I don’t think so, but if it were, then Jordan Peterson has just announced that he is trans.
Either that, or he is a liar.
It is most weird how some people get worked up over a simple, non-judgmental descriptor. There is no opprobrium attached to being cis — in fact, it’s a social advantage. So what has got these people irate?
Maybe it’s the implicit acknowledgment that if cis people exist, then trans people do, too.
Have you ever felt like you spend all your time explaining the obvious to idiots who are going to reflexively reject the evidence anyway? That’s the discouraging thing about battling creationism, you’re fighting willful ignorance. Even more significant is the need to explain the importance of vaccines when we’ve got mush-brained cranks like RFK Jr. geysering nonsense into the discourse that the media treats gently as if he has something intelligent to say.
This has always been a problem, though. Today I learned that Minnesota had mandatory vaccination laws for school children in 1883 (Yay! Woo-hoo! You go, Minnesota!) but that they repealed it in 1903 (booooo) after…a debate.
Fucking debates. Anyway, they dragged Justus Ohage, a real physician and the public health commissioner for St Paul into a debate with a carpet-bagger from Indiana, WB Clarke, who proceeded to glibly gish-gallup all over the place.
Dr. Clarke spoke next for an hour. He called Edward Jenner’s research “bogus.” He threw out incorrect and cherry-picked examples. He claimed that Germany had compulsory vaccination but also had the worst smallpox outbreak in Europe in 1871…
He did not mention that the smallpox epidemic was caused by unvaccinated French troops in Germany fighting in the Franco-Prussian War and that the vaccinated Germans suffered far less than the French.
There was no way for anyone to rebut these claims as he was making them, and Clarke was a smooth talker. He spoke quickly and vividly ultimately comparing the “vaccinator’s lancet” to a “highwayman’s butcher knife” saying that people had a right to defend themselves against each.
When Dr. Ohage took the stage, he only had 15 minutes. He said he did not have time to offer a rebuttal of each of Clarke’s claims. Instead, he had to defend “the attitude he had taken” against the anti-vaccinationists. The damage was done.
The result: the Minnesota legislature repealed the mandatory vaccination law in 1903.
Wait, no, that was only the proximate result. The long-term consequence was that Minnesota was ravaged by a smallpox epidemic in 1924-25 that killed 500 people. Oops.
State law blocked a sound public health response. An 1883 state law had required all school-age children to be vaccinated against smallpox. But in 1903, the legislature repealed that law and made compulsory child vaccination illegal. Although smallpox vaccination is almost 100 percent effective, public health officers had no power to make people protect themselves. They could recommend, but not mandate, the vaccine.
Starting in November 1924, both cities launched free vaccination campaigns. Once the deaths mounted, the frightened public jammed the vaccination centers. As reported in the Minneapolis Journal, as many as 17,000 got their skin scratches in a single day. By mid-December 1924—according to public health officials—some 210,000 people in St. Paul and 350,000 in Minneapolis had been vaccinated.
Clarke was never called to account for all the people he was responsible for killing. The sheep of Minnesota were cheerfully duped by a smooth-talking liar, and stampeded into the vaccination clinics to save themselves from their own stupidity.
It’s 1902 in the United States all over again. I’ll make the bold prediction that in 20 years or less we’re going to have to pay the piper.
Sorry to ruin your day…don’t watch this if you’d rather not. This is the horrible Jared Taylor, professional bigot, jumping on the anti-trans bandwagon. He hates black people and gays, so adding another category to his long list is not a stretch for him.
A few quotes:
“When someone’s sexual energy — and we have a lot of it — is wasted on a reproductive dead end, that’s a defect,” Taylor said. “Biologically it’s no different from wanting to copulate with lawn mowers, or animals, or dead people. Just because same-sex attraction is more common, doesn’t mean it’s not a defect.”
“Homosexuals are different,” he continued. “They don’t want to be treated just like everyone else. They want us to think they’re special. And better. They want to be noticed and celebrated. Adored, even. It’s like being Black: We must never forget that people used to give them a hard time.”
“It comes as a shock to a lot of Americans, but whom you copulate with, when, and why are not your business alone,” he asserted. “Every society sets rules, because without rules society collapses. Healthy societies have rules that are meant to build families and promote child-rearing. They grow out of an ancient sense of duty to family, nation, and race.”
Taylor claimed that the “homo-tranny-drag queen stuff is the very opposite” and that the “strongest opposition to it comes from religious groups and racially conscious people.” And he said that “every gain in white racial consciousness is a victory for families and sound sexual behavior.”
He went on to say that, “You cannot have white awareness without understanding that healthy families are the key to our survival. And anyone willing to fight the madness and stand up for healthy families is half-way to an understanding of race.”
Don’t be like Jared Taylor.
You can entertain yourself by reading the responses to a transphobic troll on the Coyne & Maroja thread. I won’t bother with most of it — the commenters have been doing a fine cleanup job — but their first objection is a major peeve.
Biological sex is a binary defining reproductive roles/potential. It doesn’t govern behaviour, it doesn’t tell you who you can sleep with, it doesn’t deny the existence of trans people. The day a testicle produces ova or an ovary produces sperm there may be an argument for rethinking it, but dishonestly claiming that it has any more relevance than that does not alter reality.
The first words annoy me. Biological sex
…what other kind is there? They then go on to claim that sex is only about reproduction, a surprise to me. I guess they only have procreative sex then, and are unaware of all the other ways humans use sex. It’s just eggs and sperm, nothing else, and reducing it to single cells interacting with each other is the extreme they have to go to if they’re going to fit it all into a small, simple, binary box.
I also have to wonder who the hell is arguing about testicles producing ova? This is so typical, the ‘phobes inventing claims nobody is making so they can “win” ridiculous debates.
Lately, I’ve been getting a flood of spam about “tentmaking”. It’s not what it sounds like — it’s an evangelical Christian term.
Today Tentmaking has taken on a much broader definition than just referring to the skill of making tents. A Tentmaker is a dedicated, spiritually mature Christian man or woman who views work in light of the Great Commission and as an opportunity to serve the Kingdom of God. Therefore, work is a vital aspect of Christian witness because it provides substantial means of developing relationships, credibility, and contexts for ministry.
That’s not me, to put it mildly. However, I’m seeing a bizarre angle in all the email I’m deleting, and here’s just one example.
I’ve got a bunch of these in the trash right now — the curious thing is that none of them talk about god or Jesus, although they do use words like “side-hustle” and making thousands of dollars per week in your spare time. I think Jesus is the side-hustle here.
I’ve snipped out the contact information, but if you’re really excited about the possibilities, contact me and I’ll let you know. By the way, the workshop will only cost you $497, although they drop hints about additional upgrades.
This is what Christianity has become — a grifter’s refuge.
I’m home. I settle down to browse and relax, and discover that a South Dakotan elected representative has declared that Mt Rushmore is a demonic altar and that communism is synonymous with witchcraft.
South Dakota state Rep. Joe Donnell (R) said on a radio show that Mount Rushmore was a demonic portal spreading communism across the country.
Said Donnell: “Even Donald Trump’s landing in the Black Hills at Mount Rushmore on July 4, when the governor Kristi Noem put the message out that fireworks are returning to South Dakota, that was a prophetic word.”
He added: “And I kinda got the feeling that what we’re really dealing with in that portal was communism. That witchcraft altar and those things that are happening in the Black Hills; what we’re really dealing with is communism; it’s the ideology and all the demonic entities and spirits behind that.”
Yeah, I’m home. I could have been talking to interesting smart people about spiders, but instead I’m back in the rural red state part of the country, thanks to demonic thunderstorms.
Waiting for our flight to Chicago, United abruptly announced that it was canceled — you should have heard the howls of fury from all the people waiting. Then they announced that maybe it would fly anyway. Then they said one of the flight crew was missing so it was canceled. Then they found him! Maybe not canceled?
I was finally able to talk to a gate agent — I needed to arrange our connecting flight from Chicago to Syracuse. They were all canceled! All of them! For the next two days! I might be able to get a flight for the last day of the conference.
So I canceled them.
No trip to AAS this year. I’m disappointed, my student is disappointed, but it looked like we were going to spend days and days in limbo, with no certainty of getting there for any time at the meeting.
Now we’re waiting at the airport for long-suffering Mary to drive out from Morris to pick us up and take us home again.
United Airline sucks.
We are trying to get to Cornell for a scientific conference. We’re supposed to be there right now. Last night was an epic run-around of sitting and waiting in lines and repeated announcements that we’ll be boarding a plane any minute now…and a final announcement that no, you will not be boarding a plane today, try again tomorrow. Our heroic quest has become a stalled adventure, where we are left noodling around the edges of the Shire, unable to reach Osgiliath, let alone Mordor.
Our plan for the day is to take a shuttle to the Minneapolis airport and sit around and stand in line some more while we listen to excuses from United Airlines. Maybe they’ll put us on a plane; I sure hope so, since Liz has a poster presentation this afternoon, and I’d like to get this damn ring thrown in Lake Beebe today.
I’m beginning to appreciate why Frodo and Sam couldn’t be dropped off directly at Mount Doom by the eagles. It’s because the eagles needed maintenance, they didn’t have aircrews to man them, there was lightning on the runway, and we already have your money, suckers. Also, one does not fly into Mordor.
I’ll shortly be leaving Morris to drive for three hours to the airport, followed by a 5 hour flight to Syracuse, NY, and then I’ll be spending a few days listening to talks about spiders. It’s going to be simultaneously fascinating and grueling.
I have mixed feelings about conferences. On the one hand, the in-person real world experience is irreplaceable…but on the other, it’s expensive, time-consuming, and tiring. I’m thinking that what would be better for my health and sanity would be, for instance, in-person meetings one year alternating with online meetings every other year. Or maybe alternating the big meetings with local in-state meetings.
I guess I’m old and jaded.
But I’m still looking forward to this meeting, but honestly, what I most look forward to is the nocturnal spider walks. Let’s go see living spiders near a lake rather than looking at photos of spiders in an auditorium!
Our adventure is off to a poor start. Our flight from MSP to ORD has been delayed by 2.5 hours. We’re supposed to have a 2 hour layover in Chicago. I’m not sure how time and math work, but I think that means we’ll miss our connecting flight and we might get stuck in Chicago for a while. This does not make me happy.
Worsening news. Flight delayed a couple more hours. Beginning to believe it’s all a scam by United airlines.
Have you noticed that Republican politicians have all jumped on a particular bandwagon?
There’s a simple explanation: it’s the electorate.
Although…these two phenomena are in a rather intense feedback loop. Why are the voters lying awake in fear? Because the politicians keep obsessing over it.
