London Anarchist bookfair 2020

[Rhyddical]

Why is anyone entertaining this obvious troll?

I shouldn't "feed the troll", guess they just hit a nerve. Anyways I'm in the blissfull world of having ignored them now ;p

 

[Larry Noppius]

So one of these mysterious biologists told you that sex was a social construct?

No they told me the opposite, as I've made abundantly clear.

A transgender women, is a women who was assign male at birth.

That's a contradiction in terms, as being male is a defining aspect of a man and being female is a defining aspect of a woman, ergo there is no such thing as a male woman or female man.

The corrolation of male - > man and Female - > Woman is an over simplistic one. Appied as an absolute in populations of millions, it is evidentially inaccurate with numerous accounts of people assigned male at birth who have a uterus and such.

You have no idea what a correlation is, do you? Provide the definition of a correlation (without looking it up) and show the range of values it can take, is its value required to be 1 or -1, or can it have other values? (hint: correlations aren't required to be perfect, indeed very few of them are, yet they are still used all the time - can you tell us why?)

You see what makes a male, male and a female, female is more than their reproductive organs and there are several stanges of sexual development in which the binary M/F becomes less distinguishable.

The perception of a hard-and-fast separation between the sexes started to disintegrate during the second wave of feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. In the decades that followed, we learned that about 1.7 percent of babies are born with intersex traits; that behavior, body shape, and size overlap significantly between the sexes, and both men and women have the same circulating hormones; and that there is nothing inherently female about the X chromosome. Biological realities are complicated. People living their lives as women can be found, even late in life, to be XXY or XY. For generations, the false perception that there are two distinct biological sexes has had many negative indirect effects. It has muddied historical archaeological records, and it has caused humiliation for athletes around the globe who are closely scrutinized. In the mid-1940s, female Olympic athletes went through a degrading process of having their genitals inspected to receive “femininity certificates.” This was replaced by chromosome testing in the late 1960s, and subsequently hormone testing. But instead of rooting out imposters, these tests illustrated the complexity of human sex. Students are often inaccurately taught that all babies inherit either XX or XY sex chromosomes, and that having XX chromosomes makes you female, while XY makes you male. In reality, people can have XXY, XYY, X, XXX, or other combinations of chromosomes — all of which can result in a variety of sex characteristics. It’s also true that some people with XX chromosomes develop typically male reproductive systems, and some people with XY chromosomes develop typically female reproductive systems.

Perhaps look up Anne Fausto-Sterling, whose article five different ways of measuring sex you may illuminating.

Already read it long ago, makes the same, let's be honest, simplistic reasoning errors that you do, including not knowing what a correlation is nor the statistics of dependent variables. Here's but one refutation.

This mind is simply all about "sex". Which you seem to be struggling with.
I don't really want to start on gender which is much more complex and would require some abstract thought I do not have the crayons to explain to you.

I literally LOL'd at this for like 5 minutes. Sure, the chum who doesn't even know what a correlation is is going to have to explain abstract thought to me. Here, how about you show yourself capable of some abstract thought:

Let P be a probability distribution over the universe {male, female, other} which is bimodal with strong peaks at {male} and {female} and let S(P) be the information entropy of P (provide the definition of information entropy of a probability distribution without looking it up). Let P_max be the maximum entropy distribution over that universe and S_max its entropy. Show if S(P) is significantly smaller than S_max and explain what that tells you about the information content of P.

Let me ask you, what exactly is your field of expertise? Are you a biologist? Have you had any scientific training whatsoever?

 

[Larry Noppius]

BTW, your biologists seem to be shit. here are some better ones.

I randomly opened one of those links and it had nothing relevant to say, you're apparently just throwing out a list of random papers. This may impress the scientifically illiterate but your flunking of basic statistics as well as the lack of relevance of the paper referenced makes me think you're just a dime-a-dozen crank. That you claim we have evidence of extraterrestrial life makes this determination even more likely, since it happens to be that now we're getting pretty close to my field of expertise (physics) and I can tell you damn well that we do not have evidence, let alone solid evidence, of extraterrestrial life.

 

[Athos]

So one of these mysterious biologists told you that sex was a social construct?


"Gender is a social construct" is what people say in this discussion. Anyone who said "sex is a society construct" seems to believe that sex and gender are the same thing and interchangable. Which they are not.

A transgender women, is a women who was assign male at birth.

The corrolation of male - > man and Female - > Woman is an over simplistic one. Appied as an absolute in populations of millions, it is evidentially inaccurate with numerous accounts of people assigned male at birth who have a uterus and such.


Now that's the easy one.

You see what makes a male, male and a female, female is more than their reproductive organs and there are several stanges of sexual development in which the binary M/F becomes less distinguishable.

The perception of a hard-and-fast separation between the sexes started to disintegrate during the second wave of feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. In the decades that followed, we learned that about 1.7 percent of babies are born with intersex traits; that behavior, body shape, and size overlap significantly between the sexes, and both men and women have the same circulating hormones; and that there is nothing inherently female about the X chromosome. Biological realities are complicated. People living their lives as women can be found, even late in life, to be XXY or XY. For generations, the false perception that there are two distinct biological sexes has had many negative indirect effects. It has muddied historical archaeological records, and it has caused humiliation for athletes around the globe who are closely scrutinized. In the mid-1940s, female Olympic athletes went through a degrading process of having their genitals inspected to receive “femininity certificates.” This was replaced by chromosome testing in the late 1960s, and subsequently hormone testing. But instead of rooting out imposters, these tests illustrated the complexity of human sex. Students are often inaccurately taught that all babies inherit either XX or XY sex chromosomes, and that having XX chromosomes makes you female, while XY makes you male. In reality, people can have XXY, XYY, X, XXX, or other combinations of chromosomes — all of which can result in a variety of sex characteristics. It’s also true that some people with XX chromosomes develop typically male reproductive systems, and some people with XY chromosomes develop typically female reproductive systems.

Perhaps look up Anne Fausto-Sterling, whose article five different ways of measuring sex you may illuminating.

...

I'll be returning to my "only talking about bookfair" line now x

It's ironic that you quote a load of scientific papers (some of which I'm not sure actually support your claims, incidentally) after: first, having previously said that this thread isn't the place to talk about the science; and, secondly, effectively that science cannot be trusted.

In any event, I don't want to get into the science, so won't go through your claims one by one (not least of all because I suspect you're parroting stuff that's being fed to you, but which you don't understand).

Rather, it suffices to make the point that even if the existence of intersex conditions did cast doubt on the idea that humans are sexually dimorphic, even the most radical biologist wouldn't claim that the existence of categories between male and female change the fact that the vast majority of trans women are biologically indistinguishable from those who are unequivocally male.

But, to keep this about the bookfair rather than the science, how about you tackle this question:

Absent any consensus amongst anarchists on this point, what is the mandate for your group to exercise the power of exclusion over other anarchists, for expressing (in a non-abusive way, at a relevant point in discussions) views* which, whilst you may not agree with them, are not generally recognised by anarchists to be at odds with any fundamental tenet of anarchism?

*specifically the view that 'trans women are not women', without the undeniably transphobic stuff about all trans women being rapists etc. with which you repeatedly dishonestly try to conflate it.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

It might seem a bit late in the day but it’s worth asking “what is the point of an anarchist book fair?” There’s quite a few answers. Help anarchists meet up with old comrades. Meet new ones. Publicise campaigns and organisations. Provide funding for bookshops and publishers. Have a good and interesting time encountering new and ideas etc. Above all to try and spread the word to all and sundry. Other anarchists, fellow travellers, radicals of all description. Plus interested punters off the street with little knowledge of anarchism. But this insistence in conformity to an ideological position on a side-issue on which there is not just a disagreement but a gaping chasm between the two sides does nobody any good. Rhyddical’s slagging off of those who disagree as bigots and transphobes is ignorant and offensive to very many comrades whose viewpoints are far from bigoted. It risks further entrenching division and scaring off many on the left, particularly feminists and particularly women.

 

[Rob Ray]

I'm sure they'll take your wise and in no way self-serving unsolicited back-seat driving with the seriousness it deserves.

On a different note, I think the bookfair should have waffles. They're a great snack and criminally underrepresented at anarcho gatherings imv.

 

[Red Sky]

I'm sure they'll take your wise and in no way self-serving unsolicited back-seat driving with the seriousness it deserves.

On a different note, I think the bookfair should have waffles. They're a great snack and criminally underrepresented at anarcho gatherings imv.

Oh and cats no doubt....

 

[Rhyddical]

I think the bookfair should have waffles. They're a great snack and criminally underrepresented at anarcho gatherings imv.

I support this move. American, European and Potato, everything with waffle in the name is glorious.

 

[Pickman's model]

I support this move. American, European and Potoato, everything with Waffles in the name is glorious.

There's always been enough waffle at the bookfair

 

[Athos]

Anarchy Waffles

 

[Larry Noppius]

Rather, it suffices to make the point that even if the existence of intersex conditions did cast doubt on the idea that humans are sexually dimorphic, even the most radical biologist wouldn't claim that the existence of categories between male and female change the fact that the vast majority of trans women are biologically indistinguishable from those who are unequivocally male.

A little bit of grey exists (green arrow) therefor the pixel pointed to by the red arrow is white. The reasoning errors are so simplistic as to be an insult to the intellect.

 

[JudithB]

trans women have been allowed to compete as women in elite sport since 2003. The crunch never came. Not one trans woman in any Olympics since then. So why is someone who pupports to be an anarchist standing up to oppose the universal human right to access sport?

They changed the rules in 2016 and I think you probably know this. SRS is no longer required. Testosterone levels need to be dropped to still 3 x women's top testosterone levels.

 

[smokedout]

Given this thread has descended into non anarchists hijacking the conversation in order to try and force a discussion on trans issues despite the wishes of everyone else it seems a pretty good example of the problems the bookfair collective might face if they conceded and allowed an organised GC presence at the bookfair.

 

[LDC]

Given this thread has descended into non anarchists hijacking the conversation in order to try and force a discussion on trans issues despite the wishes of everyone else it seems a pretty good example of the problems the bookfair collective might face if they conceded and allowed an organised GC presence at the bookfair.

I'm not sure I've seen anybody arguing that there should be any organised non-anarchist (or even anarchist) GC presence at the Bookfair though have they? Most of the disagreements seem to be over the tone of the Bookfair generally, and then what 'transphobia' is and who should decide and then police people's attendance/being welcome based on this definition.

 

[JudithB]

Given this thread has descended into non anarchists hijacking the conversation in order to try and force a discussion on trans issues despite the wishes of everyone else it seems a pretty good example of the problems the bookfair collective might face if they conceded and allowed an organised GC presence at the bookfair.

One replying post from a GC = a good example of problems of a GC presence. Check your misogyny. We'll be at the back with our lips superglued shut...

 

[butchersapron]

Hopefully

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Given this thread has descended into non anarchists hijacking the conversation in order to try and force a discussion on trans issues despite the wishes of everyone else it seems a pretty good example of the problems the bookfair collective might face if they conceded and allowed an organised GC presence at the bookfair.

How can you tell who are non-anarchists? ‘Everyone else’ is a slight exaggeration. There is a lot of disagreement across the country about the authoritarian and un-democratic tactics used by some in the trans activist community. Perpetuating this approach will not make the issue go away, nor heal the divisions. A bit more tolerance of divergent opinions is all that is required.

 

[Pickman's model]

How can you tell who are non-anarchists? ‘Everyone else’ is a slight exaggeration. There is a lot of disagreement across the country about the authoritarian and un-democratic tactics used by some in the trans activist community. Perpetuating this approach will not make the issue go away, nor heal the divisions. A bit more tolerance of divergent opinions is all that is required.

in the anarchist movement we welcome diverse viewpoints. but things which diverge from anarchism, things that separate and go in a different direction - why should anarchists accept those opinions at an anarchist event?

 

[Rob Ray]

There is a lot of disagreement across the country about the authoritarian and un-democratic tactics used by some in the trans activist community.

Amazing how it's always the trans community and their allies who are "authoritarian and un-democratic" and it's always "gender critics" who are just trying to have a conversation really isn't it. In any other circumstances those sort of numbers might look like simple-minded partisan bleating made up by people who wouldn't recognise honest engagement if it slapped them in the face - just as well we can rely on Kevbad to set us right eh?

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

in the anarchist movement we welcome diverse viewpoints. but things which diverge from anarchism, things that separate and go in a different direction - why should anarchists accept those opinions at an anarchist event?

Trouble is that attempts to deny free speech, to label feminists as fascists etc diverge from anarchism IMHO. The general atmosphere of intimidation on this issue, in and outside of the anarchist movement, in this country and around the world, is doing nobody any good. Intolerance of differing anarchist viewpoints is what we’re really talking about here.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Amazing how it's always the trans community and their allies who are "authoritarian and un-democratic" and it's always "gender critics" who are just trying to have a conversation really isn't it. In any other circumstances those sort of numbers might look like simple-minded partisan bleating made up by people who wouldn't recognise honest engagement if it slapped them in the face - just as well we can rely on Kevbad to set us right eh?

I’m always up for honest engagement Rob. Perhaps even some partisan bleating from time to time. Sorry if either one of those upsets you.

 

[Rob Ray]

No you aren't. What you're up for is leaping onto threads and accusing other people of being "authoritatrian and un-democractic" while maintaining an absolute blindness to the bad behaviour of your own side (and hence denying absolutely that there might be any reason for excluding them in the first place). Hell you can't even say the term "honest engagement" without it coming out as doublespeak.

 

[Pickman's model]

Trouble is that attempts to deny free speech, to label feminists as fascists etc diverge from anarchism IMHO. The general atmosphere of intimidation on this issue, in and outside of the anarchist movement, in this country and around the world, is doing nobody any good. Intolerance of differing anarchist viewpoints is what we’re really talking about here.

no it isn't. for example i'm intolerant of wankers turning up to the bookfair intending to provoke a response by handing out an entirely unanarchist leaflet urging readers to take part in a governmental consultation.

 

[Athos]

no it isn't. for example i'm intolerant of wankers turning up to the bookfair intending to provoke a response by handing out an entirely unanarchist leaflet urging readers to take part in a governmental consultation.

I think it would help if the organisers gave a steer on what aspects of typical gender critical thoughts or behaviour are at odds with anarchism, to help clearly set out what is or isn't allowed at the bookfair. Else they run the risk of: first, having to make up something on the spot if anything happens; and, secondly, appearing arbitrary.

At the one extreme, I assume they'd (quite rightly) ban anyone (regardless of whether they claimed to be an anarchist) who proposed to come along to cruelly mock trans people.

At these other extreme, I assume they wouldn't ban a female anarchist who felt that biology is the material basis of her oppression, such that it defines womanhood, but who committed not to say anything on the subject at bookfair?

The hard work is in deciding how and where to draw the line somewhere between those two.

 

[smokedout]

no it isn't. for example i'm intolerant of wankers turning up to the bookfair intending to provoke a response by handing out an entirely unanarchist leaflet urging readers to take part in a governmental consultation.

I've yet to see any attempts to persuade why this particular issue justifies co-operating with the state, and also how the aims of the GC movement (enforced birth sex segregated spaces or state gatekeeping of legal gender identity, to name two of the milder demands) can be met within an anarchist society. Surely these arguments need to be addressed if this is to be considered a legitimate branch of anarchist thought?

 

[Athos]

I've yet to see any attempts to persuade why this particular issue justifies co-operating with the state, and also how the aims of the GC movement (enforced birth sex segregated spaces or state gatekeeping of legal gender identity, to name two of the milder demands) can be met within an anarchist society. Surely these arguments need to be addressed if this is to be considered a legitimate branch of anarchist thought?

How are single sex spaces (for the purposes of female safety) inconsistent with anarchist thought and/or practice, in the here and now?

Realistically, how can anarchists discuss those questions if anarchists who don't agree that trans women are the same as women who aren't trans are excluded from anarchist spaces and events?

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

I've yet to see any attempts to persuade why this particular issue justifies co-operating with the state, and also how the aims of the GC movement (enforced birth sex segregated spaces or state gatekeeping of legal gender identity, to name two of the milder demands) can be met within an anarchist society. Surely these arguments need to be addressed if this is to be considered a legitimate branch of anarchist thought?[/QUOTE

If some women, maybe a majority, feel they need sex segregated spaces, then fair enough. Nothing necessarily unanarchistic about that. The argument hinges on how you define male/female. That is the nub of the problem. None of the possible answers is central to anarchism, or any other political ideology. That’s why it needs discussion, not diktat and not the assertion that ‘there is no debate’

 

[Pickman's model]

How are single sex spaces (for the purposes of female safety) inconsistent with anarchist thought and/or practice, in the here and now?

Realistically, how can anarchists discuss those questions if anarchists who don't agree that trans women are the same as women who aren't trans are excluded from anarchist spaces and events?

how fortunate we are to have the internet so co-location is no longer essential to discussion.

 

[smokedout]

If some women, maybe a majority, feel they need sex segregated spaces, then fair enough. Nothing necessarily unanarchistic about that. The argument hinges on how you define male/female. That is the nub of the problem. None of the possible answers is central to anarchism, or any other political ideology. That’s why it needs discussion, not diktat and not the assertion that ‘there is no debate’

Look if you want to have endless interminable debates about what counts as female or male fill your boots, but trans people are under no obligation to join in. And given there seems little appetite to give ground then what is the point, it just seems to me like you want an excuse to insist that trans women are men over and over again and demand that trans people sit there and listen. But even so this is a philosophical or perhaps scientific argument that has little to do with anarchism until the discussion moves to how any conclusions drawn are mapped onto the social space. So the nub of the problem is actually how and who polices what is a woman/man and in what circumstances is that policing is necessary. Now this is a ground for anarchist debate, but the solutions offered so far from the GC movement have all resorted to state enforcement of various kinds. Until an anarchist perspective of how this conflict can be addressed is presented, from the bottom up and in the spirit of mutual aid, without the need for cops, courts, prisons and government panels, then it's hard to see how the GC movement has anything to do with anarchist thought. It seems more concerned with legitimising prisons by making them all feminist and safe (as if they could ever be either under current conditions) and cheering on a 'fair' Olympics when I would hope most anarchists would be concerned with tearing those institutions down.

But anyway, theres a whole other thread to debate trans issues on here so if you want to discuss it further perhaps post on that instead of derailing this one.

 

[Athos]

how fortunate we are to have the internet so co-location is no longer essential to discussion.

Well, the same phenomenon can occur online. And, clearly, real life had significant benefits over online stuff (else the bookfair itself could be virtual).