June 23, 2020

"Anti-trans revanchists have centered their battles in wordplay — if you can call it that. J.K. Rowling, in a recent tweet..."

"... noted that 'people who menstruate' were once referred to as 'Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?' (She meant 'women.' There’s that wordplay.) She also argued, 'If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased' and 'erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives.' Ms. Rowling’s linguistic wizardry cloaks her political goal, to assign gender purely by sex, and therefore relegate trans-ness to a closet under the stairs. It should be noted that trans people do not generally believe sex is not real; indeed, discomfort with the sex of our bodies is a frequent challenge for trans people. Ms. Rowling knows this, since she knows what the word 'trans' means. Words hold power, and it’s no surprise that pushback to a rising trans presence has come in the form of definitional conservatism. But the battle extends beyond language, and Ms. Rowling’s semantic battle has been taken to new theaters by the Trump administration. From our schools to our hospitals to the federal work force, the administration has pursued new rules that define trans people out of existence. This is an attack on trans lives. As with Ms. Rowling, the language of the proposed rules is the language of bodies: the social roles of 'man' and 'woman' are the only two available, and we are all assigned one at birth according to our bodies..... When you use words like 'male' as shorthand for those privileged by the patriarchy, you leave trans women uncertain whether you have our backs or — like the Trump administration and J.K. Rowling — you are trying to write us out of existence. It’s impossible to dismantle the patriarchy while wearing a 'pussy hat.'"

Writes Devin Michelle Bunten, who is an assistant professor of urban economics and housing at M.I.T. in "Sex Does Not Mean Gender. Equating Them Erases Trans Lives/Embracing the experiences of trans people means leaving old vocabularies behind" (NYT).

I had some trouble understanding the aphorism "It’s impossible to dismantle the patriarchy while wearing a 'pussy hat.'" But I think I get it now, so let me help you with it.

The idea is to get people to think in terms of gender and not sex, with "sex" understood to refer only to the physical body — notably, the genitalia. A pussy hat represents and flaunts female genitalia and therefore intensifies the conflation of sex and gender. The way to make progress — "to dismantle the patriarchy" — is to clarify the distinction between sex and gender and to stress the importance — in our social roles — of gender.

97 comments:

alanc709 said...

I want to see proof that trans women menstruate, with a link, or it's a lie.

Michael K said...

Sanity will return eventually.

n.n said...

Sex is genetic: male and female. Gender is "phenotypic" is sex-correlated mental (e.g. sexual orientation) and physical attributes: masculine and feminine, respectively. The transgender (i.e. deviant state or process) spectrum includes homosexuals, bisexuals, intersexuals, and neosexuals. Progress is an [unqualified] monotonic process or ideology.

Tom T. said...

This is pure projection. The people saying that biological sex is real are not the ones who are relying on wordplay.

(Similarly, claiming that Antifa is anti-fascist because it's in the name -- that's wordplay).

chuck said...

in our social roles

Menstruation is a social construct.

Laslo Spatula said...

...But I think I get it now, so let me help you with it."

Altsplaining.

I am Laslo.

gspencer said...

Nope, ain't gonna do it. Ain't gonna indulge their delusions.

narciso said...

So they are just insane, got it.

Mike Sylwester said...

Such decisions must be decided entirely by the US Supreme Court justices -- not by any legislators.

However, after President Trump appoints a few more justices, then the decisions might be decided instead by legislators.

tim maguire said...

There's a fatal inconsistency at the heart of these arguments--for the trans-rights activist's position to make sense, gender has to be both meaningless and vital. It has to be fluid enough to change on a whim and so important to get right that even minor mistakes can destroy lives (and, therefore, people who make minor mistakes should have their lives destroyed).

That's why they flail about so hatefully--to even have the discussion is deadly to their position, and therefore there can be no discussion.

AustinRoth said...

Stealing this:

“How not to get cancelled.

Step 1 - write the most valuable book series in history, more valuable by far than the combined sales of all other authors your publishing company represents.

Step 2 - there is no step 2.”

Fernandinande said...

When you use words like 'male' as shorthand for those privileged by the patriarchy

Hurrah for the patriarchy!

you leave trans women uncertain whether you have our backs or

Trans women means "men", so the naughty patriarchy should have their backs by default.

But I think I get it now, so let me help you with it.

I already got it, thanks anyway. The patriarchy is like "systemic racism" in that they're both imaginary, so the "work" in dismantling them will never end, providing job security and excuses for self-absorbed activists. They're great scams.

Fernandinande said...

I want to see proof that trans women menstruate, with a link, or it's a lie.

I think I get it now, so let me help you with it.

The idea is to get people to think in terms of imagination and not reality, with "reality" understood to refer only to the physical body — notably, the genitalia. Menstruation represents and flaunts female genitalia and therefore intensifies the conflation of reality and imagination. The way to make progress — "to dismantle the menstrualarchy" — is to clarify the distinction between reality and imagination and to stress the importance — in our reproductive roles — of imagination.

Harsh Pencil said...

Since we are now referencing Far Side cartoons, "Just Plain Nuts" comes to mind.

Kai Akker said...

When you use words like "revanchists," I know it is to make a trivial point sound important. Moving on.

stlcdr said...

Forcing others to celebrate an individuals delusion/discomfort/or whatever they feel, does not make that delusion go away.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Sex is genetic and encoded in the DNA. XX = woman with various physical attributes that come with that configuration. XY is male and with other attributes. Being human beings the rest of the DNA also contributes attributes that are the same for both sexes.

THIS IS THE SCIENCE. For almost all species on Earth. Two sexes. Other than a very few DNA mutations there are two sexes...female and male.

People who want to deny this basic biological fact are denying the science!!! in preference for their own delusions and wishes. Mental illness doesn't equal reality.

Wishing doesn't make it so! Mom's advice whenever I whined about life not being fair 😄

I thought we were all supposed to bow down to the science and not be nasty deniers...Wear YOUR MASKS!! Stay 6 feet apart!!! or else you are a murderous denier!!!!

Which way is it????

I have a better idea. Everyone just mind your own business. Play out your delusions as long as they are harmless to the rest of the population. I'll even play along with you until you stop minding your own business and try to get up into mine.

MayBee said...

Dear Trans Person
Your life is not erased by the realities of the existence of sex.
You make a different choice about what you want to do with your body. That's your choice, and your experience is yours. We can all be kind to you, and respect that it was your choice to make. But we don't all have to bend reality to your perception. We can't write you out of existence, but neither can you write others out of existence.

It seems to me not that difficult for trans people to recognize they have chosen a special category for themselves, and that's fine. Live with that.

Temujin said...

The way to make progress — "to dismantle the patriarchy" — is to clarify the distinction between sex and gender and to stress the importance — in our social roles — of gender.

This is, of course, the entirety of so called progressive thinking which is nothing if not regressive. The tact used is not to clarify anything. It is to muddy everything. Anything that is an understood concept must be stood on its ear. If it's kept up long enough and from enough directions, it will become a part of the language and understood as real- whether it is or not. Further, when with media and academia working on that side, the politicians will follow. It will then become not only understood, but those muddy thoughts can be legalized- turned into law and turn society and it's norms upside down.

And who doesn't think that's progressive?

The family? Muddy it up. No more fathers and mothers. No two parent homes. No leadership on the part of two parents. The kids should have a say, maybe THE say. And we encourage you to wrap your arms around 1 parent families. No matter if it leads to generations of failed kids.

The schools? Useful for us. Remove all books and teachings of the 'old ways'. Let's write the books. Train the teachers. And fill the kids minds with our new views on society. Those who control the kids control the future.

Abortion? Call it pro-choice. Do not call the fetus a baby or potential child. Just say it's pro-choice and you are pro-women. Call those against abortion anti-women or anti-choice. Remove the thought of it as killing babies, en masse, for generations, with little or no regard.

Religion? All bad. But we can't say Islam is bad out loud (for fear of losing our heads). But all other relgions are bad. We'll make our own religion based on us.

Climate? Global cooling. 99% of scientists are saying so. Oops. Global warming. 99% of scientists are saying so. Oops. Climate Change? Yes- that's about as muddy as we can get. It can be anything we choose it to be. And we can blame anything on it.

Gender? Muddy this up completely. Though they make up less than 1% of the population, let's change all empirical knowledge of gender to make these people stand out as if they were the vast majority of the population. Change the 99.4% to bow to the .6%.

Let's see...families, kids, schools, religions, gender, climate. They've managed to muddy up pretty much everything. I purposefully left out History and Economics because this post is already too long. But you get the idea. There is nothing clear about this. It's way too much about .6% of people who have issues, and must deal with it within their lives. To change society to fit that is ridiculous. Sorry. It's called life.

stlcdr said...

Oh, and the left always have to resort to wordplay to get what they want; the constantly evolving (sic) language, when things don't go their way - or rather, the conservatives/libertarians/republicans/The Right refuse to buy into the evolution - demonstrates the failure of their arguments, and is a means to socially bully people.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

chuck (small c) said: in our social roles

Menstruation is a social construct.


Shoot, I wish I had known that when I was 11 years old. That would have saved me a lot of pain, blood, inconvenient moments and the expense of sanitary supplies over the years.

Wow. Stupid me. /facepalm.

Sebastian said...

"to assign gender purely by sex"

What a concept!

Anyway, clever progs: attacking the patriarchy by prohibiting women from saying they are women.

Kevin said...

Are trans people tearing down or building?

That would seem to be the question of the day.

Pookie Number 2 said...

We should care about the truth for the sake of truth and care about it all along. There's so little of that these days.

Opposing “definitional conservatism” is, of course, opposing truth.

Sebastian said...

Tim: "There's a fatal inconsistency at the heart of these arguments--for the trans-rights activist's position to make sense, gender has to be both meaningless and vital."

Excellent.

Jon Burack said...

For years now, I have read the works of Deirdre McCloskey, who was once Donald (I knew him then in college, where he was still not only a he but a Marxist of some sort also). Today, Deirdre is one of the most brilliant libertarian economists and historians going. She has written about (LONG before it was fashionable) her transition, which she did as a responsible adult. She uses none of the convoluted b.s. claptrap language quoted here. I have no idea whatsoever what she thinks of this current fashionable barbaric ideology-speak bickering, and frankly I don't care. But even more so, I am not getting why I should care even that little about the dolts wasting their time and everyone else's going after Rowling. Why should I? Why should I care? Just another mob out to crucify another convenient target.

Automatic_Wing said...

Anti-trans revanchists, lol. Great that the NYT is now adopting the vocabulary and syntax of a North Korean propaganda leaflet. Capitalist running dogs can't be far behind.

Dave Begley said...

I want to know how many trans people there are in the entire US. 100,000? 200,000?

How many were there 20 years ago?

mandrewa said...

If you disagree with Devin Michelle Bunten, if you question any part of what she says, then that is legitimate grounds for getting you fired.

That's the reality that most people face.

Greg said...

I don't understand. This twit is basically agreeing with JK as far as I've read. Gender and sex are different, and sex should be the differentiation factor in some circumstances, ie sports and sex. The problem is trans activists who want to eliminate sex, or say gender and sex are the same thing, and demand born female lesbians couple with trans women.

Dave Begley said...

"who is an assistant professor of urban economics and housing at M.I.T"

How does that job even exist? Defund M.I.T.

mandrewa said...

The universities are full now of people who are anti-scholars. People who are the very opposite of the Renaissance. People who are opposed to thinking, logic, argument, debate, and math.

MadisonMan said...

If you define yourself 100% by your trans-ness, then yes, you can be defined out of existence.
If all you are is trans, and you're not a hard worker, or a funny raconteuse, or a lover of mystery, or someone who travels (the list can go on and on), then your life is defined far too narrowly, and whose fault is that?

GingerBeer said...

Just further proof than men are better than women at everything. Including being a woman.

William said...

Apparently you really have to go out of your way to be either pro and anti trans. I just don't know any, except for those I see on tv (tv--heh, heh)...For the record, I don't think trans people should engage in women's sports but should otherwise be treated with sympathy and respect. I'm undecided about the bathroom thing. Maybe we need a Supreme Court ruling to clarify this issue.

SGT Ted said...

If sex isn't gender, stop saying that males are female just because they put on lipstick and get a boob job.

The entire trans ideology movement is about erasing the lives of actual men and women at the behest of mentally ill people.

Real women are speaking out against the trans bullies. Trans women aren't women, you fascists.

PluralThumb said...

I have read that women are men with a womb, wombmen. A perception that simplifies communication with another human. Men can be difficult at times. Some not able to express emotion, so the solution is to curse or take out frustration physically. I'd say that 90% of sex examples that are available, may be education on how to not approach two people close to each other. Also the roles thought early on. Boys play with guns,cars or toy soldiers and girls with dolls. In modern Society; education, diet and exercise are meant to help. Self esteem and control sex drives. Dogs that hump legs may not have a proper outlet. Cats that scratch and claw, similar.
I think transgender is because of the 2 dementional perseption. Penis = boy. Vagina = girl. Whats for lunch ?
But is that a man or a woman is not always the end. The fantasy of sexplay may enter the mind, with guilt or embarassment.
Not today, I'm going back home to have some soup instead.
Being stuck or rather finding life in the middle of a simple coin flip perception, I'd perceive is complex.

Eleanor said...

Here's the problem- Historically, women have worked hard to secure the civil rights of groups who are oppressed. When they succeed, the group they helped steps over them and leaves them behind. Women worked tirelessly in the abolitionist movement to secure freedom and voting rights for black people, but got no help from them to secure voting rights for women. I believe a woman's position was famously "prone". Likewise, women put Obama over the top to become the first black president, but didn't come out in large enough numbers to elect the first woman. Women have been the strongest proponents of rights for transwomen, but now the transwomen want to make a mockery of Title IX, and allow any man, trans or not, to invade women's private spaces. Is there any real push for the rights of transmen, or are they along for the ride? I blame women for not putting their own needs first, which is all JK Rowling is doing. Women should be thanking her, not trying to shame her.

Dave Begley said...

Her first sentence, "Men menstruate." Who knew?

I thought the NYT had standards for the op-ed page.

ThreeSheets said...

And yet, I'd bet Devin Michelle Bunten applauded the Bostock decision.

Gahrie said...

Can we all just start admitting that these people are crazy and we should start treating them like crazy people instead of indulging their sickness?

Howard said...

I feel sorry for you cucks who don't enjoy the lavish rights privileges and benefits of white male patriarchy. It must suck being short, weak, ugly and stupid when so much is expected of you. No wonder you feel progressively bullied by spaghetti arm pencil necked libtards and their mean Karen girlfriends.

John henry said...

None of the pussy hats I have ever seen represent female genetalia.

The pussy hats I have seen represent pussycats wit cat ears.

I have seen vagina costumes but those have mostly been full body costumes. Not hats.

John Henry

Dave Begley said...

This woman is also big into climate change. What a shocker.

I bet she's making at least $250k at MIT. The universities could really cut their expenses getting rid of lots of crappy professors teaching worthless stuff.

Big Mike said...

The company that represents Rowling gets it.

A spokeswoman [for Blair Partners] said it would always champion diverse voices and believe in freedom of speech for all but it was not willing to have staff “re-educated” to meet the demands of a small group of clients.

Nice to see that backbone is catching, from author to management firm.

pdug said...

The only reason behind 99% of the social roles of women vs men IS their embodied existence. I pay attention to the sex of a person because that DOES tell me a lot about their role and their embodied history in the world

(just as if i looked at a black man, and rejecting "colorblindness," I consider what his history of walking through the world as a black man has meant to him)

if we can't be color-blind, we can't be 'sex-blind"

"I don't *see* sex: people tell me I'm male" - Trans-Colbert

Steven said...

Correct headline for this: "Pretentious progressive professor purports to possess psychic powers." After all, our expert in "urban economics and housing" is claiming to be able to divine Rowling's "cloak[ed] . . . political goal". On what basis?

But let's not ignore the deliberate obfuscation here, either. The simple declaration that sex and gender are not the same thing is, of itself, a defense of what Rowling actually wrote. If they are not the same thing, then in discussion of human biology (like menstruation), it is entirely proper to use words according to biological sex.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

So we're at, or supposed to be at, the "I don't see gender/sex" part now?
I mean we went through that with race, remember? From race essentialism (one drop rule, etc), to recognizing a spectrum/diversity, to colorblindness/minimization of differences, and then--now--back to essentialism. You know, capitalizing Black, sorting everyone into categories and having to define each individual based only on those categories, that kind of thing.

Try saying "I don't see race" to BLM today! But I guess the trans movement is just a little behind. So to speak.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Re: "definitional conservatism" is the correct response to quote Orwell or Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty? Both fit, of course, just now sure which one we're going with now.

Earnest Prole said...

Shorter version: blah blah blah.

MayBee said...

“Nothing that happens in someone else's mind can harm you.”
- Marcus Aurelius

YoungHegelian said...

Ya ever notice how no one on the Left ever discusses "mental health" anymore?

This has much to do with why Freud, long a central figure in the thought of the Left (e.g. the Frankfurt School) has been erased from its history, like one of the unfortunate comrades airbrushed out of the picture with Stalin.

CWJ said...

Temujin @8:32,

You forgot marriage.

Carol said...

It would be kinda funny if people decided the Harry Potter books were all rather stupid anyway.

Not that I've read them but I'm getting tired of all the Potter analogies. Dumbledore my ass.

Scott M said...

Effectively dealing with wokescold infants-

Step 1: write the most valuable franchise in the history of literature.

Step 2: there is no step two.

CWJ said...

Assistant Professor. Maybe all her trans and AGW positioning is for the benefit of the tenure committee.

Hey Skipper said...

Fernandinande said...
"I want to see proof that trans women menstruate, with a link, or it's a lie."

I think I get it now, so let me help you with it.


That there is a Laslo quality comment.

buwaya said...

It is best perhaps to forget about words and depend on scent, in general. Animals are wiser, maybe.

That, and leave the final decision to the reaction of the membrum virile, which likes what it likes and is very rarely fooled. And it is never fooled by someone elses fantasies.

As in "Scent of a Woman"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F2zTd_YwTvo

Scott M said...

"So we're at, or supposed to be at, the "I don't see gender/sex" part now?"

It's actually worse than that. If you embed yourself in those circles long enough to read through comments sections or listen to them at social gatherings, you'll quickly find that there's a very real sentiment that straight men that won't date trans-women that have never undergone any surgery are bigots. This applies for trans-men without for straight women. So...contravening the entire choice/born-that-way argument from the Great Gay Debates of the 90's and 00's, you're a bigot if your straight no matter how you slice it (pun).

Marty said...

Ever notice how all the rhetoric of critical race theory and its trans-logical cousins devil-spawned by the Frankfurt School sound like an endless drug-fueled college dorm navel-gazing session? Intensely absorbing to the participants; soporific to everyone else.

gerry said...

Ms. Rowling’s linguistic wizardry cloaks her political goal, to assign gender purely by sex

I thought gender assignment involved chromosomes and science and so forth.

Milo Minderbinder said...

This “debate” is boring. You are either a 1or a 0 at birth. That’s it. For procreation purposes, your role is chosen at birth and inalterable, regardless of how one remakes one’s exterior. Speaking of which, one is free to express oneself as one pleases in this country within limited 1st Amendment exceptions that are hard to imagine being applied here. Celebrate Halloween 24/7/365 if one chooses, but don’t deceive yourself into thinking there’s some wokeness gotcha to who may menstruate and who may not.

buwaya said...

There is no need to insist on a white male patriarchy.
A patriarchy of any sort is perfectly fine. I can assure you all that these patriarchies come in all human colors, and they are all perfectly clear about what sort of women they like. That is the natural condition of the human animal.

And a hierarchy in the patriarchy is natural and inevitable too.

We are still animals, which is good and natural.

PM said...

Same people run around screaming "Science!"
Unbelievable.

gerry said...

People who are opposed to thinking, logic, argument, debate, and math.

Ah, little grasshopper, you must be aware of the inescapable dialectic in all things, especially within academia. Today, the force at work in the academia dialectic is people who are opposed to thinking, logic, argument, debate, and math.

They are hard at work deriving the next, latest and most fashionable of facts.

Relatively speaking, of course.

MD Greene said...

That the NYT makes room for twaddle like this is one reason I no longer read the paper.

That MIT hires people -- economists! -- to profess it surprises me.

How long before we start tearing down FDR statues because he failed to anticipate and embrace (theoretically) the subtle differences between gender and sex?

stan said...

"Pretentious progressive professor purports to possess psychic powers."

WIN!

tim maguire said...

Howard said...
No wonder you feel progressively bullied by spaghetti arm pencil necked libtards and their mean Karen girlfriends.


That's sexist. There's nothing in the definition of a Karen that says it has to be a woman.

Anti-gay and anti-trans, too, while we're on the subject.

Bigot.

Lucien said...

I gather that "erasing trans lives" may be even worse than "silencing trans voices".

Birkel said...

All arguments against science end in failure.
The timeline is the only thing.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Muddying the semantic waters is a time-honored way of excusing insanity. Nothing new here.

J L Oliver said...

It is my understanding that a woman (womb man) is a man with a womb. Female have wombs. Men who want to be feminine do not have wombs. Wombs involve menstruation. How about the term “self-gendered” instead of the trans label?

rhhardin said...

Pussy hats are a wordplay on cat ears, which they resemble. That's the last time a feminist was funny, in fact.

Trans people are confused about that. Maybe this helps

I Am a Cat
(I am a Cat #1-3)
by Natsume Sōseki, Aiko Ito (Translator), Graeme Wilson (Translator)
3.71 · Rating details · 7,949 ratings · 834 reviews
I am a cat. As yet I have no name.

So begins one of the most original and unforgettable works in Japanese literature.

Amadeus 48 said...

Shorter version: I am hopelessly confused, and it is all the fault of men.

Valentine Smith said...

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Dave Begley said...

Devin Michelle Bunten blocked me on Twitter. Third one this week.

Not Sure said...

The shit in xer op-ed isn't even the craziest thing xe's published.

This is someone who is credentialed by a very good program as an economist, is on the faculty of one of the top universities in the world (although not in the actual economics department), and thinks that
rent control makes it easier for "families on tight budgets" to find affordable housing.

That's the clearest evidence that xe's an idiot.

Or else xe's trying to make MIT worry about denying tenure and being accused of institutional transphobia.

Howard said...

tim, I'm a bigot with benefits. Having it both ways... is there anything white privilege can't do?

Drago said...

Howard: "I feel sorry for you .........and their mean Karen girlfriends."

Howard writes lots of words when it would be easier for him to simply write Biology Is Hatred!

And probably Patriarchy too.

Michael K said...

That, and leave the final decision to the reaction of the membrum virile, which likes what it likes and is very rarely fooled. And it is never fooled by someone elses fantasies.

As in "Scent of a Woman"


Just don't go hiking in bear country with a menstruating woman.

n.n said...

Get rid of the Rainbow flag, which should never have been associated with human life. Don't indulge political congruence ("="). The trans/homos should acknowledge socially distancing from their trans brothers and sisters. Lose your Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic religion, and stop playing semantic games. Finally, normalize, tolerate, or reject each band in the transgender spectrum, individual and together.

Joan said...

Three lifetimes ago, I graduated from MIT. When finances allowed, I donated because I wanted to support the students there. Then Nancy Hopkins got the vapors because the president of Harvard said men & women math differently, and he ended up getting booted from his job. That was one of the very first instances of cancel culture but we didn’t call it that yet.

I hoped that Nancy Hopkins was an anomaly, because MIT has historically been about science, engineering, and technology, and what does any of that have to do with political correctness & being “woke”? In retrospect I should have seen this coming, because even in the early 1980s when I was there, the word “girl” was banned, and if you called a female anything other than a woman, a term meant to coney the appropriate amount of gravitas and respect, you got called out for wrong-think, even then.
P
So I’m just adding Devin Michelle Bunting to my list of reasons to continue to ignore MIT’s fund-raising pleas. The quoted excerpts include muddled thinking wrapped up in really bad writing, and this is someone teaching at one of the most prestigious universities in the country? My children’s decisions to go to state schools look better and better every day.

Everyone else has covered the trans aspects of this with the usual thorough repetition, so I don’t need to say any more about the inherently contradictory content of Bunting’s column, such as it is.

Dave Begley said...

Devin's faculty bio, "Previously, she was an economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC."

I'd love to see that work product.

Rosalyn C. said...

Transgender individuals have the greatest problem with linking gender and sex, not the general public. We live in a society and at a time when people are able to adjust to having non stereotypical interests and talents in relation to their biological sex. Men are cooks, women are engineers, etc. It's only the transgender individual who insists that their body must match their gender identity. I wish they could accept the bodies they received at birth.

Bruce Hayden said...

“ Just don't go hiking in bear country with a menstruating woman.”

Or make sure that she is sleeping in a different tent, or that you can outrun her.

Leora said...

I do believe in the reality of gender dysphoria and am not averse to people living their lives as they want. However I think it's become a convenient diagnosis for people who are just unhappy with themselves and want others to fix it for them.

I find it really interesting that some men who believe they are women behave like men in insisting on being the leaders. They seem to be people who couldn't compete successfully as men, so they are changing their competing group and then complaining that they are unfairly discriminated against when people don't find them sexually attractive.

Oh, and someone who wants to be treated as a woman should not be flashing their dick in the locker room.

Iman said...

I believe author Robert Heinlein wrote about these times and this mindset.

Ambrose said...

Those revanchists and their wordplay!

ccscientist said...

If gender (as in the things we do as men and women) is arbitrary, where did it come from? How can you have a patriarchy if men are not different from women? How can trans people know that they are in the "wrong" body if there is not an innate biology? Feminists have created a self-contradictory theology. The argument that any disagreement about trans people "erases" them is hyperbolic and meant simply to stop all debate. It is like the claim now that failure to support BLM is "violence".

Michael K said...

ruce Hayden said...
“ Just don't go hiking in bear country with a menstruating woman.”

Or make sure that she is sleeping in a different tent, or that you can outrun her.


What's the point of going camping with woman if she is sleeping in another tent ?

Jeeez!

Rosalyn C. said...

Transwomen mostly have been socialized as men. Therefore they are basically mansplaining to the feminists on how to deal with the patriarchy.

Tinderbox said...

Preferably everyone of any gender identity will be directed into wearing identical khaki green comrade caps.

Bunkypotatohead said...

I wish I could be around in 30 years to see all these medical "professionals" who have committed malpractice against these confused people sued out of existence. Maybe even criminally charged.

Jamie said...

How can trans people know that they are in the "wrong" body if there is not an innate biology?

I've been saying forever that there is literally no way for me to know what it's like to be a man - and darn little way for me to know what another woman's experience of womanhood feels like to her. A theory of mind only helps us get through the day; it doesn't mean that my perception of "red" is the same as yours.

So trans people's conviction that they're in the wrong body, that the correct body has different genitalia and hormones (as opposed to, say, different eye shape and microbiome) from the body they have, is by necessity nothing but their supposition of what it feels like to be in the other sex's body. It's not reality.

Again, I think that if a trans person's adjustment to their misperception of themselves (using plural pronouns on purpose because I don't buy into the "xis" thing at this point) is okay, basically if they aren't suicidal, then I think it's a pretty harmless mental aberration that we can all live with. But if their comfort in their altered body requires that all of society bend to their misperception, then we can't.

Banjo said...

I'd like to reintroduce "Oh, shut up!" back into polite conversation. Turning on one's heel will be optional but recommended. Trans people, it should be noted according to Census Bureau figures, are either.0003% or .003% of the population, I forget which.

Jamie said...

I'd like to reintroduce "Oh, shut up!" back into polite conversation.

Banjo, that's why Southerners say, "Well bless your heart."

Nichevo said...


Banjo said...
I'd like to reintroduce "Oh, shut up!"


That would seem to be top kek sinz in this day and age. Heaven forfend anybody should think anything they don't say.