two is just the lowest number at which sex works.
but many species have more than two sexes.

True and true, but lets not get tied up with edge cases - in confuses the issue.... and the idiots.

When you're a celebrity, they just let you do it! You can do anything!

But the edge cases give lie to the whole "there are only two genders" thing. She is trying to claim the backing of science, but the science doesn't actually back her.

She is saying no such thing. She is neither denying their existence- nor telling them they should not exist.

She literally says they're just pretending. It's been quoted on this page, but for those who get confused about basic things like flags being symbols this is probably too hard to keep track of.

But you don't cease to exist because you are pretending.

Since Greene invoked science, it's important to point out what the science actually is.

I think it's important to drive the science home since she invoked science and the fundamentalist component of her supporters are working hard to confuse the science on this (and nearly every) issue. And there aren't just two human sexes. And there is just one way to be something other than strictly male or female. There is not even one way to be female or male biologically.

Even if you try a semantic trick of saying there are just two sexes but some people mix them that still contradicts what the right ring wants to believe.

And the Bible says the animals were created male and female and many believe that to be strictly true, but that isn't true either. Across nature there are creatures that are hermaphrodite all their life, sexless, all female species, species that change sex during their life, multiple sexes, some fungi even have hundreds of sexes.


And a brief interjection to this exchange:

Bacteria engage in plasmid exchange which serves one of the purposes of sex and they don't have sexes.

"pretending" is a reasonable interpretation of a man/woman behaving in such a way as to attempt to give the impression that they are a gender other than what they are.

"refusing" is also a reasonable description of someone insisting that they are a gender different from what they are.

These are not hateful, nor discriminotory descriptors. They represent an outlook that is opposed to the agenda pushed by many trans-folk, but they are hardly outside of mainstream ideology. One could argue that calling them "hateful" or "vile" is such a transparent attempt to mischaracterize the sentiments based upon an agenda, that those arguments are just as kooky as a "jewish space laser"

Who, in wareyin's post, is pretending?

I don't think anyone is pretending.

So your comment was, as I thought, just noise completely disconnected from the discussion. Thank you for confirming.

2 threads on twitter discussing the science of gender


https://twitter.com/ScienceVet2/status/1035246030500061184?s=20



https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1207834357639139328?s=20

No. I was referring to an allegation that someone is pretending. But I was asked who is pretending. For me to think someone is pretending, I would have to agree with the allegation. And I don't.

Won't help. Greene and her sycophants are blind to reality.

Irrelevant comments are irrelevant regardless of how many words you add to them. This game is over, Bob, Tata till next time

Trans people. MTG says they are just pretending. wareyin is talking about MTG's statements.

I am not required to think an allegation is true to discuss an allegation.

I didn't say you were.

I replied to the wrong post

You may think you're helping your case by jumping back and forth here, or maybe you just can't keep track of the conversation. A clue to what a statement is in response to is the quoted post included in that post, if that helps.

You denied that Greene was denying the existence of trans people. She literally said they're pretending. If they are pretending to be trans then they don't exist as trans.

Your claim was false. You thinking her claim is reasonable doesn't change what she claimed.

But they still exist.

Her claim is that they are pretending to be a particular gender. Not that they are pretending to be Trans.

Well, I'll be charitable and assume you really don't know how these people feel.

Hans

reality is indifferent to how anyone feels.

Have you ever felt hungry, tired, wet or cold? Were these just delusions?

If during those times I was objectively hungry, tired, Cold, or wet- they were not.

If I felt wet while not being wet- I was experiencing a break with reality.
If I insist you treat me as if I am wet during that period of time, I am making an unreasonable demand upon you, one which you are under no obligation to honor.

I know - one could respond in kind with a Confederate flag, because one has loved ones who are traitors and thinks they get a bad reputation.

You are not indifferent to how you feel. Even about reality.

Hans

Objectively hungry? Do you think through what you're typing out at all, or just randomly combine words and hope they make sense? I'd ask you how you verify someone is hungry objectively, but I think we'd just get some bigoted justification that takes us down another tangent. It's really the only way one can support MTG, by trying to "hey look a squirrel" any discussion.

I think you could argue the point is to NOT get the point. If Greene was an otherwise reasonable and good-hearted person, I could buy the latest argument defending her, though without agreeing with it. Except Greene is a demagogue who likes to target people as a way of getting political support for herself. Get 'em angry and they'll remember my name. For instance her statement calling BLM a radical Marxist group. It's nonsensical but it works with people who despise BlackLivesMatter and for reasons other than economic theory.

Greene is someone who has suggested there is some international Jewish cabal that started the wildfires in California with a space laser. Seriously, in the 21st century someone is babbling nonsense like that?

She's not a good person, she's a conspiracy-spouting troublemaker, period. End-of-story. ;)

If they're not pretending, they are genuinely transgender. I suppose they could all be pretending just to troll Marjorie Taylor Greeene and her ilk, but I don't think so.

Imagine a teenager telling a parent they're gay. The parent says, "You're not gay." I bet you this has happened in thousands of households. "You're not gay, you just haven't met the right girl." "You're not gay. You could be straight anytime you decided to be it's just a choice." "You're not gay, you're pretending to be to antagonize your parents."

It is taking something critical to a person's identity and telling them it is make believe. I don't think you're doing that, but MTG is.

I use gay because people know better now, gay people still get the above reaction sometime but for the most part people are better informed. Acknowledging there really are transgender people is a step in the right direction. I don't know how to resolve some of the social issues transgenderism raises but I don't think people are pretending about how they feel.

There's something really obnoxious about being told how you feel or don't feel.

Your argument only works if one accepts that a trans-gender person actually is the gender they feel themselves to be.

Greene is not claiming that trans people do not exist. She is pointing out that they are not the gender they may demand to be considered. That is not denial of rights or privileges. She has proposed no penalties for believing oneself to be a gender other than what they are, nor has she proposed any for pretending to be a gender that one is not.

What she has chosen to highlight is that it is a violation of other peoples' rights and privileges to deny them the freedom to view reality independent of the "feelings" of someone else. A woman is an adult, human, female. A man does not become a woman by "feeling" like one. They become "a man who feels like a woman" a "trans-woman"

There is an entire thread (a very, very long and in depth one) regarding this issue. If you wish to go there, that is probably the place for discussing the basis of the claims.

You are conflating sex and gender and the meanings of these are diverging quite a bit through usage, often with the support of science.

As I think newyorkguy pointed out, if MTG had any reputation beyond being a vile, lying, gun-fetishist QAnon-babbling groper of imagined and probably real genitals, I might give her the benefit of the doubt. But no. She is rank through and through and her positions are cynically calculated to win the affection of the "Trump was robbed" liars promoting insurrection against the United States and absolutely *pining* for a Christian theocracy. I've stopped believing in any harmless interpretations of that. I have no compunction about believing her bigoted through and through. She is acting maliciously.

I notice the flag-flying specifies not "over" an embassy post so draping it from a window below the U.S. flag should be OK.

Except for the fact that she is claiming that there are only two genders, so that is exactly what she is doing - she is saying if you are male by sex, you MUST BE male by gender, i.e. of you are male by sex, you CANNOT be female by gender, therefore you are wrong, therefore your kind don't exist.

Except for the fact that this is untrue.

Again, it bears repeating - sex and gender are not the same thing. The science of psychology is very clear on this. Feeling that your sex and your gender do not match is a real thing, it actually happens to people, and it is NOT, repeat NOT a choice they get to make.

Except for the fact that for people to be treated as equals and not be discriminated against for characteristics they have no choice over, is a fundamental right. Black people don't choose to be black, gay people don't choose to be gay and transgender people don't choose to be transgender.

Advocating against that, which is what Greene has done, is advocating for a denial of rights.

Discrimination is a penalty. Opposing legislation to grant rights to people who suffer discrimination is in effect, allowing a penalty to continue to be imposed.

What a load of supercilious, ill-informed horse cock.

Transgender people, and their existence has ZERO EFFECT on people who are not transgender. It does not effect their rights or privileges; it does not change anything about how they go about their daily lives. But the discrimination YOU are advocating for (and lets be blunt, you are at the very lease a supporter of the homophobic, anti-LGBTQ crowd or you wouldn't be arguing on Greene's side of the debate) has a very real, very damaging psychological and emotional impact on people with gender identity issues.

This was Green's clear intent with her sign, to cause emotional hurt and distress to Newman and her daughter.

I propose that Marjorie Taylor Greene is not in fact a woman, and is in fact a form of ambulatory slime, along with those who agree with her.

Seems so, She is merely pretending to be something other than slime. No evidence has been offered that contradicts this so you are likely correct.

Which is why I advocate for altering it with a sharpie. That is, hit her sign with graffiti, constantly and publicly, and put the results on Facebook. She can bitch and moan about "denying freedom of speech" and such-like all she wants. Too bad; she passed on any sense of decency and respect ages ago. Tag her up!

I wonder if she's boffed Trump yet.

A different point of view by Utah's Republican governor Spencer Cox.

Discrimination by anyone other than the government is freedom of association. It isn't a penalty in your life that there are billions of people choosing not to interact with you.

That's nice to hear. It's a simple, empathetic response stripped of activist rhetoric pro or con. I wish more Republicans were like that.

My ignore list just grew by another bigot.

It's a pretty amazing argument. "How can MTG be a bigot if she's just saying things that I totally agree with?"

Yeah. Exactly.

Yup, if putting up that sign is MTG expressing her freedom of speech, then any sharpie graffiti would be the tagger expressing theirs.

A misrepresentation?

I would plea to "incomplete" representation.

Is "trust the science" really the part that has people upset?

Just catching up and you just saved me a lot of time.

It is a time-honoured method of counter-punching.

The whole thing is wrong. The entire message. The misrepresentation of science from a person who believes in Jewish Space Lasers starting fires is a part of that whole.