Put it On the Slate, and Throw it Back like a Discus
Hello, Dia dhuit, Hola, Olá, Nî hăo, greetings to all and profuse apologies for my egregious exclusionary habits by failing to mention every salutation in every dialect.
So yesterday I read a particularly profound fairy tale of adversity and triumph, written with close attention to personal gripes, self pity and a topsy turvy world of wicked witches, oppression and some other shit. I read it - not so you don't have to, because it's all repeated here - but to give it a new platform, with my own, tailored backing track facts. Sit back and enjoy!
Stop Trying to Out-Science Transphobes
It’s painful to watch people who purport to care about us attempt to dissect us.
By Riley Black, paelaentologist and all-around white guy
Watching your body and identity get dissected on the public stage wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone, but it’s become the status quo for transgender people.
Really? Sounds pretty hyperbolic to me. Dissected? Your body, you say?
Even as the Equality Act passed the House last week, offering hope that the Civil Rights Act can be expanded to protect people’s sexual orientation...
Oi, you turd - you're the ones trying to pressure lesbians into sex with your cocks (which are, mysteriously, simultaneously just like a dildo AND soft and utterly useless)
..and gender identity, some took the opportunity to weigh in on whether people like me do or should technically exist at all.
EXIST? What the fuck is this? Are you the kraken, wood elves? If a woman wrote this on her access to sporting teams there'd be such laughter the tectonic plates would slip, and an ensuing tsunami would wash us away. 'Technically exist' is just more word garnish on top of superfluous filler words. Try being honest - 'no one should consider the effect of my wishes on a protected group because I have wishes, and I really want my wishes to be met. I am above scrutiny'. I know honestly representing alternate viewpoints is literal violence but sort it out. Or just fuck off.
That same Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul subjected assistant health secretary nominee Rachel Levine to an offensive and transphobic tirade (https://www.thecut.com/2021/02/hhs-pick-rachel-levine-faced-transphobia-from-rand-paul.html)
Oh did he? What a pity it slipped your mind to link to the ACTUAL CLIP. Is this about asking a trans official about their views on trans healthcare? I thought you wanted that
..which purported to be out of concern for our medical well-being.
Our? In looking you up when writing this, I saw photos of you as a man..
(hope this isn't too graphic, babes). So you're not a kid, and you waited til you were out of uni, I assume, before identifying into oppression. These kids are not you. The narcissism is staggering.Also, Rand Paul is not too likeable, shall we say? - Somewhat slithery, possibly using mirrors as a portal into another world - so that means, clearly, concerns about puberty blockers, mastectomies and even genital surgery on under 18s are motivated simply by deep hate? Is that it?
(To be honest, babe: I think you should just go to town with it, I'm sure your readership can't be arsed with actually watching ol' wobble-chops studiously evade the question, and will take your statements of crap as fact. "Paul literally argued for all trans kids to be caged with the Mexicans! He says we should do terrible, long-lasting damage to their bodies, sterilise them, destroy their health and ability to orgasm!")
This probably didn’t gain more attention...
- Shit! I am sorry - that's what you consider appropriate healthcare
becaus...
- And come on - ludicrously glowing headlines of Levine 'gracefully batting back' Paul's questions were everywhere, along with Levine being thanked for answering when he swerved it like Jeremy Kyle avoids his guest's inquests.
....because Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene proudly posted a sign outside her office announcing that there are just two genders.
That feminazi, anti-science monster! You know what I'd do to these crazy bitches? Remove all ability to stand as representatives! How can they know what is right if they never asked you? Just sickening to think how long they've had rights as a protected class. All I'm saying is let's get her in the water and just see how it goes...
...That’s what sparked XX and XY to trend on Twitter and, infuriatingly, a wave of “gender critical” and hateful comments lobbed at trans people like me.
You poor, innocent, journo - paelaentologist, weighing in on a subject you know fuck all about, motivated by your desire to go around assured there will never be a single obstacle in your path, the rights of everyone shall be granted to you. Implying there's a defence for the shit you cannot justify, by linking back to every matey media out there in the stickiest, most incestuous circle wank ever known. Also, we're really gonna need to talk about what hateful comments are, what sex and gender is, what equality is... And how you can't avoid everyone's ire with "but muh immeasurable, un-evidenced, definitely real internal perception of myself is a physical characteristic tooooo!"
Over the weekend, Utah Rep. Burgess Owens and ex-President Donald Trump tried to position themselves as defenders of women by ranting about “manhood” and “biology.”
Please stop. You've succeded in such a parody of extremism, this is now a clown-world so unhinged that even stopped clocks, melting Dali-style into puddles, are correct. It's too much. I took acid in my teens and you're fuckin with me now.
Meanwhile, multiple states are still mulling over copy/paste legislation
- Copy/paste? Do you mean verbatim? Who did they copy from? Is this cheating? Oh, now I get how this might disturb you, sweaty -
created by the hate group Alliance Defending Freedom that would ban transgender girls from playing on sports teams matching their gender and, even worse, would criminalize health care for transgender children.
What is a gendered team? Sports are segregated by sex, not gender. Find me the vapogender volleyball team, the drag dressage, the neutrois netballers. Is this deliberate? Do you hide from all salient facts like rogue bullets at a drive by? Do you wear a set of blinkers when most of us wear masks? You know what you are - apart from personal insults I'm honestly trying to contain - you, sir, are an anti-facts-er.
(Also, you (obviously don't) know dysphoric kids matter, and deserve only positive and / or essential treatment? Are you outraged at the lack of thalidomide for nauseous, pregnant women people? Do you think it's shit the doctor won't affirm me with plentiful supplies of opiates and benzodiazepines? (To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if you were entirely up for women to be quietened down with some mother's little helpers, and possibly something even more tranquil for me. Ah well, you're not here for other people's battles, huh?))
The same conservatives who try to deny my rights based on “science” have also denied that cigarettes cause lung cancer, that humans are driving global climate change, and that evolution is real.
Well, you've a point. It's definitely an achievement to play such a magnificent parody of extremism while holding that straight, puritanical po-face. Have you actually pushed the agents of corporate, republican America into decency and sense? Are they scared by your reckless assault on fucking science?! Yes. Yes you have! Those Dali-style clocks are asymmetrically sliding down the walls, hands curled up in figures of eight, with one, long, jumbled pile of numbers AND STILL THEY ARE A SIGNIFICANTLY MORE RELIABLE SOURCE THAN YOU. As for evolution, are you shitting me? Your idea of Nobel prize-worthy biology being Jennifer Aniston's 'here comes the science bit', played by a stunning and brave Iggy Pop?
Through it all, whether they’re self-proclaimed feminists who never embraced inclusivity
- We don't include males in feminism, dude. Take that crock of shit to your village fete cake competition. See how that goes.
..or conservatives looking to give their base something to chew on, bigots keep talking about “the science.” “Trust the science!” said Greene’s sign, without a touch of irony.
Aha, now this sounds good, I may be about to change my tune. Finally I might be able to drop the difficult, ostracising position of being a TERF! I mean, it's not actually unpopular to understand the most basic facts of life, but saying so is definitely hard. I'm waiting, very excited here!
That “science” involves the kind of third grade biology basics that supposedly provide evidence that there are only two sexes
...right
...and that those sexes are fundamentally different.
U-huh...
Women make eggs and men make sperm, they tell us.
You're not going to argue otherwise, are you? Go on, PLEASE, explain the error of my ways..? How are babies made really?
They have taken to rhetorically asking what the “third gamete” is, as though conflating biology and gender will—I don’t know—make transgender people instantly disappear?
Oh great, more hyperbole and strawmen. You were talking about the anti-scientific idea of only two sexes, yeah? Fundamentally different, based on gamete production. And you were going to explain the fundamental problem with that? Where did stereotypes of gender come in? You're the one who factors gender into everything...
Sometimes it’s hard to know what these people actually want out of all their vitriol
*Hand shoots up in the air* Sir! Sir! I know! What we want is for women and girls to have the right to self segregate, to congregate sans males, to play sports fairly, to not have to compete against / play with / not be forced to share intimidate spaces with males.
But regardless of their aims, transphobes of all stripes appeal to the authority of science—science that is pretty easy to refute.
So, refute it. Just refute the fucking thing. Where's the third gamete, Riley? Is there an intermediate one? Who produces both, Riley?What are the other sexes called? You've nothing better than pop-culture nods to the wokerati in pop-culture media, have you? It's a few wobbly mirrors, smoke grenades, a tale about a hat giving birth to a rabbit... This show is shit.
This is a trap. Allies fall for this time (link https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony-science-to-justify-transphobia/)
Seriously? That's not science you moron. It's an ideological screed, bursting with logical fallacies, which uses DSDs and the bodies of people with them (remember the 'muh body been dissected!' bit at the beginning, dude? Can you see what a wretched, grasping series of appropriation and evasion this is?) It's shown to me as often as one of those laugh emojis is reckoned to crush an argument. It's been thoroughly debunked. Stop it.
and again (link https://theconversation.com/how-genes-and-evolution-shape-gender-and-transgender-identity-108911)
Ideological. circle wanking. bullshit.
The conservatives who try to deny my rights
- Your rights to my rights, and everyone else's, yeah? Oh you poor white professional males, no one understands you can't have impressive privilege if you have felt sadness or discomfort or ever felt all left out....
...based on “science” have also denied that cigarettes cause lung cancer, that humans are driving global climate change, and that evolution is real. They are not dealing in facts.
I'm so sorry for asking for more spoons/ emotional labour, it's indeed tough out there for white male paelaentologists who are published in international media with supposed reviews which function as nothing but verbal eyerolls and sad-pouts. But, you do look like you've the political inquiry, intellect and analytical nous of a support animal at this stage (although you support only yourself. And you presumably can't predict seizures, keep your paws off the biscuits on the table or be held as reliable in any way whatsoever) - Please name some salient facts? Is it literally the same people or have you just successfully rounded on enough lefties to create the illusion? Begin with the bit you call 'facts'...
Still, allies respond to inane and hateful transphobic statements
Such as? Such as males have bigger hearts and lungs pound for pound than females. That the permissable testosterone range for transwomen athletes is THREE TIMES that of women? Is it 'inane and hateful transphobic statements' like the angle of the femur between hip and knee (Q angle) being significantly great in women, resulting in a mechanical disadvantage and higher propensity for damage to the knee? The difference in bone density, limb length, the musculature disparities and number of fast twitch muscle fibres within those muscles?
Let's be clear, Riley - You are afraid of the science. Your managing to make the republicans look sensible here is testament to your lunatic bollocks alone.
...by trying to talk about the science themselves. They will often point out that people can have chromosomal combinations other than XX and XY
THAT'S NOT BEING TRANS, IS IT? SEX ≠ GENDER, matey. You're not intersex or suffering a chromosomal anomaly. You're a perfectly healthy, regular MALE who likes acting marginalised and fucking with women's rights
...that hormone replacement therapy leads to significant physical change,
But it doesn't un-do it, and it doesn't effect the things I just listed. However, of course it's fine for kids...
...and that producing particular gametes is not the sole definer of biological sex.
But it is. Well, whether your body has continued along the evolutionary pathway to produce ova or sperm - actual production is not necessary. So yeah, thats your loony balls again.
All true,
You fucking liar!
...and all playing into the idea that transgender people can have their bodies scrutinized, poked at, and talked about as a set of constituent parts instead of being treated as people first.
No mate. You want our rights. Jesus, this is like a princess whingeing to her servants about a pea under a thousand plush mattresses.
By engaging in the back-and-forth at all,
No debate! I hereby command complicity in an evasion of all conversation of our colonial land grab. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia...
...allies are buying into the idea that there needs to be a scientifically justified reason for trans people like me to have the same rights as everyone else.
Same rights as everyone you want, all the time, all at once. From the rights of Sikhs to not wear helmets on motorbikes to a pension at 22, and a war widows' fund. How dare you oppress me! Now officer *hick* I cannot provide a blood sample as I am a Rasta*hick*farian. I may make a complaint about yourrrra, your obv*hick*ous racialismism... Good day. *CRASH*
Spending so much time trying to scientifically justify the existence of trans
Shut up. Honestly, you're uncomfortable, possibly to the stage you are unable to cope without simulating being female. We know, no one cares, that is fine and most of us have compassion and will call you she etc...
..people can inhibit our ability to go about our lives
Casually taking our rights
and, as writer Katelyn Burns put it, enjoy a “trans day of leaving us alone.”
Jesus fuckin Christ, the irony! Burns who can write about the history of Mitchfest, centring the apparent misgendering of a trans 'lesbian' nearly 50 yrs ago, celebrating the demise of a women only festival (we are allowed NOTHING) and lauding the heroic 'camp trans' who harassed them for years, without even mentioning that their leader murdered two old, lesbian women and their adopted son as he reeled off into narcissistic rage. Funnily enough, they were murdered in the last year it was held. But yeah, hurrah for your progressive, feminist movement. Pricks.
Oh, and how about keeping your mits off international women's day?
Take sports, for example. People have been arguing over how transgender athletes should fit into sports for years, with much of the discussion centered on scientific-sounding arguments (link https://www.wired.com/story/the-glorious-victories-of-trans-athletes-are-shaking-up-sports/) around testosterone levels, muscle mass, win-loss records (link https://www.outsports.com/2019/12/3/20990763/trans-women-athlete-sports-winning-losing-transgender) and the like.
I know it's difficult for someone who doesn't even understand their own words, much less the 'arguments' they claim to have, but these are scientic arguments. And you have lost that, because you never could have won on the facts. That's why you constantly make shit up and cry
People—who often are not trans—throw out possibilities
..experts from sporting bodies... not even transitioning so they can discuss you with authority, huh? Cos that's how it's done, yeah? Works wonders for some people.
..for what would acceptably allow a trans person to compete, like chromosome testing, hormone-level checks, a third sports league for gender nonconforming people, and other bad ideas.
Gender non conforming? Did your parents slip into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasnt looking? No one gives a flying fuck about gender conformity - it's about biological sex
These may be well-meaning attempts to normalize trans participation, but what they signal to me is that only those of us who pass or become adequately akin to cisgender people are acceptable
The brazen, stubbly fucking cheek - like this is what it's about. Yeah, female athletes famously conform and are praised for it. Fatima Whitbread, Serena Williams.... Jesus christ this is the most bad faith, self-pitying pile of shit I've read in a while. Your total lack of knowledge, awareness of the struggles women face, the contemptuous foot stamping is so blatant. You are to feminism what Henry the 8th was to relationship counselling.
It’s a move that lets cisgender people set the standard about who is acceptable
No. It isn't cisgender people who don't transition - fuck off with your anti-science, pro gender categories. How pathetically mindless is your readership? Do they get startled by shiny paper? Do they leap up in terror at their own farts?
...and who is not, based on the intimate biological workings of our bodies.
It's science. Biology. No one cares about the intimate details of your body, grotbag. What do you think you're doing by endlessly conflating your refusal to admit you're male with people born with DSDs? Then griping about ignorant scrutiny of your body? That is some staggering level of hypocrisy. Fucking ghoul.
It also still does not stop all the pseudoscientific hate. Science isn’t going to win this one.
I know! Hence this pathetic dirge to your inability to always get exactly what you want without delay or discussion. This whole tirade of petulant entitlement is nothing more than a claim of hurty feels giving you total supremacy to get away with anything you and your brethren want. It's as compelling a tactic as dad-dancing on the roadside to distract those police from your drunk driving.
When the argument turns to strangers trying to affirm or deny my identity on the basis of biological particulars, I head for the hills like the dinosaurs in Fantasia running from the T. rex.
Nah. I know it's as real-life a synonym as you can muster but this isn't about your self-identified labels. Your identity is irrelevant, and also, just not interesting.
That’s because trans rights are not a scientific issue.
Sports, you fuckin dullard, are a scientific issue. Overturning sex segregation because you think on the inside you're a bit too special... well, that's not actually a right. Play sports, compete. Just stop using appeals to emotion to get your way with everything, all the time
They are a human rights issue.
Have you ever thought about women's rights? Since you claim to be a woman, although it's crystal you actually cling to being trans as a lifetime hall-pass. Can you imagine, for a second, if teams, spaces, categories built for the protection, fairness in participation and dignity of trans people were thrown open to any 'cishet' prick with a rainbow badge to adorn their clothes?
There is certainly a lot we could say
No there isn't - this is hundreds of words to say 'Me! Me! Give it!'
—and that I would honestly love to know!—about human sexual variation,
I'm failing to believe this is sincere, matey
..the effects of hormone replacement therapy, why hoped-for bodily changes are so emotionally fulfilling,
Which is great. Enjoy. Just stop lying to and about us.
...and more. Some of these things might be wonderful topics for biology classes; imagine if every high schooler in America were educated to understand that human sex itself comes with a lot of variation
Mate... There is variation between the two distinct sexes, unambiguously clear at birth almost always. But it's not a spectrum. I sense you edging towards DSDs yet again. You need to accept your internal perception doesn't change material reality. You are, always will be, male. There's a reason delusional, psychotic people jumping from high-rises don't fly. Belief is not enough. You can't get away from truth, and you're looking like a prick.
(Thinking back to my younger, closeted self, that would have helped!)
That would be telling you that your male body might be large, hairy, well-endowed or small, smooth and puny. That would be the stunning revelation there. Not that sex doesn't matter, or can change or is outdone by your synthetic hormones or dress wearing.
But, in terms of deciding how I, as a trans person, am going to move through the world, all the information about hormones and biology affects three people, at most: my doctor, my partner, and myself. That’s all.
It would be great, and we can do that - just stop making shit up, keep out of our sports, spaces and shortlists. No one is persecuting you, and it's telling you think our rights are an assault on you. That is supremacy.
What we’re living through is a trans panic akin to the satanic panic (link https://www.vox.com/2016/10/30/13413864/satanic-panic-ritual-abuse-history-explained)
Oh fuck off. See, I got all conciliatory and hopeful there, and then you go off again about how YOU are the fucking witch at the trial? The arrogance required is pure male mediocrity.
...of the ’80s and ’90s, when parents and police were convinced there were devil-worshipping cults infiltrating every facet of society.
You, sir, are a cry-bully of the most tedious brand. We are saying you are male and thus have a biological advantage in sports. We are patiently telling you what feminism is and still you strut around like a tiny, nasty little dog behind a massive fence that protects you
It is not logical. Going over, yet again, how hormone levels, chromosomes, skeletal features, and more vary in many complex ways is not going to make a lick of difference to people who see me and others like me as an abomination,
'old me back! hold me back!
..a threat to the nuclear family,
Which feminists have never been accused of!
..or somehow capable of ruining their day because I need to use the women’s room.
But it ruins YOUR day to use the men's, does it? A big strapping lad lass like you?
All this time spent debating “the science” of where transgender people belong in society
*Sports*. Do you even remember what this poor-me harangue was about, or it is a stream of consciousness fixated on your inner child?
..only confuses a truth many are struggling to accept.
This isn't like flirting, you know that? No one wants to keep listening to see if you ever stop orbiting a fantasy 'truth'. God you are a really, really shit writer. It's painful.
It is a distraction no matter which side of the argument you are on, because you are complicating and putting up for debate something that is very simple.
Trans men are men.
Hmm, I really don't think you've established that, cock.
Trans women are women.
Nice of you to put the ladies first (chivalry!)
Nonbinary people are valid.
Did you understand any of those words?
Trans people have always been here.
Hmmm. See, who cares if that's another lie? I can't be fucked with keeping a tally. It's what you're doing, right here, that's the problem
We are here now.
Don't I fucking know it?
We will continue to be.
*Unless accidentally erased by an incomplete door sign*
Riley Black is the author (presumably by continually alluding to myths and never substantiating anything) of the natural history books Skeleton Keys and My Beloved Brontosaurus (a wild, pink dragon found in West Meath or Romford on weekends)
She lives in Salt Lake City.
