What a buffoon. To respond to a colleague who posted support for civil rights for LGBT folk, she had to put up a big loud stupid sign of her own, demonstrating her own ignorance.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) February 24, 2021
She doesn’t have a clue what the science is. Here’s Keith L. Moore, publishing in JAMA in 1968, in an article titled “The Sexual Identity of Athletes”, pointing out that sex is more complicated than a simple binary.
In short, there are 9 (at least) parameters that are diagnostic of sex, and they aren’t always in concordance with one another. For the majority of people, they are in alignment; for some, though, they aren’t, and you can’t deny them their rights.
I despise those people who swaddle themselves in the cloak of science in the name of claims that are explicitly denied by science. Greene is a liar and a fraud.
nomdeplume says
People (and I use the word loosely) like Greene are engaged in cancel culture, not only of any beliefs not proposed by Q, but of whole lives of people who are not exactly like them. How you acquire the arrogance to cancel another person’s life is beyond me. What the hell does it have to do with her what gender identity other people have?
PZ Myers says
The one thing that has changed since 1968, though, is that we wouldn’t use the word “abnormal” anymore.
Ray Ceeya says
I LOVE THIS SOOO MUCH!!! MTG deserves to be trolled to hell and back. Make it known that hatful bigots like her are NEVER welcome in polite society. Also isn’t she one of the congressional gun smugglers? Nothing says civility like bringing a gun to work. #MeltThatSnow
Akira MacKenzie says
She’s not swaddle herself in science to defend her bigotry. She doesn’t care about science. She’s trying to paint the Left, who pride themselves as pro-science, as being unscientific for going against the traditional sexual binary. It’s just real-life trolling.
microraptor says
Starving kids in sub-Saharan Africa could have used the oxygen that useless lump wasted while tweeting that.
dorght says
Dr Myers could you explain what genetic sex, chromosomal sex, and nuclear sex mean and how they differ from each other. I try not to be lazy, but in this case I’m just afraid to type those terms into google search.
PZ Myers says
Genetic sex: possessing the complement of alleles associated with a particular sex.
Chromosomal sex: the usual XX & XY stuff.
Nuclear sex: identification by a marker of a condensed X chromosome, called a Barr body.
dorght says
@7 Thank you. Barr body I can search (and interesting).
flange says
Greene taunted a Democrat who has a transgender child. She put an anti-trans sign outside her office. Not only is Green a liar and a fraud, she’s a nasty piece of work. (I really wanted to say “a mean fuckhead,” but thought better of it.)
Intransitive says
It’s the same story at Deb Haaland’s hearing. Two republiclowns who are allegedly “doctors” were chosen to discredit her, to infer that “they represent science and she is anti-science!” They’ve tried this crap before with Ben Carson and Bill Frist.
https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/haaland-retains-her-composure-in-the-face-of-immense-disrespect-in-confirmation-hearing
Susan Montgomery says
“VACCINES ARE SAFE AND EFFECTIVE TRUST THE SCIENCE”
mathman85 says
@pzmyers
I got myself tangled up in a Twitter
argumentshouting match this morning with a TERF who took issue with my critique of the underestimable Ms. Greene. I linked them your video from last year covering the Keith L. Moore paper you mention here. I don’t think it did any good; they simply dismissed you as a “full-on trans cultist”, such that I “automatically give up any chance of being taken seriously” by quoting you. Nonetheless, I’m glad that I remembered that video, and I’d like to thank you for making it.billseymour says
Hmm…it just occurred to me that anyone who cites Q as an authority would “automatically give up any chance of being taken seriously” by me. Of course, I take PZ seriously, but not Q; but I’m wondering how I’d come up with a cogent argument for that. Is there some reason why I don’t have to just “go with my gut?”
raven says
Well, yes.
That isn’t what she is doing though or even why.
She is a hate merchant exactly like Rush Limpbrain, Jordan Peterson, Ann Coulter, Donald Trump, Franklin Graham, Fox NoNews, and hundreds of other christofascists.
She gets money and power by reflecting the hate of her base back to them.
Being an ugly hater herself is its own reward to be sure, but the money and power are far more useful.
Follow the money.
Andy Geth says
“Our neighbor, @RepMarieNewman, wants to pass the so-called “Equality” Act to destroy women’s rights and religious freedoms”
It’s always such bad faith arguments with these assholes. You can’t “destroy women’s rights” by granting rights to Trans people or granting rights to any group for that matter. That’s utter nonsense.
Equally when bigoted morons like Taylor Greene use the term “religious freedoms” they actually mean they want the right to discriminate against people they hate because they believe their big book of fairy tales tell them to do so.
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says
Well, I’m surprised the cissexist asshats haven’t yet made an appearance in this thread. They’re usually rather quick about it.
kome says
@9
The cruelty of this all is entirely the point. This kind of nonsense serves no other purpose except to be mean for the sake of being mean. This is what conservatism, as a social and political ideology, is and always has been.
Susan Montgomery says
@16 I could complain about hippies if you’re bored and wanting an argument ;)
bcw bcw says
them bird.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4917983/half-male-half-female-cardinal/
Tethys says
Rep. Marie Newman is a sponsor of the equality act, and also has a trans daughter. She put a trans rights flag up outside her office, to raise awareness of the equality act.
In response the maga brained fool from VA put up her silly sign.
The Qrep. Hyphen Greene is also tweeting trans hysteria about bathrooms and women’s athletics. Dumber than a box of rocks, bigoted, and just generally hateful. She’s UberKaren.
flange says
@17
I agree. “Conservative” is meaningless—there is no Conservative philosophy. They’re undoubtedly against people having fun, also.
logicalcat says
Someone should add underneath the sign another sogn which reads “except woth global warming in that case dont trust the science” just to fuck with her.
I dont even know if she denies global warming or not but I assume so since stupidity then to clump.
DLC says
Marjorie Taylor-Greene (Q) GA, is a two bit POS grifter who needs to get out of politics. Her political ideas and opinions come from such trustworthy sources as Infowars and RT. Her idea of political discourse is to come to the same snap judgement your great-grandfather might have arrived at after reading the headlines. Her understanding of “The Science” is that Someone on RW-Hate-Radio said so, so she believes it. Besides, her ancient book of iron-age fables contends that Yaweh created man and then carved a rib from man and created woman, and has no mention of such nuanced things as gender identity. Perhaps that’s the Representative from QAnon’s problem.
John Morales says
DLC:
An opinion which is clearly not shared by those who elected her into office.
See, that’s what representative democracy gets you: people who represent their electors.
chrislawson says
The only way anyone with even the faintest understanding of genetics could ever accept the “only two genders” argument is if they 100% agree that gender is a social construct, not a biological entity, and that we are living in a culture that forces the binary by recognising only two genders of the spectrum. Something tells me this is NOT what Greene means.
I wonder how she taught her children the rainbow.
“There’s only red and violet. That’s it.”
“But mommy, why are there other colors?”
“Degenerate secularism!”
“I heard about infrared and ultraviolet. What do those mean?”
“Created by Satan’s culture warriors to deceive. Think about it. How can they be colors if we can’t see them? Checkmate, rainbows!”
bcw bcw says
meant to post this one, which is current and has nice pictures.
https://www.pennlive.com/life/2021/02/once-in-a-lifetime-half-male-half-female-cardinal-photographed-in-pennsylvania.html?
microraptor says
logicalcat@22: She probably thinks that climate change is caused by the Jewish Space Lasers.
William George says
Nine out of ten coprologists say you’re a human turd, Marjorie.
kome says
@24
She ran unopposed.
publicola says
“Greene is a liar and a fraud.” That’s why she’s a rising star in what used to be the GOP.
Bruce says
That 53-year-old paper reminded me of a phrase from a Beach Boys son about surfing from that same decade.
“Not just a fad, ‘cause it’s been going on so long.”
The research is on science that is older than MTG.
Bruce says
Song
Rich Woods says
@kome #29:
Like diarrhoea in an express elevator.
Giliell says
Yesterday I had the following conversation on Twitter, in reply of somebody tweeting a pic of their cat who is XXY. Quoted from memory because the dumbass was at least at some point embarrassed enough to delete his tweets.
Him: These “variations” (I don’t remember the exact word, it was a nasty, denigrating term for intersex people) don’t count.
Me: There are more intersex people on this planet than red haired people, you nobody claims that the only hair colours are blond, brown and black.
Him: That’s different, because red hair is naturally occurring and not caused by stuff like chromosomes and hormones.
Yep, Terven, so much science.
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says
I had not known that. Thanks for the info (and the story), Giliell!
fergl says
In our genetics lab our cytogenetics reports state “46.XX apparently normal female karyotype.” “46,XY apparently normal male karyotype”. Except in DSD disorders of sexual development, cases where we put “reveals a normal XX/XY chromosome complement”. Maybe we should always use the latter?
rikkidelavega says
If MTG really trusted the science, then she would have paid attention to recent studies on the relationship between brain structure & gender identity … Namely, that certain areas of the brain are virtually indistinguishable between transgender men & cisgender men, as well as transgender & cisgender women.
flexilis says
See also: Sen. Rand Paul spewing trans hate in the form of questioning Dr. Rachel Levine, nominee for Assistant Secretary of health. Paul is as bad or worse than Greene. https://www.vox.com/2021/2/25/22301138/rand-paul-transphobic-confirmation-hearing-dr-rachel-levine
Susan Montgomery says
@38 Paul’s worse because he’s capable of passing as a normal human being.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a21328/the-five-minute-rule-and-its-many-uses/
Frederic Bourgault-Christie says
@21: No. You will find no conservative against fun. They will always love their own fun. They’re against people they hate having fun.
@24: Some do. But if barriers to vote for the poor and people of color were lower, she would be marginal because her party would lose.
unclefrogy says
@24
unclefrogy says
@24
let me try that again
I am not sure what all you might have meant by that exactly. Is it then that elections and representative democracy not good?
Not sure who said it but I remember reading a quote by some important statesman / politician comparing democracy to all the other forms of government saying as bad as it is it was still better then all of the rest.
what accounts for people like her getting elected?
Lies, ignorance, and manipulation come to mind as primary causes added to the feeling of powerlessness and apathy of the population
uncle frogy
John Morales says
unclefrogy, it’s not complicated: I was responding to someone who thought she “needs to get out of politics”, but clearly that opinion is not shared by those who elected her.
BTW, the sentiment is from Churchill.
That you offer reasons for the current state of affairs indicates you accept that’s the current state of affairs.
—
“Every nation gets the government it deserves.” — Joseph de Maistre
lesherb says
I didn’t read all of the comments. Please forgive me if I’m repeating someone else’s thoughts.
Greene posted a sign ,which stated that there are only 2 genders. What is it about her neighboring Congresswoman’s flag in support of transsexuals rights even hints at there being more than 2?
The Congresswoman’s daughter transitioned from male to female. I’m pretty sure those are the 2 genders Greene is referencing.
(Of course, there are more than 2 genders but this dingbats’ aim is way off. She only seems to be able to fight in the general neighborhood, not at the specific address.)
183231bcb says
A few years ago, I tried pissing off a transphobe by pointing out that the single most-prescribed medicine in the U.S., with more than 100 million active prescriptions according to the FDA, is
1)A hormone
2)Prescribed by the same kind of doctor that give gender-affirming care to trans people
3)Is given to pre-pubescent children
4)Relies partly on self-report to make sure it is working (“but kids don’t know what they want!”)
5)Was invented only five years before medical estradiol (which according to transphobes is a super duper new and experimental drug).
This information is no longer quite true, as Levothyroxine has fallen to be only the second most-prescribed medicine, after Atorvastatin.
Rob Grigjanis says
John @43: Maistre also believed that monarchy, the Church, and capital punishment were all necessary for civilization to continue.
Anyway, I prefer Mencken’s
John Morales says
Rob, :)