By David Futrelle
So I’ve done it: I’ve found the weirdest and most delusional take on the Coronavirus yet, and it comes not from the incels or the MGTOWs or the Trump administration but rather from the “Gender Critical” subreddit, the main hangout of Reddit’s TERFs.
You may need a stiff drink to get through the whole post.
“With so many people forced to work from home,” someone called itsnotaboutewe began.
we should spare a thought for all the TIMs who are now unable to receive outside validation for their delusions.
Just remember that “TIM,” in TERF-speak, means “Trans-Identified Male,” i.e. what the rest of us know as a trans woman.
What happens to the man who calls himself a woman and who usually wears makeup, heels, and a smart pencil skirt to work when he no longer has an audience for his performance?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say “nothing.” Nothing happens to trans women that doesn’t happen to anyone else forced to work at home.
Does he sit in front of his home computer in pyjama bottoms without his wig and cry into his coffee because he hasn’t been told by co-workers how lovely he looks this morning?
If there’s any crying into coffee going on it might have to do with the fact that we’re in the midst of a horrifying and surreal global pandemic that could easily kill as many as 1.7 million Americans and millions more across the world, not to mention leaving billions in precarious financial situations. That all makes me a bit sad.
How will they cope without the constant validation they need to function as mentally ill misogynistic men in a society that no longer prioritises them?
Yes, the people who have to fight for the right to use the correct public bathrooms are truly the “prioritized” ones in contemporary society.
Does the fact that way more males than females are dying from covid-19 plunge their self identification into turmoil?
I”m going to say no.
Due to the different death rates between the sexes, and the fact that this virus doesn’t give a shit about how you self-identify, I think coronavirus has feminist leanings and is more than a bit terfy.
Yes, that’s right, a TERF has just declared that the coronavirus is also a TERF, because it kills more men than women and makes trans women sad.
Again, I’m not saying this; a TERF is saying this.
Itsnotaboutewe’s post got some 800 upvotes on the so-called Gender Critical subreddit, and inspired more than a hundred comments, many of which are as unlovely and nonsensical as the original post:
According to Artemis_Jade,
The OP’s question is very valid. Trans comes down to “I want to be TREATED as if I were the opposite sex.” So then, is it possible to be trans if you are alone on a desert island?
c1ar3 joked
If a trans falls in a forest and no one is around to hear xer, does xe make a sound?
tervacious made the same joke:
This gave me the giggles. If a tree falls in the ladies toilets, does it make a trans sound?
jennywhistle agreed
This is what I hate about transgenderism. They can’t deny it wouldn’t exist in a vacuum. All that matters is how everyone else sees you.
soundsfromoutside sounded more than a little like an incel or a MGTOW hungering for the apocalypse because they think it will return society back to its “normal” gender roles:
This pandemic and economic crash is going to wake a lot of people up to reality. We had too much time on our hands, we were comfortable, we were spoiled-all of us. We worried about shit that didn’t matter, fought over things that led up to nothing.
Now, we are right back to our primitive roots: survival. Food, medicine, our families, our safety. We are going to see a rise in deaths, a rise a crime. We aren’t going to be worried about who is wearing what when our parents and grandparents are in the hospital. Pronouns, names, clothing, these are all nonproblems now (undoubtedly, some people will still try to make this about them).
This gleeful celebration of other people’s (imagined) misery is not really a good look, Gender Crits — especially when you’re trying to pretend to be a progressive civil rights movement, much as the Men’s Rights Activists do.
I found only one comment in the thread that took serious issue with the OP. Someone called 54321_Sun wrote:
This is rude and bullying, and beneath gender critical thought, I hope.
I come to this sub to feel validated, but when I see things like this, I start to get sick to my stomach, because I know that these type of posts can be used against us, rightfully so.
Naturally, the other Gender Crits voted this comment down below zero, because that’s what happens in a hate subreddit when anyone expresses similar concerns.
Bigoted assholes don’t like to be told not to be bigoted assholes, I guess.
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@Allandrel
Yes it is exactly that debate. Except that we are currently in a timeline where there will likely be the same discussions prefaced with a lot of other country leaders names. The Trumpist bioterrorists or the great britain immunity herders or the german storytellers could probably be such names.
You either read the wrong sources or are trying to trip me up. That question is elementary.
True, they failed to see the obvious warlike and civil application of nuclear power, imported medicine and lost the race on communication technology, which is why, if I remember correctly, the US of A has nukes and Germany only has american nukes and some civil reactors. But please don’t forget that German scientists helped build the stuff, so you know…at least the ex-nazis saw the errors of their ways.
The key word here is inefficient. Even their beloved Führer who was very much into magic and … well as one argument goes some very problematic art that required constant human sacrifice….did not look too kindly on war technology that failed to deliver. Yes, many of those experiments where cruel, unneccesary and shoddiliy done from any serious ethical perspective but they did not produce zero data, they just thought us a few horrible ways in which a human body can decay and die — and decided to do so in a pre-university format with lots of data points missing or drawn with metaphorical cryon. Still some of it was horribly efficient. Ze Germanz may have loved their Wunderwaffen and many sacrificed their lives for it and a lot of favoritsm happened, but in war time, bad ideas have a habit of disappearing along with their creator. If it was any different, we would not find any medical, engineering or communication technology to come out of a war — when in reality, the opposite is the case. Bellum omnium pater as Heraklit famously said still sorta holds true and only gets ignored when one believes history to have ended, as some americans do, thanks in part to to this book book and adaption in popular media.
Of course we have culturalized wars nowadays and weaponized memes are just another fine technology that will have to be studied. Let’s hope by someone else than Dawinks or some talkshow figureheads.
Your argument is purely cultural here. As the t-shirt slogan goes: Science..it works — and sadly, so does engineering.
A rock and physics in general do not care if you use it to make the most sustainable fire to cook the most sustainable and vegan dish presumably for a free-spirit community of mammotheers — or if you use it to bash a poor childs skull in to feast on it — or set up a cruel experiment to have a bunch of unfortunate kids canibalize each other in order to prove some weird hypothesis. The question (apart from the relative Merit of scenario A if you want to get data fast) is how to deal with data obtained from scenario B.
Even a nazi scientist can’t fail to get some data points right if he murders enough people to get that data. This is also how the US archieved a lot of it’s superior weaponry in regards to biological and psychological weapons that today have been demilitarized and helped create a spiraling pharmaceutical sector. A lot of todays drugs where yesterdays super weapons, a lot of “really cool medical tools” are ripped from some super soldiers kit on either side of a war and rebranded to taste. I’m sorry if that upsets you, but it’s how the world works.
The question thus becomes how those afflicted by non-conformity with neurotypicals can best become their free people in their own right, especially when they have intersecting issues with racism, (cis)sexism, classism…etc. I propose that those daring enough to have some milder scenario B techniques tried on them should be able to do so and be allowed to share data, while those that are very afraid of that help should be allowed to stick with type A data or, if that is prefered, the option of no treatment. Freedom is important but if you don’t even know why someone is different and just how to find ways to turn conflicts in the real world into opportunities for mutually benefical cooperation — the real thing, not corpspeak for partly coercive partly abusive synergy/cooperation — the situation stagnates and non-autistic persons will probably continue to be their obnoxious normal selves and make a lot of people in the spectrum suffer and mask. So unless you are proposing autism-supremacy (I have met people who do), I see no good way out of this dilemma of incomplete and dirty data and the need to have good data. I hope I have not implied that one should embrace the pain this problem brings but rather that it requires a solution.
@Lisa
You’re not addressing my point: I never denied that the scientists were competent, or that the experiments produced data. I’m questioning whether the scientists were honest, and whether the experiments produced the data that they claimed it did.
Nazi Germany is infamous for not being a model of valuing results over politics. Much of the high command structure was set up with overlapping duties, so that they would be working against each other instead of trying to unseat Hitler, for example. They had all manner of problems due to the pressure to take actions that pleased superiors, rather than actions that served one’s assigned duties. They were, quite simply, Stupid Evil.
@Lisa
I don’t quite understand what you mean. I think people should be allowed to seek therapies or other treatments if they so desire as consenting adults. I do not support the use of unsupported therapies on children as forced by parents, as is the case with some treatments.
I am not proposing any sort of autistic supremacy. I am merely proposing that I be treated as an equal by allistic individuals and that our voices be respected.
I might be misreading this, but to me this reads like you are saying that autistic people are a problem in need of a solution. This is a deeply ableist view and is that held by groups like Autism Speaks. We are not a problem to be solved. Some of us may struggle with certain things, but that does not mean we are a problem.
@Allandrel
Because I concur on that point.
I tried hard to say the data was both produced unethically and not accurate…i.e..dirty.
Yes and our infamy is legendary. Still…other nation states commit warcrimes too and also do unethical research .. and other bussiness.
If they indeed were stupid evil they did quite a good job of keeping up fighting for so long, did they not? Also they managed to slaughter a lot of soldiers and civilians with their stupidity which linked up great with the stupidity of the rest of the axis……..or, if you want to get geopolitical, with the stupidity that is nation states and artificial borders. Please do not underestimate the power of a lot of stupid ideas, communication technology and easily influenced people — not while Trump remains the god king of bad memes. In your minds eye you can turn me into some sort of Deutsches Blitzmädel with a medic bag who is confused about her cause, and you probably should if you must in order to take my argument seriously…but please oh please stop lying to yourself about the brutal efficiency of that ideology you dismiss as stupid. We have not won yet.
@Naglfar
First things first..
You are and I am sorry. Also your avatar looks like a dog and I like dogs so…your criticism is quite powerfull, in case you did not realize.
I was trying to say that the conflicts betwen autistic and allistic people were a painfull problem to be solved and tried my best to say that I was a bit biased against allistics / neurotypicals…yet….
Sorry for that.
I agree.
I agree. Therapies must be founded in good science, especially when consent is even more of a concern than for adults with only minor psychosocial, financial and other issues.
Good, then we probably have the same oppinion and only vary in details. Sorry for messing up a post and causing this much stress but a group discussion over a hard-to-use-interface while preparing for an important appointment and a tendency to feel seems to cause me to make stupid mistakes.
@Lisa
If you agree that the data is not accurate, and therefore useless, then what are you even arguing about? Other than going on about how Nazis and other warring regimes do produce scientific advances, which no one was arguing against, or that the Nazis were Super Effective despite their evil, which sounds like apologetics.
And if you feel like I’m attacking Germans and German science… I’m not. I have repeatedly referred to Nazis and Nazi Germany. As an American who currently has fascists in power, it’s not like I think one group represents a country in its entirety for all time.
@Lisa
My apologies if I have misread you. The avatar image is my Siberian Husky. I now understand a bit better what you mean, so I apologize if I was overly critical of you.
@Allandrel
Nuance, scientific and non-binary thinking from a leftist perspective which abhors facism but also the evils of ((post)modern)capitalism. In a thread about trans people, possible (disen)abling co-morbidities , some of them affecting youth and a lot of people who like to be nasty while everyone is stressed oh and proper arseholes at the last we are angry at.
If defending desperate attempts to learn from bad and unethical science is apologetics, I hope you have fun siding with another ideology because you are afraid of science and will not indulge you further.
You appear to do. I understand. If not please don’t and explain this to me. You sound incredibly angry. I might be to blame for that and am sorry.
Yeah…just hope your country keeps the death toll lower than my country did or consider moving / living with the problem. Sorry again but…that’s sorta how it works….
@lisa
He’s mad at Nazi. You know the ones who raped,murdered,slaughters, experimented on abd work to death millions of people. When i was in middle school i read an account about a Nazi officer who took a woman toddler away from her ahd threw it at an electric fences until he died. That left me having nightmares for a long time and that is something to be angry about.
@Lainy
Completly understandable, what a horrible story. My personal trauma was a couple of shoa movies so I can relate..guess I’ll just shut up for now.
@Lisa
As Lainy said, I am angry at Nazis. My own country is well on the path to repeating their crimes, and a lot of this comes from those who are, if not Neo-Nazis, at least fans.
And a LOT of Nazi apologetics starts off with “the Nazis were actually super awesome at doing stuff despite being evil” and “looking for silver linings in their unethical science” before moving on to justifications, then praise.
So it’s a red flag to me.
And the Nazis human experiments were not just “unethical.” They were monstrous. Many of them were sadistic torture for no scientific purpose. The only thing we can learn from this is how people will justify atrocities. There’s certainly no honest scientific data there, and more than there is from the “work” of Unit 731.
As for my condemnation of Nazis feeling like condemnation of Germans, what can I do besides constantly include caveats that “I recognize that ‘German’ does not equal ‘Nazi’ any more than ‘American’ equals ‘Trumpist?'” You can tell I’m talking about Nazis rather than Germans in general because I keep referring to Nazis rather than Germans.
I can’t. I’m a disabled dialysis patient who is at severe risk from the coronavirus, and dependent on what little social programs the US has for basically everything. I’m one of the “Undesirables,” and one who is at their mercy.
@Allandrel
Am I the only one who found the repeated phrase “sorry but that’s sorta how it works” or similar to be awfully similar to the conservative refrain “facts don’t care about your feelings?”
@Allandrel
@Nagflfar
Writes something on a piece of cardboard paper to hold up for you to read
*writes a small addendum and tapes it on*
@Allandrel
Not to interrupt the current Nazi discussion, but I have a question about the so-called trans bathroom bills. And since this is still technically a thread about trans issues….
Speaking as someone who’s worked in the food/retail industries for years, just how strictly are those businesses supposed to enforce who’s allowed in which bathroom, and under what circumstances? I’ve had situations crop up where the line to the Women’s Room was several people long while the Men’s Room was empty. Would a bathroom law mean i couldn’t give permission to the waiting women to go ahead and use the other bathroom (with the understanding than any guy who shows up gets to ‘jump the line’)?
Would the elderly gentleman who wants to accompany his wheelchair-bound wife into the ladies room to help her out be forced to stay outside while a worker who has NO medical training helps his wife ‘take care of her needs’? Would the cashier on duty not be allowed to advise a little old lady whose stroke left her with zero bladder control that she has permission to use the men’s room if the ladies room is occupied?
Just how much policing are retail and restaurant workers/managers supposed to do to enforce such a bill, on top of everything else that has to get done, and done yesterday? Because most places just won’t have a person to spare whose sole job on a shift is ‘monitor and make sure the right people go into the right bathrooms’. So how is that supposed to work out in the Real World(tm)?
@Naglfar
Icke’s a strange one there. Sure he did say that about the Protocols, but then claimed “Jew” was a code word for “reptilian” and has essentially stuck to that bizarre interpretation. If he is anti-Semitic, he’s become so invested in his specific flavoring of it that he can’t even remember who it was supposed to refer to. Plus, it wouldn’t be the first time his brand of cuckoo drew in other kinds of craziness to it. This is a man who believes most of reality is a hologram being beamed down from aliens inside the hollow moon, after all.
@Anonymous
That’s the issue. He is claiming Jews are reptilians bent on world domination, which is obviously antisemitic.
I think it might more be that either a) he thinks Jews are reptilians as mentioned above or b) he knows it’s frowned upon in many contexts to openly recite antisemitic conspiracy theories is he tries to make it more palatable by replacing Jews with lizard people.
Comparisons of Jews to lizards and snakes have been around for a long time. This isn’t new.
For one, the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t the same as a desert island scenario. Social interactions are still happening all of the time. But it also shows how little they understand transness: Most trans and nonbinary people suffer dysphoria over physical sex characteristics. You know, those things that are with you 24/7. That is why most trans and nonbinary people take hormones and many undergo surgery. There is a social component to gender dysphoria/incongruence/euphoria, but it isn’t the only aspect.
Being trans or nonbinary isn’t a choice and can’t be altered by world events in this way. But even with that mind, it isn’t known why there is a gender disparity between men and women. I have seen some speculation that estrogens might play a role. You know, that thing most trans women take. Also, handwashing habits might play a role. Now, I am not sure if there is a consensus on why the gender disparity exists, but it shouldn’t be taken as a given that trans women’s risk is identical to cis men’s risk. Also, it is just that: Risk. Plenty of cis women are getting COVID-19 and dying of it. Likelihoods aren’t solid predictions.