The witchhunt continues...

[icehorse]

I don't believe you. I think your primary motivation is fear of trans people, not the protection of people.

Well this explicit lack of good faith marks the last response I'll give you, too bad. But the good news is that you'll get the last word. I can hope only that people reaching this thread will understand that I will not respond further to you NOT because you have good arguments, but because you have just accused me of lying.

That's why you have never once made an argument in terms of what actually makes trans people safer, you only argue in terms of how making society more inclusive of trans people MAY make it LESS SAFE for others.

I have direct anecdotal evidence and again, this is something you can search for if you choose to.

I have asked you many questions that you have ignored. I have attempted to answer yours.

ciao baby...

 

[Subduction Zone]

Philosophically, I lean towards utilitarianism. In other words, I believe we should act to improve the aggregate well being of conscious creatures. So I support trans rights up to the point where they begin to decrease the aggregate well being of society. E.g.,

I do not think that Lia Thomas's feelings are more important than all of the female athletes whose careers he's destroying.

I think that if trans women are allowed in public restrooms we will not only see more assaults occurring, but we will also see that ALL women's sense of safety will be adversely impacted.

I will agree with you about the Lia Thomas issue. I support her rights, but there is no right to compete with an unfair advantage. She was a good swimmer, but not a great one, while male. Due to the advantages that she gained from puberty and years of training as a man she won events that she would not have won otherwise.

As to your paranoia about restrooms that does not appear to be well supported at all. I cannot see a person that wanted to assault women going to all of the bother to create a legitimate trans persona. There are far easier ways to assault women if that is what is one's intentions. Now as to pre-op trans people and locker rooms, due to the open nature of them some limitations would still need to exist. But every women's restroom that I have ever seen always has individual stalls with doors. A unisex bathroom would be no different. You are not dong your business in front of other people there. One does still have privacy.

 

[icehorse]

I will agree with you about the Lia Thomas issue. I support her rights, but there is no right to compete with an unfair advantage. She was a good swimmer, but not a great one, while male. Due to the advantages that she gained from puberty and years of training as a man she won events that she would not have won otherwise.

As to your paranoia about restrooms that does not appear to be well supported at all. I cannot see a person that wanted to assault women going to all of the bother to create a legitimate trans persona. There are far easier ways to assault women if that is what is one's intentions. Now as to pre-op trans people and locker rooms, due to the open nature of them some limitations would still need to exist. But every women's restroom that I have ever seen always has individual stalls with doors. A unisex bathroom would be no different. You are not dong your business in front of other people there. One does still have privacy.

I have talked to women who feel dread. Are the few trans people's feelings more important than those women's?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I have talked to women who feel dread. Are the few trans people's feelings more important than those women's?

I believe you. And being trans is not just about "feelings". That is a strawman of the being trans. So your feelings argument fails. There were people that felt dread about sharing bathrooms and even drinking fountains with black people at one point in time.

You need to be able to determine whose "dread" is justified and whose is not. Those women in dread of being attacked have an unjustified fear just as those that had a dread of black people in the 50's and 60's did.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I don't undestand your comment. Can you explain?

Adult males who behave like boys and have the likes and interests of boys and groom themselves like sloppy boys. Ergo these are boys the age of a man.
Surely you are aware of the sayings "man up," "be a man" and other such sayings that instruct boys to grow up and act like a mature adult.

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

I believe you. And being trans is not just about "feelings". That is a strawman of the being trans. So your feelings argument fails. There were people that felt dread about sharing bathrooms and even drinking fountains with black people at one point in time.

You need to be able to determine whose "dread" is justified and whose is not. Those women in dread of being attacked have an unjustified fear just as those that had a dread of black people in the 50's and 60's did.

The only "dread" I have about using a public restroom is that someone might hear me poop (if it's a noisy one).

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Clarence Thomas never said the court should overturn Obergefell.

Yeah, he basically did say that when he said they need revisited and voiced his objections to those (Obergefell isn't the only one mentioned after he helped destroy a right held by women).

 

[Subduction Zone]

Adult males who behave like boys and have the likes and interests of boys and groom themselves like sloppy boys. Ergo these are boys the age of a man.
Surely you are aware of the sayings "man up," "be a man" and other such sayings that instruct boys to grow up and act like a mature adult.

Like men in their thirties that still wear their pants below their butts. I know of someone like that. Still too immature to dress like an adult and yet way too old to be accepted as a member of a gang any longer.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The only "dread" I have about using a public restroom is that someone might hear me poop (if it's a noisy one).

TMI, but I almost always poop at home. And it is not the noise that I worry about

 

[icehorse]

You need to be able to determine whose "dread" is justified and whose is not.

Wow! You think physical size and strength doesn't justify dread?

BTW, interesting (and civil), debate. But I will be offline most of the day, I'm not disappearing

 

[icehorse]

I believe you. And being trans is not just about "feelings". That is a strawman of the being trans. So your feelings argument fails.

On the issue of public restrooms.. what else other than feelings are involved here?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

You can package garbage real pretty but it is still garbage. A lie is a lie no matter how pretty you dress it up. 100 years from now, take the DNA of the remains and you will know if it is male or female

The interesting thing about though, is burials we've uncovered from thousands of years ago have revealed skeletons on one sex but where buried like those of the other sex. Science has not downplayed this, it has not dismissed this, and has added it to the evidence that trans people have been around as long as our species and were accepted as such in their societies.

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

TMI, but I almost always poop at home. And it is not the noise that I worry about

I try to hold my poops for home business, as well. But sometimes when you're on the road and you've gotta go, you've gotta go.

And, yeh, the noise isn't the worst thing to worry about. But I like to delude myself into thinking that my poops smell like lilacs in springtime.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Wow! You think physical size and strength doesn't justify dread?

BTW, interesting (and civil), debate. But I will be offline most of the day, I'm not disappearing

It doesn't. Intentions justify dread. One could say the same thing about dark skin. Size alone is no indicator that a person will attack you.

This is why one needs to try to reason rationally to see if a dread is justified or not.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

And why are you so willing to give up the single most important thing that keeps you free? To curtail "hate speech"?

Do you really think that the way to curtail hate speech is through censorship? Really? Because I believe it's through exposing hate speakers to the harsh light of public scrutiny.

I'm a Canadian, and in my nation one can be convicted and imprisoned for "hate speech." The operative characteristic of the "hate speech" we are talking about here is that it "uses extreme language in a public way to describe a protected group that is likely to expose them to detestation and vilification." In other words, in a fashion that is likely to bring them harm.

Now, you don't think the law should protect people against harm? I do, frankly. In fact, in my view, if I have taught my dog to attack when I say "sic'em!" I would expect to be considered guilty of causing the attack, and to be punished for it. Even though I used only words.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I never claimed you specifically had forced anyone to do anything. This post should explain it

All you did was mention forms of harassment. Rules and laws against harassment have existed in many forms for awhile now.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

TMI, but I almost always poop at home.

Get IBS. It'll take care of that one real quick.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Well this explicit lack of good faith marks the last response I'll give you, too bad. But the good news is that you'll get the last word. I can hope only that people reaching this thread will understand that I will not respond further to you NOT because you have good arguments, but because you have just accused me of lying.

I mean, if you can't defend yourself, fine. If you accused me of something that wasn't true, I'd argue how and why it wasn't true. I wouldn't just run away.

I feel I have had a good read on you over multiple threads now, and I feel I am more than justified in saying that you are not a good faith debater, and you are not interested in dispassionate analysis for the betterment of all groups. I am happy to substantiate this. But, evidently, it doesn't matter.

I have direct anecdotal evidence and again, this is something you can search for if you choose to.

I have asked you many questions that you have ignored. I have attempted to answer yours.

ciao baby...

More dishonesty. Why not, eh?

 

[Debater Slayer]

And @Debater Slayer -

We've all been extremely lucky to have spent our lives in this time when free speech exists in much of the world.

Speech is considerably regulated to varying extents in the majority of countries globally. Please try to step out of the US when making arguments about "much of the world." China and India alone contain almost half of the world's population.

The world doesn't revolve around the US and its political mantras (e.g., "hate speech laws are authoritarian").

I would guess that none of us has spent any significant amount of time in a place like North Korea? I think that if you spent any time there you would realize how crucial and essential free speech is. And you wouldn't be so cavalier about allowing it to be eroded.

You are back to the habit of rephrasing others' positions instead of responding to what we actually say. I have no interest in having to correct misrepresentations every other post, so focus on what I'm actually saying or tell me if you don't want to so that I spare my time and know not to engage you.

I'm not "cavalier" about actual attempts to erode free speech, such as blasphemy laws. I reject the very notion that anti-harassmsnt laws that cover trans people "erode free speech" in the first place. The majority of the world's most posperous countries that top freedom indices have hate speech laws and significant medical and legal support for trans people's rights. They're doing fine, and they have more freedom per multiple metrics than the US does. That includes Canada, the home of Bill C-16.

These "it hasn't happened yet" arguments show an amazing lack of understanding of history. To return to North Korea, it happened there, and from a historical perspective, it happened fairly recently.

And why are you so willing to give up the single most important thing that keeps you free? To curtail "hate speech"?

More rephrasing. Again: Focus on what I'm saying or give me a heads-up so that I can instead go talk to someone who doesn't try to change my words when I talk to them.

Nothing is being given up by preventing harassment of trans people. It just affords them the same protections as cis people.

Do you really think that the way to curtail hate speech is through censorship? Really? Because I believe it's through exposing hate speakers to the harsh light of public scrutiny.

Do you realize that Europe's most developed and free countries all have hate speech laws? The same goes for Australia.

I will iterate what I said above: try to think of the wider global scope and the evidence from developed countries outside the US instead of focusing only on the US and the alarmist mantras of its ideologues.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I have direct anecdotal evidence and again, this is something you can search for if you choose to.

I have direct anecdotal evidence of white people getting scared around black people and fearing for me when I'd go to the black part of town.
Oh well, bigots be damned.
With trans and restroom usage, again, oh well. There just isn't the evidence to justify such fears.