SodiumBenzoate
Member
He's literally saying 'if we're talking about sex, than no, but if we are talking about gender, than yes', isn't he? That is out of date? Huh?
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Richard Dawkins tells students upset by Germaine Greer to go home and hug a teddy
- Thread starter Erin S Kittens
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He's literally saying 'if we're talking about sex, than no, but if we are talking about gender, than yes', isn't he? That is out of date? Huh?
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Because her bigotry was, presumably, not going to actually be discussed? If it is the case that someone, not knowing her views on trans people, could go to the talk and be intellectually enriched for having done so, then the talk should happen. The fact that she has a dastardly asterisk following her around doesn't somehow irreversibly poison every other thing she utters.
A talk on women given by a transphobic is not transphobic?
Well, a student that has had a good education will know about the asterisk. Not knowing about this big exception about her views is the actual ignorance. Just pretending she is just another feminist speaker is the actual ignorance.
When it comes to Richard Dawkins, he will never be considered correct by a large portion of the population. He could read the phone book and his haters will scream that he's wrong.
As soon as he took a public stance on religion, he made millions of enemies that will never have anything positive to say about him. The valid criticism gets lost in the hyperbolic hatred.
As soon as he took a public stance on religion, he made millions of enemies that will never have anything positive to say about him. The valid criticism gets lost in the hyperbolic hatred.
Not necessarily. Or in this context even likely.
Dr. Seuss books were drawn and written by a guy who drew racist cartoons, is Green Eggs and Ham racist?
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Uh, yeah? I'd argue denying someone the right to share their views because you know that they are thinking things that, for you, somehow poison the things being uttered is pretty close to thought policing, friend.
spindashing
Banned
Edit: Whoops.
partyphone
Banned
no he used the word woman
Kenshin001
Member
No, it's not and the idea is frankly dumb. If that is the sort of mentality people have I can fully understand why Greer pulled out. People are going to turn up not interested in what she has to say about women's struggle in the 20th C, but just to shout her down.
SodiumBenzoate
Member
I read that statement as a 140 character version of 'A transgender woman is sexually male, but self-identifies as a woman', with extra bit on the end which was admittedly condescending.
This is why twitter sucks. We are both clearly reading one tweet in two different ways.
Yes, but that in no way invalidates the fact that he was talking about biology(aka sex) vs gender.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Pretty much. If her ideas are worthwhile without the transphobic asterisk, the percipient has the option to REMOVE the asterisk, in their own understanding of her ideas. That the asterisk is there for Greer, herself, does not somehow mean that nobody can intellectually benefit from her words, or that one cannot compartmentalize the good from the bad, more generally.
No idea how people are getting that from what he was implying. I took it to mean out of decency to their wishes.
keep on grasping
It's not hard to grasp if you've seen a bunch of transphobic shit
Littlefang
Member
First we need to accept this statement as fact: All transgender women are women. By specifically excluding a section of women from her conception of feminism, Greer is being discriminatory.
It's still a leap too far in this case.
partyphone
Banned
that's not why you should do it, though. trans women are women.
A Link to the Past
Banned
People aren't ignoring her, people are constantly confronting her. Preventing her from having a platform is not ignoring the problem. It reduces her ability - merely incrementally - to have a voice.
Question, do you really know much about the issue with "proper pronouns being a privilege"? Or are you a self-appointed expert on the subject who refuses to listen to people who actually know about it?
Are we talking about men who've had reassignment surgery?
Which to my understanding is what Greer is on about.
A Link to the Past
Banned
No, we're talking about women who had reassignment surgery to have their body match their mind.
I've only seen people bring up chromosomes and sex parts when they're wishy-washy on accepting trans people completely as their identified gender. Not to mention chromosomes are constantly brought up by people like Greer, saying "infallible science" denies trans people their identity.
A Link to the Past
Banned
What's frustrating is that the science is only infallible because they reject science that doesn't even relate to it.
What men were brought up in this conversation?
partyphone
Banned
genital configuration is irrelevant. you don't ask a cis person what's going on with their genitals before you accept that they are, in fact, the gender they claim to be.
What I meant applies to all people. Whatever you wish to be called comes from the mind and that domain of labeling. I am merely saying in our social system where everything has a label and evocation, one can adhere to what labels and evocations one wants to be called. It has nothing to do with trans women in particular. Even being called a woman is a label and evocation; it starts in thought. You can see this with drag queens, where they refer to one another as queen or bitch. These are words, a put on. We can respect the decency of what put ons a person wishes to have.
Sorry if you assume I am referring this just to trans people, as if it's an attempt to accept them in a kind of retrofitting. It's more of acknowledgment to the whole theme of labels and what one desires from them. People are beings first, and the terms after that are put ons.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
The English language is poorly-equipped for this issue, because biological sex is so tightly interwoven with grammatical and social gender.
kame-sennin
Member
Yup. Doubly so if the university accepts public funds. That's why in the U.S. we have Title IX. Universities very much should be a "safe space" because otherwise, they would not provide equal opportunity under the law. Trans students have a right to educate themselves without having to endure the stress and humiliation of discriminatory hate speech being broadcast on campus. This flies over Dawkins' head because he's a white guy who came up in an institutional system designed for and by white guys. He's spent his whole life in a fucking "safe space", he just doesn't know it.
A Link to the Past
Banned
Dawkins isn't stupid, he knows that there are serious issues with referring to trans women/men as men/women respectively, even if it's "technically true."
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
I mean, it's not TOTALLY irrelevant. Gender is socially performed, but it exists as a symbolic representation OF biological sex. Trans activism requires a total decoupling of two things that have been conjoined at the hip in the vast majority of human societies, and in a language that doesn't even have a third grammatical gender to accommodate it, to boot.
I don't think that's a language barrier. It's a cultural/societal one. English seems well equipped, we as a society just aren't using it properly. We have the word transgender, gender dysphoria, and pretty simple pronouns. Hell we don't have any gendered articles
hobblygobbly
Member
Dawkins has said some dumb shit over last few years but he's right here about university and attempting to block someone. If you are passionately against what Greer says and believes, you should challenge her, ask her questions, it's a university, you are supposed to debate there and not shy away.
People can hold views/ideas that you are entirely against but that does not automatically mean that any and everything they is wrong, everything is open to criticism and just because you disagree on her with transgender issues and her views on it does not particularly mean all her ideas/views on feminism are automatically bad or invalidated. Challenge her regarding her feminism and how she justifies it with her views on transgender issues etc, university is supposed to be one of the main places you do this.
Also someone giving a lecture/talk about something you disagree with isn't an issue of not having a safe space unless said person is gathering active support of hate speech and generating verbal/physical attacks on students at university. A speech or an idea, even if you deem ignorant, is not destroying safe space, it's when that is taken to physical means like a student rally, etc, is when it destroys safe space. It's a pretty big difference, one leans towards policing thoughts/ideas and controlling who is allowed to give talks/lectures at your university and on what. If you disagree with her views on trans, and she is giving a talk on feminism, blocking her because of her trans views isn't right. If she is endangering the space of others by incitement, rallying, etc, then yes that's a different story and in some countries it's illegal and hate speech.
People can hold views/ideas that you are entirely against but that does not automatically mean that any and everything they is wrong, everything is open to criticism and just because you disagree on her with transgender issues and her views on it does not particularly mean all her ideas/views on feminism are automatically bad or invalidated. Challenge her regarding her feminism and how she justifies it with her views on transgender issues etc, university is supposed to be one of the main places you do this.
Also someone giving a lecture/talk about something you disagree with isn't an issue of not having a safe space unless said person is gathering active support of hate speech and generating verbal/physical attacks on students at university. A speech or an idea, even if you deem ignorant, is not destroying safe space, it's when that is taken to physical means like a student rally, etc, is when it destroys safe space. It's a pretty big difference, one leans towards policing thoughts/ideas and controlling who is allowed to give talks/lectures at your university and on what. If you disagree with her views on trans, and she is giving a talk on feminism, blocking her because of her trans views isn't right. If she is endangering the space of others by incitement, rallying, etc, then yes that's a different story and in some countries it's illegal and hate speech.
saucyrobot
Neo Member
Right. People shouldn't act kindly to others because they respect them. It is much more important that people simply behave as they are told since they are incapable of not being outrageous bigots without guidance from the self-appointed moral authority. Having actual compassion for other humans is irrelevant as long as they make sure to use the acceptable, pre-approved vernacular.
Holy fuck. Did you take even two seconds to consider how disgustingly Orwellian your above statement is?
The man is simply saying that he uses the correct pronouns because it is the respectful thing to do. The fact that you can take this simple statement and make it out to be some monstrous display of bigotry says a lot more about you than it does about him.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Other cultures have an easier path if there are three or more grammatical genders. In English, to call someone a "he" is not merely to say that they are fulfilling the social role of "man", but that they are biologically male, as well. Trans people are trying to gain access to a closed grammatical category that has historically always included a component - biological sex - that necessarily excludes almost all trans folk other than intersex individuals misassigned at birth. You are asking people to decouple this implicit association, and that is GOING to meet resistance and GOING to include growing pains.
A Link to the Past
Banned
I could just leave it as "lol", but out of respect, I'll add more.
No, let me reiterate: if your most hated person on Earth is trans, if a trans person on this planet is so awful that you cannot respect them for even a moment, then you use the proper pronouns. All too often it's seen where if a trans person is rude or says something they don't like, other people will revoke their right to be referred to by their proper pronouns. Dawkins shouldn't do it because it's the respectful thing to do. It doesn't matter to do something as a kindness. We don't call people by their proper sexuality because we're kind, we don't call people black because we're kind, we do it because it's correct.
No
What you don't seem to comprehend is that
"We are cognizant of your body of work and do not find it carries enough weight to counter balance your bigotry and will therefore protest against you" is valid in and of itself.
For certain people, yes, a pronoun implies body parts. Not for others though. You don't need to tell me there's resistance and growing pains, I see it happening all the time.
boiled goose
good with gravy
This is a difficult question but here goes.
What does completely accepting mean? We know from cognitive studies that trans individuals are different from cis individuals. They dont just fall right in line with cis individuals in their identified gender.
That's why i would rather focus on tolerance, acceptance, and respect than the less solid push to establishing what a real woman or man is, or to say we are all the same.
We might not all be the same, but should be treated the same seems a better approach to me.
I comprehend exactly what you are saying, and I am saying you are "wrong". Like I posted earlier, the only person you are harming by doing that is yourself.
A Link to the Past
Banned
Protesting is hurting people?
Ultimately though, what this whole discussion stands as is "we are opposed to your speech" being met with Dawkins opposing their opposition of speech (which in and of itself is an opposition to speech).
Ultimately though, what this whole discussion stands as is "we are opposed to your speech" being met with Dawkins opposing their opposition of speech (which in and of itself is an opposition to speech).
Dawkins does have a follow-up tweet where he asks incredulously if he should be DIScourteous, which to me points to him not intentionally being condescending. He used courteous in the same context you'd use 'accepting'.
Dawkins is a weird dude, he's a little robotic, and even his peers have remarked that he's a little tone deaf to his audience. Ultimately you will have people who will filter his statements to something probably resembling his (hopefully) well-intentioned meaning, people who will filter out the bad and focus on the good, people who filter out the good and focus on the bad, and people who filter his statements to resemble a meaning that is not well-intentioned.
I think you're confusing cisgender as the baseline of that gender, where transgender is somehow a different thing from that baseline. This comes from the incorrect assumption that the majority gets to claim the "normal" status, and the minority is regulated as tangential. A woman is a trans woman or a cis woman. A man is a trans man or a cis man.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
This is rather silly. Transgenderism and transsexuality are caused by structural abnormalities in the brain, but it is a political choice - and an ethical one - to accept that this criterion should override the literally dozens of other objective biological factors one could use to say that self-identification as the gender that us atypical for one's biological sex is meaningless and should not be respected. Using proper pronouns is an extension of our understanding of the harm done by denying trans people their right to be treated as their self-identified gender and our realization that there are no tangible benefits to the status quo, not because favoring one factor over others is somehow overarchingly "correct". Selective filtering of facts is happening no matter what vision of social decorum you favor.
It doesn't matter if the person is or isn't transphobic when using that line. It means they are trying to be civil.
Having respect for someone even if you don't understand or don't care to understand their perspective helps people relate to each other.
Wait, are you referring to my post? I'm responding to the person saying that Greer's "bigotry" (which doesn't at all describe Greer, transphobic would be much more correct.) overbalances the scale on whether or not she should be there to teach a lecture. I'm saying you hurt yourself by denying yourself education.
If you weren't then pardon me
And it's not opposing their speech, it's saying that using it in this manner is poorly thought out.
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