment, compared to men (7.2%). Additionally, women were more likely to experience any domestic abuse in the last 12 months (5.7%) compared to men (3.2%).
All by men.
Not trans women.
Not trans men.
Not gay men.
Not lesbians.
The figures above relate to cis straight (& at times bi) male violence towards women.
So, why are trans people being attacked?
I will pour as much scorn and vitriol on the toxic and harmful ideology behind trans as I can, because it is a very dangerous and harmful ideology. I do not, however, wish any harm on trans people at all.
Fundamentally we're talking about a delusion and there's no reason at all we should 'pander' to a delusion. Rejecting someone's delusion is not 'hate'.
What 'science' am I misunderstanding here? There is not a single shred of genuine scientific proof that something like a 'gender identity' exists - even if we could consistently and coherently define what that term means, which we cannot. There is no scientific proof whatsoever that someone who is male is actually female 'inside' - that's a subjective feelings-based claim.
The claim itself doesn't even make proper sense. How is it possible for someone to 'know' or 'feel' that they are the opposite sex? What does that feel like? We can all certainly try to *imagine* what it might feel like to be the opposite sex, but we have no way of knowing whether we're even close. And even if we were 'close', the best we could say is that we've successfully imagined how *some* of the opposite sex feel about themselves.
I also find this continual claim that trans people are the most marginalized and vulnerable in society to be a bit inconsistent with the facts. They're celebrated by almost every official institution and organization to the nth degree. They wield considerable institutional and societal power even to the point of being able to get people fired for not believing they have changed their sex (or 'gender'). It's perhaps the most non-marginal 'marginalized' group in history as LGBQWERTY flags and propaganda is everywhere.
I understand you have your anti-trans homophobic audience to play to, but I ask you to step back and try to understand the situation for trans people. I know several trans people personally, and evidently you do not.
You say you "do not with any harm on trans people", but then argue that there is no such thing as a trans person, and they're merely a "harmful ideology".
It also appears you replied without properly reading my abundantly researched post, or following the links I provided. Please go back, and open the links I shared, including the one from the Williams Institute showing that trans people are assaulted or killed at 4 times the average rate of cisgender people.
You have not explained how a heterosexual man grows female breasts during puberty, and has XX chromosomes (i.e. a biological woman):
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30905417/
As they are a "biological woman" (XX), they presumably should use the Ladies, but they will of course be arrested.
That's just one of many sex and chromosomal variants. I know such a person, but it is clear that you do not.
You have not clarified whether someone born with the genitalia of both sexes (intersex) is male or female, or which bathroom they should use.
You have not answered why trans bodybuilder males (born female) should use the women's restroom and why cisgender women would prefer that.
You didn't explain why trans girl Rebekkah in the video I shared should use the men's, and should join the men's hockey team. Watch the video, and seriously consider what would happen to her.
How do you know you're a man? By looking in the mirror? Or do you just know it inside?
I know I am a man, and yet I also know I am not attracted to females. Why would I make a "choice" like that, if it were possible to merely choose to be attracted to females and then I would become acceptable to you? You can tell me till you're blue in the face that I should be exactly like you, and like the same things you do, but that doesn't change my reality. Why is it only you who have the right to dictate to me whom I should and shouldn't like, when you would never accept me doing that to you?
All males start out life in the womb with female genitalia:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222286/
"During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. After approximately 6 to 7 weeks of gestation, however, the expression of a gene on the Y chromosome induces changes that result in the development of the testes. Thus, this gene is singularly important in inducing testis development."
What if this gene doesn't show up on time, or at all? This means the man is born with a woman's body. Sex is wired into you, the genitals are only ratified after 7 weeks. What if the gene manifests when it shouldn't, and the female ends up with a penis?
Your assertion that Nature never gets anything wrong is not based on reason or evidence. Nature does random stuff all the time, and messing with gender is just one of them.
Thanks for the reply Derek
I ignored the DSD stuff because it's irrelevant for the trans issue and nor is it anything to do with the sex binary, as such. DSD's are estimated to occur at around 0.02% of the population and there are a wide range of DSD's that can occur. I think the original acronym meant disorder of sexual development which is actually a more accurate phrasing than a 'difference' of sexual development.
All males do NOT start out with 'female' genitalia - differentiation of genitalia is a fairly late stage development of the embryo/foetus - other sex-related changes have already occurred. So, in the case of someone like Imane Khelif, for example, it is very likely he went through the usual male foetal developmental stages and then something went wrong with this later stage. This can result at birth in either a micropenis or external genitalia that appear to be female. Individuals with this condition experience a male puberty however, as they are male in all other respects.
I do know some trans people - what of it? Am I supposed to suspend my scientific judgement or my beliefs simply so as not to offend them? I've had plenty of conversations about the nature of 'trans' with them.
There are trans people - they do exist - but it very much depends on what one means by the phrase 'trans person'. Do I think there are people who have a delusion that they are members of the opposite sex? Yes, of course. Do I think they *are* members of the opposite sex in any meaningful way? Not at all.
If it is a delusion then continual affirmation, propping up their fantasy, is going to be harmful (just like propping up the delusional body image of an anorexic person is harmful). The problem is that trans as delusion is vastly more scientifically plausible than that they have, somehow, been 'born in the wrong body'.
This is my problem. There is no evidence, in a scientific sense, for the claims of trans (and gender) ideology. There is also very little evidence that denying so-called "gender affirming care" to minors is harmful - and plenty of evidence to the contrary.
And then we have other societal issue that we really have to deal with like the whole 'bathroom' thing. Which group should take precedence in any balancing of 'rights'? The 50% of the population who are female, or the 1% (or whatever it is) of the population who are trans women (i.e. males who believe they are women)?
As FTM transition tends to be more visually successful in terms of outward appearance and, in general, blokes don't really give a shit, I think it's more sensible to allow trans men (i.e. females who believe they are men) to use the male facilities. It's definitely not a symmetrical situation because of the risks involved.
Most of the serious consequences of trans fall upon women as a sex class. For most day-to-day interactions who gives a toss? But there are situations where sex really does matter - and it matters way more than some supposed 'gender identity'. It's almost exclusively women, as a sex class, who bear the brunt here.
Males should not be competing in women's sports, for example. Very straightforward and the scientific evidence is overwhelming here. Males have an advantage, a very significant one - and even before puberty there are some advantages although these are greatly amplified by puberty.
Here's the thing, would I, as a parent, have wished my daughters to have turned out to be 'trans'? Or my granddaughter who has just turned 1 recently? Do I wish her to be 'trans'?
Of course not - it would be a disaster. I'm going to do everything in my power to ensure that my granddaughter is never swept up in this ideology and grows up to be confident and happy in the body she is born with. And so is her mum who is very firmly against allowing her to have a smartphone, for example, until she's something like 16 or even older.
No parent should be wishing for 'trans' - just as no parent should be wishing their child grows up with some other disorder. So, yes, I would wish a world free of this trans disorder, just as I would wish no child would be born deaf, or blind, or develop a condition like anorexia, or any one of a myriad of medical conditions.
This is, of course, not saying that I wish for such people not to exist - it's saying that I would wish that whatever medical/psychological condition they struggle with does not exist. The problem is we've wedded these various conditions very strongly with 'identity' and so when you make a statement that you wish deafness to not exist it's greatly misinterpreted to mean you wish deaf people not to exist. I wish deafness not to exist - a very profound difference.
Do I have sympathy for people who believe themselves to have been 'born in the wrong body'? Of course - I can't even properly imagine that. Do I have sympathy for that viewpoint as an ideology - not one shred. You can, I hope, see the difference.
You are reducing the differentiation of the sexes down to the external manifestation of genitalia, without accounting for the chromosomal variants that Nature delivers. You have not accounted for
Congenital Adrenal Hyperglasia: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17817-congenital-adrenal-hyperplasia
Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/
Simultaneous Hermaphroditism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_hermaphroditism#:~:text=Simultaneous%20hermaphroditism%20is%20one%20of,in%20others%20it%20is%20absent.
XY Chromosome complementarity: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666979X23003063
Each manifests a heterogeneous mixture of chromosomes, genes, testes, ovaries, womb, vagina, penis. It is absurd that you are shrugging all of this off as "ideology".
Imane Khalef is not "he". She has female genitalia, and a womb that can deliver children. Khalef's is a similar situation to that of Ewa Kłobukowska who was disqualified for 'being a man', despite later giving birth to a son:
https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/08/12/the-olympic-champion-wrongly-banned-for-failing-a-gender-test-60-years-ago/
You are also wrong about foetal genital development, and provided no source for that or any of your other claims.
The standard chromosomal construct for a male is XY and for a female, XX, but not every person with a Y chromosome is male, and not every person with a double X is female. There are many other combinations: XXY (or Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (or Trisomy X), XXXY and so on. There’s also androgen insensitivity syndrome, a condition that keeps the brains of people with a Y from absorbing the information in that chromosome. Most of these people develop as female and might not even know about their condition until puberty — or even later. I already told you about my heterosexual male friend who unexpectedly started growing female breasts at puberty, and had to have a double mastectomy to stop the uncontrolled lactation. Only then was he told he had XX Chromosomes, making him the textbook definition of a "biological woman".
Refer to this article from the National Library of Medicine:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222286/
"All human individuals—whether they have an XX, an XY, or an atypical sex chromosome combination—begin development from the same starting point. During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. After approximately 6 to 7 weeks of gestation, however, the expression of a gene on the Y chromosome induces changes that result in the development of the testes. Thus, this gene is singularly important in inducing testis development. The production of testosterone at about 9 weeks of gestation results in the development of the reproductive tract and the masculinisation (the normal development of male sex characteristics) of the brain and genitalia."
Failure of the Y chromosome + testosterone to instantiate the development of a penis can mean that a male can be born with the body and genitalia of a woman, and vice versa. It is not until between the 18th and 22nd week of pregnancy that the sex of the foetus can be determined via ultrasound:
https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/fetal-development/fetal-sex-organs-reproductive-system/
"Up until about week 7 to week 8 of pregnancy, both sexes have what’s known as a “genital ridge” — i.e., an identical preliminary set of genitalia that will eventually differentiate to become either male or female sex organs.
"That means that our sex organs come from the same foundations: The testes in men are equivalent to labia and ovaries in women, and the penis is the equivalent of the clitoris."
You also never justified why Rebekkah should join the men's hockey team. Please actually watch the video I already shared:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoB0D2jfAk4
Thanks for the reply and the links Derek, but I'm really baffled now as to what you think I've written - either my writing is impossibly unclear or you have fantastically misinterpreted what I've written.
I am reducing the differentiation of the sexes down to external genitalia? Eh?
How am I 'shrugging off' DSD's as ideology?
I thought I'd made my position clear. DSD's, whilst fascinating, do not have any relevance for the 'trans' issue, and nor do they invalidate the sex binary.
I really don't know why you harp on about DSD's so much - they occur at an estimated rate of 0.02% (about 1 in 5,000) - and not all of these have really serious consequences as I understand it. They're examples of where something has gone wrong with the normal healthy developmental process. And there are lots of different kinds of DSD - and you have listed some of them.
The 46,XX version your friend seems to have suffered from is an interesting one and underscores that whilst OK 99.98% of the time in humans chromosomes are not fully adequate as a defining feature of sex. The issue with biology is that it needs to classify male vs female across *all* sexually-reproducing species (sexual reproduction is a binary process), not just humans, and that's why the gamete distinction is the one that has emerged to be the definitional one.
DSD's say nothing about the ideological and science issues I have been trying to discuss. Their existence does not at all imply there is some kind of third 'sex' or that sex exists on some kind of 'spectrum'. They are completely irrelevant to the claims made by trans ideology.
What I have got a little mixed up is the timescales of development. You're right in that up to around 6 weeks the foetus is in a kind of undifferentiated state as far as the main sex structures are concerned. Before this point it seems that there is the potential to produce either a male or female body.
After the development of the testes or ovaries at around 6 weeks the foetus is flooded with the sex hormones which will promote the sex-specific structures of one sex and eliminate the sex-specific structures in the other sex. It's my understanding that that before this process the foetus has both structures that could develop along either a male or female pathway - and then the SRY sex determination process kicks in - and even this can (very rarely) get messed up a bit as seems to be the case with your friend's 46,XX DSD.
I'm not really sure on the timescales because developmental biologists have stated that some form of sex-differentiation is happening pretty much from the moment of conception. I'll link to one such interview below.
We don't really know about Khelif but it seems very likely he has a very specific form of DSD known as 5-ARD. This is a male DSD.A male DSD is where the developmental pathway was as a male and then something went wrong.
The really relevant thing as far as sports is concerned is whether Khelif has undergone a male puberty and it's pretty clear he has. I have no idea where you get the idea that he has a uterus - but never say never - maybe you will turn out to be right and in the fullness of time Khelif will pop one out, but I won't be holding my breath.
This interview with a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester gives a really good examination of the developmental issues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9rynD9KlU0
The fundamental issue with 'trans', as I see it, is whether it's just a delusion or whether there really is something akin to a gendered 'soul' that can differ from the male or female biology they possess. The vast majority of trans people do not have a DSD. And so it's a wholly different issue.
The thorny question here is to do with evidence. What evidence do we have that trans is NOT a delusion? Note that the burden of proof, as it should be, is on the side making the extraordinary claim (that 'trans' is something more than a delusion).
To your "thorny question", it is nearly impossible to "prove a negative". For example, suppose I were to declare, "The Greek gods rule the Universe." Can you prove the Greek gods do not rule the Universe? No? That means they exist and they do rule the Universe, unless and until you prove otherwise, according to such reasoning:
https://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/ignorance.html
When a person makes a claim, and declares it to be true unless others prove it wrong, instead of proving the case themselves with evidence from reliable sources, this is known as Argumentum ad Ignorantiam Fallacy. The fallacy is committed when one asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or vice versa. Such a person often makes their claim, but then tells their audience, "Do your own research" to disprove it:
https://thinkingispower.com/the-problem-with-doing-your-own-research/
What evidence can you adduce that being homosexual "is not a delusion"? What evidence can you offer that left-handedness is likewise not "a delusion"?
Dismissing the validity of trans existence because they're "only 1 in 5,000" violates the principle of equality before the law, as enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. This was coined by President John Adams as 'tyranny of the majority". For example, only 14.4% of the US population are African American. Does that mean they have only 14.4% of the rights enjoyed by Caucasians and others, or do they have equal rights to everyone else? Gay people are only 5-10% of the population, similar ratio to left-handed people - same question: are our civil rights unenforceable because we're massively outnumbered by you guys? Every human being is a minority of 1, because there is no-one on this planet who is exactly like you, not even a twin.
As you mention, not all trans people suffer DSD, making the incidence far greater than 1 in 5,000, but their condition may instead arise out of something going awry during week 7-8 of pregnancy, where a boy keeps the incipient vagina instead of growing a penis, or vice versa.
I already gave you sources for the percentage in UK identifying as transgender. Given the life-changing consequences, nearly all negative, of identifying as a sex that doesn't match your genitalia, I cannot see any benefit whatsoever accruing to an individual for doing so without overwhelmingly cogent reasons. Why would a heterosexual, cisgender man, who sexually, emotionally and romantically desires women and wants to start a family, suddenly decide they were a woman, with all the disenfranchisement, persecution and falling victim to violence that connotes? What's in it for them?
The only absolute binary when it comes to sex/gender, is that spermatozoa fertilising an ovary is the only way to trigger conception - but even that is not always a given, considering that many couples struggle to conceive.
Your use of the pronoun "he" for Khelif is premature. Khelif states she is a "biological female", but will have to undergo mandatory sex testing to have the medal result confirmed. Khalef has been beaten 9 times by "biological women", and would be destroyed if entered in the male class. I already told you about the Polish athlete accused of being a man, who later gave birth to a son.
As Khalef's home country Algeria criminalises homosexuality and cross-dressing with torture, incarceration and flagellation as legally condoned punishments under Islamic jurisprudence, the likelihood that they would enter a transgender athlete for the Olympics must be assumed to be zero:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Algeria
If it turns out Khelif has a vagina, ovaries and breasts, then that is the way sex is now determined "at birth", which was recently ruled by the UK Supreme Court to be the sole determinant of actual sex, irrespective of chromosomal variants, or intersex and other genital non-conformities. Whether we agree with the Court or not, that is the reality now for trans people. A trans man bodybuilder (born female) with a six-pack, a beard and a surgically engineered penis is now required by law to use the female toilets, and compete in women's sports.
I was going to write 2 words, Judith Butler. But then you mentioned her..
I was forced to read a little of Judith Butler a few years ago and my overriding thought was what a load of absolute codswallop. But maybe my comprehension skills are lacking, who knows?
My brother in law's immune system is shot to shit, since around the time of the first round of covid 'shots'. And he keeps getting yet additional shots now because his immune system is suddenly compromised, and therefore he needs them just in case... but he seems incapable of joining the dots.
I hope you sued the bastards who forced you to read it 🤣
Doesn't that come under the category of "cruel and unusual punishment"?
I think it can be quite hard to properly join the dots, particularly when we're operating from incomplete information or, worse, from distorted information. The distortions of science during covid were legion and egregious. It's one of the reasons I really struggle to accept the 'no conspiracy' versions of the covid farce - every time I try to 'join the dots' on a supposedly 'natural' explanation I end up with an inconsistent mess.
🤣 the experience has left me traumatised.
Yes, but it just did not make sense. And I'm not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination (I don't think an 'O' level in Physics consititutes an 'ability in the sciences') but after having 2 of the bloody things even I realised that it was just utter bollocks. But even without being a scientist, it still didn't make sense. The shots, the requirement for more shots, the requirement for everyone to be shot otherwise everyone will die, the requirement for tests, the people who had all their shots and fudged the tests because they wanted to go on holiday and oddly enough, they didn't die (they'd say because they had their shots) and neither did the ones who wouldn't have the shots but also fudged the tests because they wanted to go on holiday. Just complete bollocks. And so so much more which is beyond my comprehension.