Charlie Kirk shot at (shot?) in Utah

[Bomb#20]

Trans being far more likely to be the victim than the perpetrator is true for society in general.

Yes, that's not in dispute. Can you name any demographic it isn't true for? Left-handed AB-negative people are far more likely to be the victim than the perpetrator.

Why in the world would we think that? Why should there be any relationship?

There isn't any relationship -- that's why I picked it as an example! It illustrates the point I'm trying to get across: that "far more likely to be the victim than the perpetrator" is not a measure of relationship! It's the null-hypothesis: the pattern we should expect to find even if we know nothing about the demographic under consideration. It's merely a statistical artifact of the reality that criminal acts are not randomly distributed, but are mostly committed by a relatively small number of habitual criminals. Perplexity's statement "transgender people are much more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators" doesn't tell us anything about transgender people.

Have you ever been burglarized? I have, twice. Never committed a burglary, though. You? One time, the police got us our stuff back. First they found it; then they had to figure out whose stuff was whose because the loot from a lot of burglaries was mixed together. Lots more people have been burglarized than are burglars because the same small number of burglars each rob lots of people's homes. Therefore any group you sample are more likely to be the victim of a burglary than the perpetrator, unless the source of your sample is a prison.

I know for sure that I do none of your “somebody” things, and don’t know anyone who does.

Um... you insinuated that I hate women simply because I want to uphold the exact same standards for abortion that existed under RvW.

Except your standards would sometimes kill women. Even ones that weren't at 6 months yet. We've already seen the sort of deaths your position would lead to: the doctors won't act unless they are certain of the situation and are certain they can prove they acted properly. Medical judgment goes out the window.

Let's suppose you're correct for the sake of argument. So what? Why do you think that has any bearing on the point in dispute? Emily and Elixir aren't arguing over whether Roe v Wade is good policy. They're arguing over whether Elixir infers hatred of women from opposition to abortions. Irrespective of whether Emily is right about abortion, do you in fact think Emily hates women?

I wasn't trying to address whether she hates women. Rather, I was addressing why people distrust her claim of support for the RvW position.

What does "people distrust her claim of support for the RvW position" mean? Are you saying IIDB members think she's lying when she says she wants RvW to be law of the land again? Why would they think that? It's ridiculous. RvW was a workable compromise that everyone but the lunatic fringes could live with and wanting it back is an entirely normal position, maybe even the majority view in the U.S. Who is it you believe distrusts her?

Or do you mean people distrust her claim that the RvW position is well-supported by evidence and reason -- i.e., do you mean people think RvW is bad policy? If that's what you mean then you're off-topic -- this isn't a thread for debating the merits of abortion. Emily brought up RvW only because in a roundabout way it relates to the Kirk assassination -- she was offering evidence about a sub-point in my dispute with JH and Elixir over whether the left-wing's inflammatory rhetoric contributed to radicalizing Tyler Robinson. (The "your" in the above Elixir quote refers to me.)

 

[ZiprHead]

Or do you mean people distrust her claim that the RvW position is well-supported by evidence and reason -- i.e., do you mean people think RvW is bad policy? If that's what you mean then you're off-topic -- this isn't a thread for debating the merits of abortion. Emily brought up RvW only because in a roundabout way it relates to the Kirk assassination -- she was offering evidence about a sub-point in my dispute with JH and Elixir over whether the left-wing's inflammatory rhetoric contributed to radicalizing Tyler Robinson. (The "your" in the above Elixir quote refers to me.)

I absolutely think Em support RvW. She wants more scrutiny in that third trimester area.

 

[Jarhyn]

This past weekend an ex of mine called me. She's been doxxed from posts she made on FB regarding Kirk being a monstrous asshole. Death threats followed, her home address was publicly posted, and she's been put on leave from her job. She's almost certainly going to end up fired. There is no practical legal remedy for her. That made her furious with me, but that's why she's an ex.

Your ex works for assholes.

There's no reason to think that. We've seen it repeatedly, companies know they aren't in position to defy the Fuhrer.

You're right; They are probably just cowardly assholes.

I don't consider it cowardly to avoid a fight you know you'll lose.

Sometimes you need to fights even when you know you will lose, because to not fight is even worse, still.

 

[Toni]

A few things for everyone to consider:

Yes, there have always been transgender people, as well as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, intersex, asexual, etc. people. For most of western civilization, most people who were not cis gendered and straight were pushed into the shadows, or existed as ‘oddities’ or ‘freaks’ and were often outright condemned or worse. But they’ve always been part of us, even if we chose not to acknowledge or to deliberately suppress such different ways of being.

Now, people are being much more open about who they really are. It will seem obvious to all the non-straight, non-cis people because that’s their reality, their normal. While the rest of us have been able to walk around with with our eyes closed, safe in our suppositions and assumptions that we are ‘normal’ and everyone else is a freak or sinner or both. Or much much worse.

For people of my generation ration, it was rare that such things were talked about or even acknowledged.

So for a bunch of us, we are trying to catch up, learn a new vocabulary and learn to accept what we can or must.

We fuck up a lot. For most of us, it’s not malevolent but ignorant. We have to learn to see and hear the truth of people whose existence was, in our youth, often the butt of very bad jokes, and nothing most of us had any experience with at all.

Men, who have not been conditioned since they were children, to be wary of certain situations or to regard male body in female spaces as threats, want to lecture women about how absolutely safe it is to have strangers with penises in women only spaces. You all seem absolutely oblivious to the fact that we’ve been sexually assaulted, pretty often in some extremely innocuous seeming settings, by males we thought we knew well and thought we had no reason to distrust. In fact, makes we were specifically taught to trust, as foolish as that turned out to be.

How about you all convince men and boys to stop sexually assaulting girls and women, that no means no, that girls and women are to be respected and their bodies and clothes -are not for your comment or criticism.

I get it: you all are much more accustomed to telling girls and women to not make a big deal of nothing. Just as you’re accustomed to blaming women who are sexually assaulted, are suspicious of women who have babies you did not pre authorize or who wish to not have a baby for any reason you disagree with.

 

[bilby]

Therefore any group you sample are more likely to be the victim of a burglary than the perpetrator, unless the source of your sample is a prison.

Even if your sample is prison inmates, it is likely you will find more victims of burglary than perpetrators, because most convicts are not burglars. Unless you have prisons segregated by the crimes for which people were imprisoned, which seems unlikely.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I feel like one solution would just be to have an all gender restroom while keeping the other restrooms separate. Of course people on both sides may not like that idea. And it's also way too advanced of an idea so it's not likely to happen.

 

[bilby]

The fact is that the ONLY way to determine whether any person in a ladies bathroom is a rapist is to look at whether that person rapes (or has raped) someone. If you decide that, because you have heard that a transwoman has raped someone in a ladies bathroom, therefore transwomen as a class are a risk because of their potential as rapists, then you are indulging in a logical error.

As Kevin Underhill wrote, (in a blog post about a County Commissioner from Kansas who railed against Muslims):

Let’s say you’ve only met one German in your life, and that German was a Nazi. First of all, yes, Grandpa, you’ve told the Hindenburg story before. The point is that to predict that the next German you meet will also be a Nazi, based on that limited evidence, would almost certainly be wrong. Even in the 1930s it would probably have been wrong. Anyway, this cognitive bias/logical fallacy turns out to have quite a few names, but when applied to people we usually call it “bigotry.”

Swap out "German" for "transwoman" and "Nazi" for "rapist or sexual assaulter", and you have the exact same reasoning that leads to the conclusion that transwomen should be excluded from ladies rooms in order to protect the users of those rooms from rape or sexual assault.

You cannot protect women in bathrooms from rape by banning transwomen from ladies rooms, any more than you can protect congressmen from terrorists by banning Muslims from congress. And to attempt to do so is bigotry, as well as being futile.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

The fact is that the ONLY way to determine whether any person in a ladies bathroom is a rapist is to look at whether that person rapes (or has raped) someone. If you decide that, because you have heard that a transwoman has raped someone in a ladies bathroom, therefore transwomen as a class are a risk because of their potential as rapists, then you are indulging in a logical error.

As Kevin Underhill wrote, (in a blog post about a County Commissioner from Kansas who railed against Muslims):

Let’s say you’ve only met one German in your life, and that German was a Nazi. First of all, yes, Grandpa, you’ve told the Hindenburg story before. The point is that to predict that the next German you meet will also be a Nazi, based on that limited evidence, would almost certainly be wrong. Even in the 1930s it would probably have been wrong. Anyway, this cognitive bias/logical fallacy turns out to have quite a few names, but when applied to people we usually call it “bigotry.”

Swap out "German" for "transwoman" and "Nazi" for "rapist or sexual assaulter", and you have the exact same reasoning that leads to the conclusion that transwomen should be excluded from ladies rooms in order to protect the users of those rooms from rape or sexual assault.

You cannot protect women in bathrooms from rape by banning transwomen from ladies rooms, any more than you can protect congressmen from terrorists by banning Muslims from congress. And to attempt to do so is bigotry, as well as being futile.

Now that I think about it more yeah no one's going to be happy with any "solution" for this. Even if it happened the right wingers would be setting fire to the bathrooms, etc.

 

[Bomb#20]

if you were logical you wouldn't be leftists in the first place

Sorry, but a lack of logic is if anything more prevalent on the right than the left.

Let's apply some logic to your reply. You say "Sorry, but" as though you think your claim contradicts mine. What makes you think so? The "if anything" is a hedge. If you'd written *"a lack of logic is more prevalent on the right than the left", that would have conflicted with my assertion; but that isn't what you said. Is it what you meant?

If you did mean "a lack of logic is more prevalent on the right than the left", that's a claim that there are more logical leftists than logical rightists per capita; the claim necessarily implies that there exist logical leftists. Which leftist IIDB poster you think is logical? Can you exhibit any logical leftist at all, even outside IIDB?

If your "if anything" hedge was necessary and you're only claiming logic is no more prevalent on the right than the left, what's your point? You aren't contradicting me -- I don't recall saying if those guys were logical they'd be rightists. Looks to me like the most logical people here are neither leftists nor rightists -- they're independents, moderates, centrists, liberals, libertarians, apolitical, sects of one, what have you.

Your words add up to saying that it's not logical to be a leftist. I'm pointing out if there's a difference (which I'm not sure there is) the right is even less logical.

That's not a "Sorry, but" thing to point out; that's an "And also,". I singled out leftists because they were topical at the time; but if at any point in the future eight rightist IIDBers ever jump down my throat with a pile of illogical rightist drivel because I said something perfectly reasonable, I can assure you I'll tell them if they were logical they wouldn't be rightists in the first place.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

if you were logical you wouldn't be leftists in the first place

Sorry, but a lack of logic is if anything more prevalent on the right than the left.

Let's apply some logic to your reply. You say "Sorry, but" as though you think your claim contradicts mine. What makes you think so? The "if anything" is a hedge. If you'd written *"a lack of logic is more prevalent on the right than the left", that would have conflicted with my assertion; but that isn't what you said. Is it what you meant?

If you did mean "a lack of logic is more prevalent on the right than the left", that's a claim that there are more logical leftists than logical rightists per capita; the claim necessarily implies that there exist logical leftists. Which leftist IIDB poster you think is logical? Can you exhibit any logical leftist at all, even outside IIDB?

If your "if anything" hedge was necessary and you're only claiming logic is no more prevalent on the right than the left, what's your point? You aren't contradicting me -- I don't recall saying if those guys were logical they'd be rightists. Looks to me like the most logical people here are neither leftists nor rightists -- they're independents, moderates, centrists, liberals, libertarians, apolitical, sects of one, what have you.

Your words add up to saying that it's not logical to be a leftist. I'm pointing out if there's a difference (which I'm not sure there is) the right is even less logical.

That's not a "Sorry, but" thing to point out; that's an "And also,". I singled out leftists because they were topical at the time; but if at any point in the future eight rightist IIDBers ever jump down my throat with a pile of illogical rightist drivel because I said something perfectly reasonable, I can assure you I'll tell them if they were logical they wouldn't be rightists in the first place.

Weird because you haven't told that to any of the right wing nuts here.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What's with the eyerolls?

It’s all these diatribes deserve.

Still not going to admit we know Project 2025 is happening and the impact it will have on marginalized groups?

I’m not familiar enough with project 2025 to know but how will it impact white males, one of the most marginalized groups of the last few years?

P2025 will hurt everyone. In the long run, even it's backers.

For now it's tax cuts for the rich, don't do squat for anyone else. Gut any protections that get in the way of the rich. Gestapo.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Something that the males posting in this forum do not completely understand is that girls and women are conditioned to fear sexual assault from a very young age. I think most of us are aware of ‘the talk’ parents of black sons have to give their sons regarding the very legitimate fears of violence and victimization they face at the hands of law enforcement and society in general. Few of us do not understand the necessity of this

The problem here is that you are applying a legitimate fear to a situation where it does not make sense. If there's enough traffic that a man hiding in the women's room would be exposed there's enough traffic that a rape would be interrupted. Thus it is not a realistic threat.

And yet some high school kid managed to rape two different girls in two different high school bathrooms while pretending to be trans.

While wearing a "skirt", even the news at the time said it didn't appear to be trans related.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

(B) I have, only once, heard that transgender people are born with genitals somewhere between male and female.

This can be caused by quite an array of conditions, collectively referred to by researchers "disorders of sexual development" or DSDs. DSDs are all types of Intersex conditions, intersex being the I in LGTBQIA. Not all intersex conditions result in DSDs. Those that do account for somewhere between 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 live births. It's thought that most intersex persons do not turn up transgendered later in life, though the data is pretty scattered due to stigma and secrecy. In short, rare is the parent inclined to let a researcher examine their newborn's genitals for abnormalities and study the results.

I wonder if transgender might actually be a form of DSD, just in the brain rather than the anatomy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And yet some high school kid managed to rape two different girls in two different high school bathrooms while pretending to be trans.

...and if only that kid had been told not to use those bathrooms, his plan to commit rape would have been stymied, by his obviously law-abiding nature and unwillingness to break any rules of any kind.

Or is rape not against the rules in that jurisdiction?

Committing rape "while pretending to be trans" doesn't imply that the rapist was in any way assisted to commit rape by his "pretending".

An unlocked door with a sign on it isn't the barrier to criminals you appear to imagine it to be.

Of course being granted access to girls’ bathrooms helped him get access.

And what evidence do we have that he was granted access? Or even that he was trans?

Lots of girls in high school are sexually assaulted, unfortunately. Very few are assaulted in girls’ restrooms. Normally, seeing a male person in the girls’ restroom raises an alarm.

I realize that this is not something that you have ever had to be concerned about. It’s easy enough for you to dismiss the risk.

But you are assuming that it's the "women's" sign that causes that, rather than it's just asking to be caught in the act.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It has been over 75 years and I haven’t been molested by, or had anyone I know complain about being molested by, trans people.
Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life. But it occurs to me thst nobody else here has related any personal experience of being molested by trans people.
Maybe I missed it. Maybe half the people I ever met are trans and I didn’t know it. I’ve had a lot of girlfriends who were molested by straight males, but not one by trans males (or trans females, or whatever you call em).
Certainly Emily has had different experiences, or she wouldn’t be so upset about “the problem”.
Can’t say I believe that “the problem” is epidemic.

Exactly. I'm a guy, nobody's ever tried anything improper with me. Wife, yeah, people have tried things--always guys, not trans, not lesbians.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I can't see it leading to their ouster. They have too much public support for that.

How much (American) public support do you think fascism really has?
I think most of their "support" is people saying they'd like to be rid of these clowns, but they have too much support.

No, there are far too many MAGAs that still believe he's going to do what he promised. Look around here--see any MAGAs recanting?

 

[Politesse]

(B) I have, only once, heard that transgender people are born with genitals somewhere between male and female.

This can be caused by quite an array of conditions, collectively referred to by researchers "disorders of sexual development" or DSDs. DSDs are all types of Intersex conditions, intersex being the I in LGTBQIA. Not all intersex conditions result in DSDs. Those that do account for somewhere between 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 live births. It's thought that most intersex persons do not turn up transgendered later in life, though the data is pretty scattered due to stigma and secrecy. In short, rare is the parent inclined to let a researcher examine their newborn's genitals for abnormalities and study the results.

I wonder if transgender might actually be a form of DSD, just in the brain rather than the anatomy.

DSDs are by definition disorders of the sexual reproductive system, hence the name, but a lot of people have explored the idea that intersexuality in general is connected to transgendered persons. For instance, that ambiguity of endocrinal sex might impact something like patterns of thought and self-perception even if they did not impact gross anatomy at all. From my standpoint as a social scientist, "transgender" would still be referring to something different than "intersex" even if they were always connected. Sex and gender are not ultimately synonyms, and "transgendered" in particular is a very Western concept that does not map on easily to other cultures.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Btw, there is plenty of growing evidence that being trans is based primarily on neurology. It's not been totally proven yet, but the evidence is growing. Why else would a 3 year old with boy's body parts insist that he's a girl, if it were not for something in her brain? Most true trans people come out at a very early age, long before puberty. I'm sure it's hard being trans and living in a world full of hate, but there is so much hatred these days, that I'm sure most of us feel hated by some other group. I don't think I hate any group, but I am sick of conservative Christians trying to save me or who hate me because I'm an atheist. Too bad we are not more like dogs. They are far superior to humans when it comes to love and acceptance of others.

Exactly--it sometimes manifests young enough that it can't realistically be something they learned.

Same thing with sexuality, people don't choose to be gay.

They look like very similar issues to me. The reaction of the right to them certainly looks very similar.

 

[Elixir]

I can't see it leading to their ouster. They have too much public support for that.

How much (American) public support do you think fascism really has?
I think most of their "support" is people saying they'd like to be rid of these clowns, but they have too much support.

No, there are far too many MAGAs that still believe he's going to do what he promised. Look around here--see any MAGAs recanting?

A few of them, yes. The smartest ones outside of the Inner Circle. Retired Generals etc.
At this point my hopes are pinned on the fact that this regime is generally comprised of people who are weak of character and weak in mind. They are bound to fail, people will die and people will suffer but it will get better. Or they will succeed, people will die and people will suffer, but the dynastic rich will enjoy some decades or centuries playing Golf on the beaches of Gaza and Dubai.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And it's not that we want a civil war, it's that the reich wing has already chosen the path of war.

but I see a civil war against them not improving the situation but likely causing even more of a crackdown.

You don't see the contradictions in those statements.
Ignoring the Nazis will not improve the situation either.
I don't want to live in a war zone. But Rump already declared it. And put us on the wrong side.

(some of my mispellings stem from letters being worn-off my keyboard)

I see it a choice between very bad and even worse. If all you have is gasoline do you use it to fight the fire?

Yes. You set a back-fire to limit/impede the spread.

Useful with a fire line, not otherwise.