Let's talk about how Very Smart Boys (TM) like Dawkins lie to you and mislead you. Let's examine this claim.

Dawkins accuses Fausto-Sterling of lying...and then doesn't tell you where he got that "true figure" or why he thinks Turner and Klinefelter don't count (1) Dawkins's uncited source for the "true figure" is not an empirical study, but an opinion-based commentary on Fausto-Sterling from 2002 by Leonard Sax, a conservative man who argued that boys watching porn is responsible for turning girls sapphic. (2)

psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sax-se…

So, Academics: this is where you get to see a really weird, geeky side of me, but I promise it matters for our field. I'm going to explain--using the video game industry as a proxy--why a lot of our own systems are creating serious sustainability problems as well.

https://twitter.com/CaseyExplosion/status/1682777082852507649

The term "AAA" in video games refers to a huge-budget, major tentpole release that bills itself as a big thing and comes from major publishers. They're what people think of when they think "video game," usually, and they're astronomically expensive to produce.

Time for a thread on how anti-trans think tanks and pressure groups get evasive, and how to not let them.

This exchange involves Julia Mason, a key figure in a number of orgs including SEGM and Genspect, responding to questions about *this*:

https://t.co/vUMjF5BdlQvice.com/en/article/7kx…
How is she responding? In two ways.

(1) Dismissal of the contents of those emails and what they actually say, but (2) saying something that is technically true but for all practical purposes a lie.

I'll say this about the retraction of Archives of Sexual Behavior retraction.

It is factually inaccurate to claim that it was retracted under pressure from "transgender activists."

It was retracted in the wake of criticism from competent researchers. Some of which were trans, MOST of which (numerically) were not. The paper has been described--by CISGENDER researchers--as one of the worst ever constructed. The paper was controversial *broadly* because it was just plain indefensible.

asbopenletter.com

I say this with love: if you were actually blindsided by this, you weren't paying attention. This has always--ALWAYS--been the explicit goal of the religious right. It was known for months this bill had language that would, in effect, do this.

apnews.com/article/florid… It is neither alarmist nor hyperbolic to point out that the explicit intentions of the right wing are to eliminate trans people from public life and outlaw any form of gender nonconformity, period. They say this openly. Every single red state will attempt this eventually.

So, it's Pride month. Yet again. And this year, I want to talk soberly about something that's always rubbed me the wrong way, and why I think it's critical this pride month.

I really hate the phrase, "It gets better," because I hate false promises and I hate comforting lies (1) Those words are part of a broader type of cultural myth, that things are better now than they were before, that things can only improve, and that while the night looks dark, there's always a dawn coming, and hope springs eternal and blahblahblah that's always been a lie (2)

Pinkwashing, corporate pride, and company promotion are not going to save you, because to a company, EVERYTHING is weighed up as an asset v. a liability and the second it goes pear-shaped, they'll backpedal on anything that costs them something.

https://twitter.com/DrSebastianBarr/status/1650885878791766022

For example, this is why post merger, WB-Discovery killed off pretty much its entire catalogue of queer stuff, kids' animation, and anything that wasn't major franchise material or stupid, ill-conceived vanity projects like "Velma."

But they have NO PROBLEM with Rowling.

This is why transphobia is everyone's problem: its paranoiac gender essentialism and obsessive enforcement of gender norms means that anyone who's outside those, say by having shoulders or dating a short king, is immediately suspect. It must, because they really can't tell. And while we're on the subject: So what if she was? I mean, if she was, I'd wonder why she let D-Rad show up to the HP Reunions but that wouldn't make Radcliffe any less of a man. Yet, because he's short, and she's tall, they run that math in their head...and come out with this.

Considering my crush was a boy, and that I had to debate whether it was acceptable to murder me for being gay in an 11th grade english class, and I was forced to pray in schools, no, I don't think millennials had an apolitical high school experience. Also, I'd say okay boomer here, but the boomers actually WERE OKAY on this front. Because far from just worrying about asking out their crush, they had this thing called a draft to protest.

zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/stud…

For the cis folks here: if you are honestly surprised by the malfeasance on display from The Free Press, try drinking this in: the ENTIRE UK media landscape has been doing the exact same thing for at least a decade. Bari just has no discretion and got caught red handed.

https://twitter.com/Chican3ry/status/1643478432200704001

But over there, it's worse. See, The Free Press is a glorified blog that came out of a substack. The BBC is a royal charter company ultimately owned by the King and chaired by hereditary aristocrats whose family trees do not fork.

I'd actually dispute this metaphor.

It's not a loaded gun, it's nuclear waste. See, a gunshot stays self contained. It doesn't spill over into other areas, contaminate it for years, and never truly decay. Half the bad ideas in social sciences are rooted in this muck.

https://twitter.com/Chican3ry/status/1642775658836242434

I was arguing with @jessdkant about this because I said I didn't think a lot of clinical psych was any better, and thing is? It's not...because a lot of clinical psych just laundered ideas from these clowns through a sanitized lens. Works fine when these assumptions are ditched

So I've been thinking about false equivalencies a lot lately, particularly as it concerns free speech. Mostly because we tend to forget just how asymmetrical that issue is. Trans people ask for harassing them with their dead name repeatedly to count as harassment. Meanwhile.... ...Republicans literally tried to pass a constitutional Amendment to ban flag-burning.

nytimes.com/1995/12/13/us/…

This Simpsons gag? That's not hyperbole, that was actually happening when this aired.

So, it's #TDOV2023. Invisibility is a pretty good shield. Part of why I've not medically transitioned--and won't do so unless I get tenure--is knowing that. And that's honestly the world a lot of us live in, because we have zero trust that you'll have our backs if we are visible. So, cis allies, if you really care about the principle of what today's about--more than just lipservice or some hashtag you can throw up to assuage your guilt for playing Hogwarts Legacy--maybe work on building a world where visibility doesn't guarantee job insecurity?

the comments from transphobes on this are worthy of their own analysis. They take the form of "well kids shouldn't do that but at least its normal" or "they are women" which is...quite revealing of what we already knew: the sexuality was never what they had a problem with.

https://twitter.com/thejeffbarbra/status/1629652848089743361

I mean, frigging Hooters has a kid's menu, much less establishments like these, and I've seen more skin on cheerleaders at sports games than I have on drag queens in a sedate children's hour.

The anti-trans circuit is once again suggesting that bisexuality and queerness is a social contagion (without evidence) because clearly, claiming to be bi due to peer pressure is more likely to them than the first generation for whom queerness wasn't criminal being openly queer This was a popular talking point circa 2010 as well, and they're resurrecting it because the heart of all their politics and beliefs is denial. We're in new territory: queer acceptance is natural and normal for Gen Z. And this lot? They don't like the implications of that.

This bit here. IP holders don't like that left-wing consumers point out things like "gee that's a lot of slavery Willy Wonka" or "wait did Bond just rape that lady?" And go all "see we edited it! That means you'll love it again and buy it now right?"

no one asked for this...

https://twitter.com/ScreenSlate/status/1629882978875711493

And more to the point, if someone did, they're an idiot. You can't wallpaper over messed up material by meekly redacting material; you have to make better material with the IP license you have. Or y'know, just cope. You hitched your wagon to racist, sexist tools, deal with it.