I don’t write much about trans issues, because of a combination of being ignorant, and not having any personal stake in the issue.
The “no personal stake” question is important, to me, since it’s a crucial part of my opinion regarding issues that touch on other people. Namely, if it’s not harming me then it’s none of my business, except from a philosophical/theoretical standpoint. Regarding trans issues, that has only touched on me peripherally a few times, when I used some public restrooms and noted that there were gender-neutral facilities. I did not care in the slightest, although I thought it was a respectful and cool way for that organization (The Frick Museum in Pittsburgh) to handle an issue that was, at the time, contentious.
When an issue is contested, the scope of who has a personal stake in it is, perforce, enlarged. That’s the entire purpose of contesting it, after all: enlarge the issue and re-litigate it. So, when North Carolina politicians raised the “bathroom bill” I recommended that the Commander-In-Chief of the US military (at that time, Barack Obama) respond by offering to close military bases in North Carolina to save them the difficulty of figuring out who pees where. It was not a serious recommendation because I knew that Obama would not actually do anything courageous or confrontational.
I know, I’m privileged
Literally, the least I could do was have a Tshirt made to wear at the last computer security talk I gave in North Carolina. Interestingly, one of the other conference attendees asked me “why is that any of your business, you’re from up north?” Good point, except I fall back on the idea that when the North Carolinians raised the issue to a matter of public policy, as a member of the public, it involved me. After all, I faced a potential “penis check” if I was using a bathroom in North Carolina, now, and I felt that North Carolina had gone pretty badly off the rails at that point.
That’s about as “active” as I have gotten on trans rights issues, because it has always been apparent to me that: as trans-people are humans, and there is a question of “human rights” then trans rights are human rights and thus the whole thing collapses down to a question of social equality and natural equality. None of that is complicated to me, so I have not dwelt on it here. It’s sad, to me, that such an obvious thing is an issue for people who want to re-litigate the rights and reality of perfect strangers – it’s none of my damn business, and it isn’t theirs either.
Recently H.J. Hornbeck, who pays attention to this issue, mentioned in backchannel that over at Ophelia Benson’s blog, I was mentioned (perhaps “damned with faint praise” is a better description) in a comment: [bw]
IMHO, Mano Singham and Marcus Rannum are the only sane bloggers left there, particularly the way Mano has just let a push back against TRAs flow. Mano took one sip from the TRA cup when he asked Crip Dyke for more info on trans* issues, but that must have been in private, as it hasn’t sullied his blog. Marcus may have had half a glass, but again, it is minor – his writing on computer security and military industrial complex stupidity is well worth the price.
This is … awkward. I didn’t realize that there was a cup being passed around, because apparently I missed my turn, or I was blacking out like Brett Kavanaugh. I am not a ‘TRA’ specifically, though I support trans rights – of course I do – because transpeople are human beings with a full panoply of social and natural equal rights.
As I said, I am pretty ignorant about trans rights and trans-phobics and their agenda, so I haven’t weighed in much on that topic, although now, I will:
I absolutely support trans rights. In general, I always support the rights of an individual to social equality. In cases where one person’s
equal rights conflict with another’s, I apply the “harm test” – does one person’s ‘right’ harm another’s? Since ‘rights’ that cause harm are not, in fact, rights, but rather aggression/oppression, I track toward the oppressed, always. Failing a compelling argument of harm, I track toward an individual’s liberty.
Individual rights cannot be debated, because to debate them implies that they need to be re-litigated and re-litigating absolute rights can only mean reducing them. For a concrete example, asking “what bathroom should a trans person use?” can only be an attempt to reduce their absolute rights by questioning them. Put differently, the only answer to “what bathroom should a trans person use?” is “whatever fucking bathroom they want, as long as they don’t pee on the seat.”
We should be suspicious whenever someone comes along and says “let’s put these rights back on the table for discussion.” Because there is exactly never a situation in which someone wants to re-litigate someone else’s existence or rights that is not an attempt to oppress them.
Rather than asking “what bathroom should a trans person use?” we should be asking the person who asks that, “who the fuck are you and how does it affect you?”
Please pass the cup around again, I wish to quaff deeply of it.
I worry that, perhaps, my presenting the issue of bathroom rights might unduly tilt people’s perception of my beliefs in that direction. So I will say for the record: I understand that it’s about more than bathroom rights. It’s about a whole panoply of rights – and, in every case that I’ve been able to think of so far, I fall on the side of the rights of the individual – with the implicit additional assumption that nobody has a right to cause harm. If someone wishes to argue that transpeople’s rights need to be reduced, that argument needs to be coupled with an argument regarding harm (because if they cause harm, then that’s not a right.)
I’m also familiar with certain arguments that trans athletes will have unfair advantages, or something like that. It seems to me that the issue there is similar to athletes with disabilities that may have prosthetics (e.g.: Oscar Pistorius) that give them an advantage over standard human equipment. It was thinking about that issue that made me realize that my other standard “does it affect me?” is important. I could not care less; that sort of thing is between the athletes and the judges and possibly the fans – but none of it affects me, so I am not qualified to have an opinion about it.
I think trans rights are also women’s rights, which are an aspect of human rights. The whole bathroom topic is also an implicit attack on cis women. The bigotry view is that at every women’s room in the world, there should be a security guard or system to inspect each woman’s original birth certificate with a raised seal, that each woman must carry always. If they forget or lose their document, or just bring a photocopy or scan, then the bigots want women to be prohibited from peeing “for their own safety”. The implicit message from bigots is that the wimmin folk need to stay at home in the kitchen makin bigots a sammich. Of course, since bigots don’t care about afab men, no man needs to bother with this. So anti-trans bigotry just wants to eliminate workplace competition from women, including from amab women. Snowflakes and Stockholm Syndrome mental prisoners of such snowflakes.
Your timing couldn’t have been better, I just pointed out the bathroom talking point is a myth.
Someone in another forum brought up an MMA match, where a trans woman gave the other fighter a concussion, as evidence of the danger of all that trans stuff. I replied that getting a concussion is an occupational hazard of MMA, regardless of whether one of the fighters is trans or not. They didn’t reply.
She sounds obsessed, snooping here and having flying monkeys snoop on her behalf.
I haven’t paid attention to her drivel (*) since she left because she wasn’t worth the effort. Although maybe I should, just to find usernames to block. I looked at the link and saw one that I’ve locked out previously.
(* Will that word raise her hackles?)
Bruce@#1:
The whole bathroom topic is also an implicit attack on cis women
It’s an attack on pretty much everybody. One of the implications is that I might change my gender identity in order to sneak into a different bathroom and see someone pee, or something. I don’t think that’s really a big social problem but it’s a great big “whoah, kinky!” red flag that someone else would suspect me or some other random person of wanting to do that. That’s some weapons-grade projection, there, I think.
For the record, I know a few kinksters who are into restroom play and they have no trouble finding consensual partners who’ll play right back. So, for the anti-trans people who are so worried about this issue: what about consensual restroom play? Remember: regulation always implies that the state’s interests trump an individual’s interests to the point where consent is irrelevant (i.e.: cannot consent to be murdered) I, personally, could care less as long as nobody leaves pee or other biomass on the seat. That’s just courtesy.
I don’t believe we should try to rank evils, but the reason I introduced the importance of harm is because we oughtn’t be regulating people for doing something that is maybe not very harmful. In pondering this topic, I concluded that if someone wants to go to great lengths to sneak into a bathroom so they can get a sidelong glimpse of my penis, they could just ask and I’d probably go along with it because, who cares? Of course, that’s consensual, and if it’s non-consensual then it’s a much more serious problem.
timgueguen@#3:
Someone in another forum brought up an MMA match, where a trans woman gave the other fighter a concussion, as evidence of the danger of all that trans stuff. I replied that getting a concussion is an occupational hazard of MMA, regardless of whether one of the fighters is trans or not.
Right!
One could just as reasonably say that Floyd Mayweather should not be allowed to box, because he’s really good at it and beats the shit out of people who have chosen to enter a ring to get the shit beaten out of them by Floyd Mayweather. Or something.
What’s funny to me about that is that’s what sports judges and management committees exist to do. Let them do their job. I think the olympic judges opened a huge can of worms when they let Oscar Pistorius run with his leg-blades, because what if someone has elective surgery to remove their legs so they can compete in the olympics? Um, um, um… I don’t know. If I gave a shit about the olympics I might have a more informed opinion. But it’s just, like, my opinion, man. But regarding Mayweather – who gets into a ring with him is subject to very careful analysis and contracts and a great deal of money being promised, so: who cares, it’s all about spectacle, anyway. An MMA fighter who chose to get into a ring with Mayweather and not use his feet or throws placed himself at a huge disadvantage, but it was his choice and his ass that got kicked.
Let’s imagine a hypothetical situation in which I was about to consensually fight someone and, when I saw them about to enter the ring, I realized that my sense of scale was off and they were actually three times my size and solid muscle to boot. At that point, it doesn’t matter what their gender identity is, I’d run to the judge and say, “listen, I’ve made a terrible mistake and I have to go see my doctor right now because I don’t want to fight that guy and I don’t care about the arrangement of their chromosomes it’s their size that worries me.”
To me it comes back to the question of who’s got a stake in it. Are the people who are complaining about the trans MMA fighter MMA fighters or MMA judges? Are they even MMA fans? Why should anyone involved give a shit about their opinion? MMA fights are consensual contests and it’s already the judges and contestants’ prerogative to make things as fair as possible.
HJ Hornbeck@#2:
Your timing couldn’t have been better, I just pointed out the bathroom talking point is a myth.
Isn’t it also becoming increasingly irrelevant? Since the Covid pandemic, I’ve seen a lot of public restrooms are closed – to the point where I have to carefully time my breaks and diet if I am making a road-trip.
I’m more worried about someone coughing coronavirus on me than seeing my dick, anyway. Though with the virus, someone peeing on the seat is suddenly more of a concern.
From HJ’s article that he linked:
“No men in women’s bathrooms, showers or locker rooms. Period.”
This was regarding the US president, who was in the habit of walking into the women’s locker room so he could show his power over the contestants by unconsensually viewing their nudity. That is a legitimate issue. Some security guard should have thrown him down a flight of stairs.
Intransitive@#4:
I haven’t paid attention to her drivel (*) since she left because she wasn’t worth the effort.
Me either. Caring about other people like that grants them a degree of control over you that I am very reluctant to give.
Ranum @8:
I LOL’d, but there’s a serious side to that as well: the base rate fallacy. Even if we grant the highly-dubious premise that transgender people are inherently more violent than cisgender people, it does not follow that banning them from spaces will significantly reduce your chance of being attacked. That minimal harm reduction has to be weighed against the pain and suffering caused by having genital police stationed at said space. The full argument is over here under “Evidential Problems,” but suffice to say that even if TERFs/transphobes are right about that one thing, it doesn’t follow that excluding transgender people is the right solution.
I feel different about this. For example, racism doesn’t technically harm me, because I happen to be white; yet I still have at least a bit of “personal stake,” because I am familiar with a few black people and I prefer them to have happy lives.
On top of that, I want a world free of all forms of bigotry. Bigots tend to be bigoted towards numerous groups of people simultaneously. Somebody who is a racist is also statistically much more likely to be sexist or transphobe or xenophobe or something else that can harm me personally.
For me personally restrooms aren’t the biggest problem. Here’s what disturbs my daily life much more than access to restrooms: (1) I want to be able to change my legal name to whatever the hell I like (where I live legally female people are obliged to have female names, and yes, local laws state which names are classified as male and which are female, thus I have to live with two names, one that I like and another that’s considered my legal name); (2) I want access to certain medical procedures, local doctors have been kicking me out of their offices way too often.
But, yeah, single restrooms and dressing rooms (with individual stalls) would be really nice as well. It’s just that for me personally this isn’t even the worst problem.
Bruce @#1
In practice, nobody asks for birth certificates. Instead, they police women based on how their bodies look like. Any woman who looks too masculine gets harassed.
For example, a while ago I read an interview with a Latvian athlete, who is a butch lesbian. She keeps her hair short and she has wide shoulders due to all those muscles she has. Whenever she needed to use a restroom (she wanted to use women’s restrooms), somebody would mistake her for a man and harass her.
Andreas Avester@#11:
For example, racism doesn’t technically harm me, because I happen to be white; yet I still have at least a bit of “personal stake,” because I am familiar with a few black people and I prefer them to have happy lives.
Being white and american, it was impossible for me to grow up without benefiting from racism and genocide. In that sense, I am harmed because I have no accomplishments I can be proud of in my own right; I was given the cheat-code at birth and have had all the advantages I could want. For example, I qualified for my first mortgage based on a VA loan that I later learned was part of the US government’s ongoing practice of red-lining. Racism harms everyone because it means we are either being treated unfairly, or we are being unfair whether we want to, or not.
I feel a bit like someone who grew up feeling that they were well-fed, only to discover in time that they are a cannibal. You cannot vomit out your childhood.
Another way I see it is that racism makes us all stupider. It makes us lazy, for one thing, but – for another and much worse thing, it is the reason we americans grow up in a relentless swamp of propaganda. We are trained not to think for ourselves because it is necessary for the continuance of the state to produce ignorant chucklefucks and cannon-fodder.
Any of that is sufficient harm and involvement to make it my problem.
Or, as Noam Chomsky pointed out one time when he wasn’t being a fool, “America is my problem because my tax dollars help fund it.”
On top of that, I want a world free of all forms of bigotry. Bigots tend to be bigoted towards numerous groups of people simultaneously. Somebody who is a racist is also statistically much more likely to be sexist or transphobe or xenophobe or something else that can harm me personally.
That is another good argument: bigots are omni-dangerous. We see that clearly in the US, since the state is built on the corpses of natives, by black slaves – all of that was why american bigotry was invented and built so deeply into our society. As a person of Irish and Norwegian descent, my great great grandfather was “pre-white” although the farm he was given by the government was cut from Lakotah land.
I wrote [stderr] about a mexican american who I met, who had voted for Trump. He did not understand that someone who is willing to abuse one person because of their race or religion is willing to abuse any person because of their race or religion. What Jose did not understand was that Trump was not his asshole, he was a raging omni-asshole. I suspect Jose has a different view, now.
Here’s what disturbs my daily life much more than access to restrooms: (1) I want to be able to change my legal name to whatever the hell I like (where I live legally female people are obliged to have female names, and yes, local laws state which names are classified as male and which are female, thus I have to live with two names, one that I like and another that’s considered my legal name); (2) I want access to certain medical procedures, local doctors have been kicking me out of their offices way too often.
I fully support equality in those issues. And, for one thing, there is the question of harm: if you want to name yourself “P=NP” who does that harm? (I assume that in Latvia, the government’s computer systems would withstand a citizen named “; drop table citizens”
But, yeah, single restrooms and dressing rooms (with individual stalls) would be really nice as well.
With lockable doors, in case thee is a president of the united states wandering around.
In practice, nobody asks for birth certificates. Instead, they police women based on how their bodies look like. Any woman who looks too masculine gets harassed.
When I was in high school, it was a time when males who were not masculine enough to some arbitrary degree also suffered. It’s an unfortunate thing, and the relationship between bullying and events like the Columbine massacre is complicated and shows that there are surprising ways that such harms emerge long after they are committed.
All of that cycles me back to trans rights: I don’t think transpeople or anyone should be bullied by anyone. The anti-trans advocates seem to me to be nothing but bullies who are basing their bullying on some flimsy science and cherrypicked facts. You know, the same kind of bullshit that scientific racists fall back upon. It’s all bullshit.
Even if there was no racism where you live, you’d still grow up in a relentless swamp of propaganda.
All societies do this, even the ones that do not discriminate black people or simply do not think about people of color almost at all, because pretty much everybody has the same skin color in their country.
You mean generic bullying of the boys who were physically weaker or appeared in any way “feminine”? Or something else?
If you mean generic bullying of boys deemed “effeminate,” then little has changed since your high school years. The same crap keeps on going on.
I do not get personally involved in discussions about trans issues very much for similar reasons to yours, although I do have a bit more of a personal stake in it than you do, despite also being a cis straight male. But I do not feel comfortable talking about it, so I generally don’t.
I also tend to shut my trap about topics I am not very knowledgeable about.
I looked to B&W blog a few times because I saw them in referrals to affinity. I did not read much since I am generally not interested in blatherings of bigots, but I did notice one peculiar thing or a theme – they really like to badmouth Giliell and Crip Dyke. And some people there are stating that Giliell has declared herself to be trans at some time, which is either an outright lie or a really, really big misinterpretation/misunderstanding of something she sometimes somewhere has said. But I have not seen any attempts at clarification, it now seems to be a point of folk wisdom over there.
@ #4 She sounds obsessed, snooping here and having flying monkeys snoop on her behalf.
Sorry, is reading a blog and then another blog “snooping”? I thought it was being exposed to a variety of opinions. Maybe you like living in your echo chamber, but I like to get out and be challenged.
Of course, if we accept your premise, isn’t that what Hornbeck was doing? Snooping at BW? You know, Hornbeck the great blogger, so sure of being the sole possessor of truth that comments are not permitted, lest Hornbeck be exposed to contrary views.
@Charly – Giliel is an odious worm who is trashing Caine’s legacy. Caine was an exceptional person, she helped me learn quite a lot and I will be forever in her debt. We exchanged numerous emails about life in general and cancer in particular, and I cried when she walked on. Caine was also very strict that what went on in other blogs stayed in other blogs; their issues were not her issues and would not be re-litigated at Affinity. Not like the odious Giliel who turfed me out, with no warning, for a statement of truth I made elsewhere.
The only TERFy transphobe I know much about, beyond their bigotry, is the B&W person. And I recall that, before they were so visibly transphobic, they were hating on other groups. In fact, the first time I heard their name, it was about them hating on people, specifically a subgroup of atheists for — well, I never did figure out what. Based on a sample size of one, I have the impression that the hate comes first, and who it gets dumped on is a matter of circumstance and opportunity. If there weren’t trans people, muslims, SJWs, etc., they’d hate on people who wear running shoes or something.
This is why I find discussion of trans rights and whether we exist and whether we are or are not predators and such depressing. Even when people are defending our right to exist, it’s kind of a never-ending gut punch that people even have to defend us in the first place.
You don’t see posts and articles defending, say, cis white men’s right to not be locked up for the safety of everybody else (despite the fact that that group actually is responsible for a heck of a lot of violence against others), because nobody would take such a proposal seriously. That anybody actually has to speak in your defense is already a sign that you’re at risk.
I don’t know if it’s true, but it was said that Golda Meir once proposed to have a nightly curfew for men in response to a proposal for a ‘protective’ curfew for women.
Troll detected (#15). Who equates looking once after 3+ years with weekly snooping?
@Marcus, I leave it to your discretion whether this is acceptable for your blog comment section or not, but I cannot leave some statements unchallenged. I googled steppenwolf and Giliell interactions and what I found was not a pleasant read.
@steppenwolf
The nickname steppenwolf is not banned on Affinity, never was, and it was not even discussed. Giliell does not have the power single-handedly ban people from Affinity, it is always done after a consensus of all four co-bloggers has been reached and only voyager and I wield the banhammer. As far as I could find, Giliell has only blocked you on Twitter and told you to leave her alone, so you are essentially badmouthing her for not wanting to talk to you. Newsflash – Giliell not wanting to talk to you in her personal capacity is not trashing Caine’s legacy.
However, I found out who you are in due course, or at least another sockpuppet of yours, since you seem to be fond of making different names on the internet to be able to harass people better.
You are also known as steersman. You are or at least used to be a member of slymepit (you still might be, under different nym, you seem to be fond of changing them, as even some commenters on slymepit found out), a website that was and is, as far as I could find out before going away in disgust, founded on and is dedicated to re-litigating issues from other websites and to make fun of anyone they disagree with, including blatant and disturbingly disgusting and juvenile, sexist, ableist, racist and classist jokes. Behavior in which you indulged there too in the past.
Caine, whom you profess to respect so much, was a frequent target of these jokes. Jokes that are, I have to repeat, really disgusting and were made even after she got cancer, with some even expressing glee at this happening, like racist jokes about how she should find a medicine man to treat her (although at least you were not involved in that, not under the nick steersman or steppenwolf)..
You may or may not have had meaningful interactions with Caine. She was indeed an exceptional person and despite her prickly and harsh behavior, she could also be very kind and understanding. But whether those interactions, if they happened, were genuine on your part I am not able to evaluate. People who like to troll websites under different nyms are not credible sources of information – and this does apply to you. After what I found out about you today via google, I am not able to trust anything you say, by all the evidence I have seen today you are a troll who thrives on fostering conflicts.
The nickname steppenwolf is not banned on Affinity, never was, and it was not even discussed.
True, but I did not post at Affinity under that Nym.
Charly, what you found was not me. There is no copyright on NYMs. I am sure there are others posting under Steppenwolf, or variants. Some may be metal fans (me), some may be fans of Hermann Hesse (also me), BUT I do not have a twitter account. I have no idea who steersman is. I have never been a part of the “slymepit” and despise what they do.
Maybe this will prove my bonafides. Maybe not. But I still have the original to prove it is mine. Also, please note, I was not afraid to use my real name.
When I was told to “piss off”, I took my licks like a man, and walked away. Oh, I was tempted, sorely tempted, several times to respond, but I hadn’t been contributing content to Affinity to cause a shit storm, I was doing it because I liked sharing my images, I liked the learning I was doing with the rest of the Affinity Tribe.
Since then I have noticed Giliel being one of the TRAs that cannot stand the thought of women deciding women’s issues, but rather, that they must centre the TW in everything. No room for women. No room for discussion. just the throwing of slurs like TERF, CIS, etc.
You may or may not have had meaningful interactions with Caine.
Yes, I did, via her email, fleurtduamore.
After what I found out about you today via google, I am not able to trust anything you say, by all the evidence I have seen today you are a troll who thrives on fostering conflicts.
Nope, you didn’t find out anything about me today, you simply assumed that some one else, somewhere in the world, using the same NYM was me. You made “a leap of faith” and fell over the cliff.
I wish to apologize to Marcus, as I don’t think that his blog is the right place for this discussion, but neither can I stand by and be accused of that which I am not.
Just one more quick comment.
I googled steppenwolf and Giliell interactions …
Why didn’t you just ask Giliell?
I do have a personal stake in trans rights as a cis woman, but not the way “gender critical” people would like to make you believe, as in me being somehow harmed by trans women existing and using whatever spaces there have been graciously given to women. My stake comes from how “gender critical” or transphobic or terf or whatever people define “woman” and “female and what they’re basing their definitions on, usually the ability to make babies. Now, at least at some point in my life I did have that ability (I have absolutely no desire to find out if I still could. On the contrary, I have reoccurring nightmares about being pregnant), but of course that’s an impractical standard to go by and they know it, as there’s tons of infertile cis women and tons of women who will never find out due to their lack of interest or opportunity to become pregnant.
So of course they have to use proxys for determining who is a woman and who is not, which is, surprise, surprise, gender performance. There’s tons of evidence on how butch cis women have been threatened and denied access to facilities for not presenting as female enough.
Furthermore, these self declared “feminists” and “Defenders of women” work with and take money from the religious right. They are undermining bodily autonomy, Gillick competence (the competence of minors to make their own medical decisions, especially important when it comes to abortion) and LGB rights in their crusade against trans people.
They define women as baby making machines and they make us conform to the very gender stereotypes they claim to be fighting. hell, they’re even claiming that a trans woman or indeed a cis man wearing make up is donning “woman face” similar to black face because apparently eye shadow is intrinsically linked to making babies or something,
So, yeah. Trans people have been my strongest allies in deconstructing sex and gender and fighting for bodily autonomy, while transphobes have so far done shit for me, but heaped a great big lot of hate on me.
+++
I never felt better to be included in CD’s company.
Yeah, I know their reading competence isn’t the best. the one thing I can imagine is that I once wrote “There are trans people here who…” This is as obvious a claim about me being trans as saying that “there is cake” means that I am cake.
+++
steppenwolf
Who’s badmouthing whom now? As Charly said, I don’t even have admin privileges so I couldn’t ban you even if I wanted to. Really, do you think that makes you sound like an honest person?
It’s also funny how you people keep trying to shame me with “what would Caine have done, you are disrespecting her memory”. First of all, Caine knew me well. My good sides, my bad sides, my positions. While she never intended to pass the blog to us because she didn’t intend to fucking die, she didn’t hand it to some stranger.
Second, I am not Caine. I’m not trying to be her. I never could. I’m not claiming to write for her or in her place. If you think that the actions of another person can taint the memory of a different person then the problem is entirely with you and your screwed perspective.
Third, Caine’s position on trans folks was that of a fierce ally and defender of trans rights, as people who profess to have loved her so much should have known.
And last but not least: The fact that Caine hasn’t returned to hound all you people trying to saint her is the ultimate proof that there is no afterlife.
Oh, and on a personal note, I do actually not remember much of our personal interactions. I’ll have to google them and re-read. Because while you seem to keep a personal vendetta, I do have a life.
steppenwolf
So you’re saying you’re David?
Well, at least that gives us some context. Would you mind if I shared the mail I wrote to you so people can see for themselves what a horrible person I am?
So, are you the source of the claim that I was trans? It#s funny how you people can always identify trans women…
As said before, I would have to google that myself, because I do have indeed a life.
Marcus
Just tell us if you want us to shut up.
@steppenwolf
So you claim not to be the steppenwolf/steersman who commented on slymepit, but you do admit to commenting under different nyms at different times. So why should I believe anything you say? I can believe that you are DavidinOZ, but that does in no way prove that you are not steersman too, since by your own admission you change your nyms. I only have your word for it – and you are a self-admitted deceiver by now.
The decision to not post your (if you are DavidinOZ) art on Affinity anymore after your disgusting transphobic diatribes and personal attacks on Giliell on Pharyngula was a collective one, without any disagreement, and just to let you know, I wielded the banhammer. Whether Caine would do the same, nobody knows. Was she aware of your ongoing and overt hostility to trans people during your interactions with her? Whether she would showcase your art on Affinity after you have outed yourself as hostile transphobe is a question to which I do not know the answer, nobody does, and she won’t tell, because she is dead. But given her fierce defenses of trans rights on Affinity and elsewhere, I doubt that she would. I think she did not know about your hostility towards trans people, just as none of us did for a fairly long time.
Accusing Giliell, a woman, of not letting women decide about women’s issues, while admitting that you are a man is, just, massively idiotic. And your beyond idiotic “Why didn’t you ask Giliell” after you yourself have admitted to never have used this throwaway nym in any interaction with her made me facepalm so hard I have nearly hurt myself.
@”steppenwolf”:
This is accomplishing nothing for you and I doubt it’s entertaining anyone. It’s probably a good idea for you to go.
I read and approved your first-time comment with some skepticism and thought I owed you a chance. You’re just wasting people’s time.
cannot stand the thought of women deciding women’s issues
Sort of like “state’s rights?” Calling them “issues” to minimize them doesn’t deflect from the fact that they have impact and that impact goes beyond just women. When society is asked to resolve “issues” unfairly it is all of society’s problem; I understand why you might want to compartmentalize something as just a womens’ issue, but that’s an argument of political convenience.
Is everyone ready for the plot twist?
stepppenwolf / DavidInOz / Roj Blake has been banned under various nyms and is no other than… the very person quoted in the OP.
Recently been trolling Mano’s. Also banned by Andreas. An absolutely obsessive transphobic nutter.
Another reason why I, as a cis woman, have a stake in trans rights:
Transphobes are attacking women’s shelters, rape crisis centres and cancer charities for daring to be inclusive:
https://twitter.com/LesleySemmens/status/1283085972259971073
They turned against the campaign to Repeal the 8th in Ireland because it was prominently led by trans women (who do NOT have a stake in abortion rights but a huge stake in bodily autonomy).
Now, even if I did not care about trans people at all for reasons of not being one, their opposition made it amply clear that they are evil.
As an aside, I am regularly surprised about how obsessive some people are with me. I get it, they hate me. Like, who the fuck do they think I am? I’m some fat old mummy blogger with an exhausting job and some interesting power tools. I cannot remember most of them or any specific arguments yet they carry grudges like millstones around their necks. If anything, I#m usually saddened by some fallout or other. I was truly sad about DavidinOz, whom i greatly liked, though I have to ask myself how much my trust had been betrayed if he is really Steersman .
Silentbob@#27:
Recently been trolling Mano’s. Also banned by Andreas. An absolutely obsessive transphobic nutter.
Thanks.
Well, in the comment over at Ophelia’s, they didn’t seem to think particularly highly of this blog, so I’m sure they won’t miss it. Besides, they can always create another sockpuppet and as long as it behaves, I won’t care.
I will be a bit more careful to search for other comments and run back an email address check next time I get a new commenter, and probably a few other investigative tricks, as well. What a pointless waste of time, but it’s what it is.
Giliell@#28:
Like, who the fuck do they think I am? I’m some fat old mummy blogger with an exhausting job and some interesting power tools. I cannot remember most of them or any specific arguments yet they carry grudges like millstones around their necks.
I always felt that hating someone like that grants them entirely too much power over oneself.
So, you are some haters’ dark satanic god. You’ve got worshippers! I’m trying to work up some envy but the pump doesn’t seem to be catching.
Absolutely. But believe me, it’s neither power I want nor intend to use.
@Silentbob
I completely forgot that Roj Blake and DavidinOZ are probably the same person (the evidence available to me there is much stronger than for them being also steersman – both Roj Blake and DavidinOZ have commented on Affinity with the same IP address several times over several years). This person evidently likes to have sockpuppets and under several nyms has claimed that Caine would be disgusted at this and that and that she would certainly not approve of how affinity is run now and how freethought blogs are really not about free thought etc.
It shows how double-faced someone can be. DavidinOZ has presented as a perfectly lovely and reasonable person, never commenting under trans oriented topics, never saying anything bigoted or problematic. It is a speculation, but it might be that he got his sockpuppets tangled on Pharyngula one day and outed himself as a transphobe under that nym by accident. I think that DavidinOZ was a nym that was not supposed to be connected with bigotry – it was supposed to be the “nice guy” sockpuppet. But once outed, it could not be undone.
@Charly:
Isn’t having a “good guy” sockpuppet and a “bad guy” sockpuppet an implicit admission that one’s views are reprehensible?
I favor free speech even though this is not a free speech forum (I control the vertical and the horizontal) and it seems to me that this may be a case of letting an advocate for a reprehensible position act as an illustration why that position has failed. Perhaps a better spokesperson would not need to lie and conceal their identity. [There, now: talk about “damning with faint praise”]
This isn’t much evidence, but in the past I’ve debated with Steersman online. steppenwolf feels like a different person, in terms of grammar and sentence structure.
Gawd, I dunno how you people with comment sections put up with all this morphing.
Whack all the moles and move on. Maybe destroy the content of their posts too. The one thing that has been proven to work over and over with bigots is to deplatform them.
@Hj Hornbeck
Long ago, I briefly lurked at the slymepit, just out of morbid curiosity (it was indeed as bad as PZ suggested), and I think you’re probably right about steersman. He’s… very strange, to say the least. It would be a fairly impressive piece of performance art to invent such a persona.
While I don’t care much in general, Roj Blake and David being Ted same person raises a couple of questions about personal claims, like having only become a father two years ago and also having an adult lesbian daughter who was discriminated against for not being Trans…
That’s the thing; bigots lie through their teeth. They have to. Their prejudice has no rational basis, so they have to invent excuses for themselves.
Transphobia consists 100% of lunatic claims: kids are being transed by tumblr! gay eugenics! death of women’s sport! autogynephelia! lesbians are forced to have sex with men! mutilated children! It’s all modern-day blood libel because… that’s all they got. And bigots gotta bigot.
Hey, David (because I know you’re lurking).
Mano says trans rights.
Guess you have to confine yourself to your little transphobic cesspit in future.
@#22
Indeed.
Misogyny and transphobia go hand in hand.
Firstly, there’s transmisogyny. But the problem is much deeper.
Back when I was looking for a surgeon who would agree to remove my internal reproductive organs, I got kicked out of many doctors’ offices as soon as I opened my mouth and stated what procedure I want. Each time I scheduled another appointment with yet another doctor, I tried different tactics. On some occasions I stated that I want this procedure, because I absolutely refuse to have biological children. On other occasions, I stated that I want this procedure, because I am trans and want to live as male. Neither statement was a lie; I just tried using different justifications for my medical choice hoping that at least something will work with some surgeon.
Regardless of how I presented myself (either as a woman who wants no kids or as a trans man), the answers (refusals with me getting kicked out of the doctor’s office) were absolutely identical.
In our sexist and transphobic society there exists a certain socially approved script for how an AFAB person must lead their life. The moment an AFAB person deviates from this script, all hell breaks loose. Bigots will patronize them, assume that this person must be crazy, delusional, mentally ill, lost, confused, mistaken about what’s best for them, a danger to themselves, etc. Bigots will assume that this person must be denied bodily autonomy and the ability to make their own life choices or else they will make the greatest mistake of their life.
Does an AFAB person wants to be childfree? Do they want to stay single? Do they want to wear masculine clothes and have short hair? Do they have hobbies that used to be considered “masculine” a century ago? Do they want to transition and live as a man? It doesn’t matter how exactly an AFAB person tries to deviate from the socially approved life script, they will get the same shit.
We live in a society that treats as non compos mentis all AFAB people who want to make unusual life choices. A society, which says that doctors, husbands, or old customs must dictate how an AFAB person should lead their life.
For example, pregnant people who want sterilization during their C-section are routinely denied this procedure. Apparently, according to many doctors, people are incapable of making medical decisions while being pregnant. WTF? Alternatively, I once heard about a woman whose husband told her doctor to sterilize her during a C-section. Several years later, after a divorce and remarrying, this woman tried to conceive, but she couldn’t get pregnant. Only then she found out that she had been sterilized during her last C-section upon her husband’s request without even informing her about it.
This is the kind of world we live in. There is so much overlap between transphobia and misogyny that often I cannot even figure out whether I am a victim of one or the other. When I get denied a medical procedure I requested, was it because the doctor considers AFAB people non compos mentis or was it because they consider trans people non compos mentis?
Trans people do not benefit from misogyny and sexism in any way. Trans men are victims of sexism as children and teens. Trans women are victims of sexism after transitioning.
Also, trans people’s lives would be easier in a less sexist society with more lax gender norms and expectations. For example, I would have appreciated if adults hadn’t forced me to be a girly girl as a child back when I still hadn’t figured out that I am more comfortable living as male. And then there are those of us who cannot pass for our preferred gender and would enjoy not being abused for visually looking like masculine women or effeminate men.
Just to clarify: is “Steppenwolf” and “Sonofrojblake” the same person? If so, what other nyms of theirs do I have to watch out for?
Last month I banned “Steppenwolf” for trying to lecture me about which people are men or women. A few days ago I banned “Sonofrojblake,” when I got weirdly phrased death threats from “Sonofrojblake,” who wrote a paragraph describing a hypothetical scenario about how they would like to kill me and my dogs in we ever met in a public park.
@ Andreas Avester
It’s actually “stepppenwolf” with three ‘p’s. As unlikely as it sounds, since one of his aliases is “Roj Blake”, I believe sonofrojblake is a different person. For example, here is a comment where sonofrojblake is responding to comment #1 by Roj Blake, and disagreeing.
The only aliases I know are those linked above.
And now I’ve spent far too much time on The Case of the Transphobic Commenter. :-)
@Silentbob, I honestly did not see that third p until you mentioned it. I too think sonofrojblake is a different person, he had always another IP than Roj Blake & DavidinOZ had.
I should note that IP addresses are easy to fudge. This comment is coming from a different IP address than I’ve used before in this thread, for instance.
Having said that, I don’t see much evidence that sonofrojblake and Roj Blake are the same person. While the former has defended TERFs in the past they’ve also said things like this.
@41:
Wow. Just… wow. Where to begin? “Weirdly phrased death threats”, or as I’d more accurately characterise them, not death threats. As you accurately pointed out in your ludicrous “I’m a badass Krav Maga expert” response, any “threat” I might hypothetically make would itself be ludicrous since I (a) don’t know where you live beyond knowing the country (b) don’t live, have never visited, and never intend to visit that country and (c) have absolutely no reason to wish you harm.
So: “wrote a paragraph describing a hypothetical scenario about how they would like to kill me and my dogs in we ever met in a public park”. Just… no. Lies. That’s not what I wrote AT ALL.
What I wrote was a hypothetical scenario in which you first loosed an angry dog on my infant child, and the likely violent response that such an action might predictably provoke from me or any parent. This in the context of you relating, approvingly, the tale of someone else loosing their angry dog on a child.
I absolutely did NOT say “if I ever met you and your dogs in a park I’d like to kill you” because that would be fucking insane. I don’t expect you to restore my privilege of commenting on your blog – we clearly have opinions divergent enough that there’d be no benefit to either of us. I do, however, expect you to retract that libellous bullshit. I did NOT (and would not) threaten you or anyone else, and to claim I have is disingenuous drama-queenery of the worst sort. Take it back.
——————————-
And for the record, I post here and have always posted here under this nym and no other. It’s been somewhat annoying having someone posting as “Roj Blake”, because that way confusion lies. They may have been here before me, in which case fair enough, but their nym is a cute 70s British TV sf reference, whereas mine is that PLUS a literal description of what I am – my dad’s name is, IRL, Roger Blake, and his mates called him Roj before Terry Nation created the Daleks.
And for the record: trans rights are women’s rights and TERFs can do one. This is NOT a new position I’ve taken up, I’ve been consistent on that one for YEARS here.
sonofrojblake @45:
Six years and change, if my Google-fu is to be believed. Looks like you were banned from Butterflies and Wheels too, something I don’t think I can claim.
@ 46 Hj Hornbeck
You’re implying sonofrojblake was banned for opposing transphobia, and – as 2015 me said in the comment immediately after the one you’ve linked – that is not the case.
sonofrojblake was banned then for the same sort of thing he’s still getting banned for today. Being an obnoxious arsehole.
P.S. I was banned from B&W for opposing transphobia if that’s you’re idea of cred.
(Apologies to Marcus for this off-topic squabbling.)
Why Andreas banned sonofrojblake is detailed here.
I’ll go away now. Sorry. Bullshit-artists wind me up.
sonofrojblake @#45
Everything I and sonofrojblake stated was published online. There was no private discussion among us.
Here https://freethoughtblogs.com/andreasavester/2020/07/12/dont-touch-other-peoples-dogs-without-the-owners-permission/#comments they wrote the comment that got them banned from my blog’s comment section.
Here https://freethoughtblogs.com/andreasavester/2020/07/14/power-fantasies/ I wrote a more detailed blog post about why I consider their words highly problematic.
Everybody is free to read the whole discussion and decide for themselves whether sonofrojblake’s words were appropriate or no.
Still trying to intimidate, control, and dominate me, huh?
You sound like an asshole with alpha male aspirations who cannot endure the thought of somebody not bowing to you and not feeling scared of your so called “bravery.”
Nope. When a dog barks at them, every sane parent will pick their kid and walk away. Trying to start a streetfight when your kid is nearby is a fucking lunacy, because anybody who is nearby (including your kid) can get injured in the resulting ruckus.
@Andreas Avester and sonofrojblake:
Work out your disagreement less publicly and not here.
I apologise on behalf of Andreas Avester for his bringing it up @41, and on my own account for dignifying it with a response. I promise I shall say nothing further of it here or elsewhere.
sonofrojblake@#51:
That was a masterpiece. Thank you.