Falsifiability is a formal logic standard. It's a concept introduced by Karl Popper in 1935. Prepare yourself... I'm going to falsify Rowling's claim that gender identity is unfalsifiable...🧵 Rowling, like any narcissist, has trouble caring about other people's mental states, so I don't expect her to grasp the concept of theory of mind. However, non-physical identity claims are falsifiable if someone acts inconsistently with the stated claim.

ANY other identifier, J.K. Rowling would see the problem.
You don't say "Jewish/Buddhist/Muslim/Hindu/person" for Christians
You don't say "Black/Latin/Asian/Indigenous/person" for Whites
Oh wait... That USED to be what was said in the empire that produced her. BUT WAIT... Under British colonial thinking, it was also ONLY men who were considered full persons. Women were property of their fathers, then their husbands. Early feminists had to fight against the idea that biological differences unpersoned an entire class of people.

The facts on grooming of minors. #NotADragQueen

1 in 9 girls and 1 in 20 boys under age 18 experience sexual abuse or assault.
82% of all victims under 18 are girls. Young women 16-19 are 4× more likely than gen pop to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. In 88% of the sexual abuse claims that CPS substantiates or finds supporting evidence of, the perpetrator is male. In 9% of cases they are female, and 3% are unknown.
The vast majority are acquaintances or family.

I know I keep harping on this, but I'm just pissed off that people are straight-faced claiming that Gamergate started the current culture war. Here's why YOU ARE WRONG... 🧵 Gamergate was a symptom of culture war. Not the cause. Think of it as a big ol' zit that popped on the culture war's adolescent face. Two major factions: Huffington Post and Breitbart news, already existed when Gamergate began. GG's dynamics were simple: Breitbart vs EVERYONE.

Things like this are why I keep following the fallout from the Depp/Heard trial. This is written by Nick Wallis, a journalist who covered the trial. And it's riddled with sexist assumptions about the woman judge in lieu of an actual fact-based argument. 🧵 Setting aside, for now, his admission that the whole thing is special pleading, trials are made public primarily out of a belief that it makes them more fair to the accused. Wallis' argument is that it is inherently bad that Youtubers shaped perception. Is that so?

Alright poppets, today we're dropping facts about the dreaded DETRANSITIONING. Cause GC Voldemort and company are bringing it up. They use the IF EVEN ONE PERSON reasoning, a favorite of racists and homophobes throughout history. Here's what's wrong with it... 🧵 1) They don't now how to read statistics. Yes, the number of people who detransition is small. OMG BUT IT'S IRREVERSIBLE they say! All surgery is. A 97% satisfaction rate is actually incredibly high. And that's where we come to reading statistics...

Transphobes are attempting a definition creep on the term "reversal" regarding puberty blockers. They're claiming because a teen can't go back in time, and therefore is "delayed" in puberty, that it's a permanent change. But that's wrong, and here's why... 🧵 There is no clockwork age that puberty begins. The term "late bloomer" existed when I was growing up for a reason. So the delay experienced by some teens who cease treatment eventually works itself out. Just a bit later. That's the "reversible" element.

So, to recap the fact check on JK Rowling's latest "opinion"
🧵
She disagrees w Sturgeon that no rights will be taken away from women with the GRC reforms, but doesn't state the rights being robbed. The GRC merely changes the process for the document change. Nothing else changes. Rowling claims that "no one seems to be able to explain what living as an acquired gender ... means". But we know:
the gender expressed publicly in their daily life including at work, while shopping or accessing other services, in housing environment or in the broader community.

So let's recap what happened the last few days:
J.K. Rowling used her sizeable platform to go after a trans youth charity (which she already had a hate on for over breast binders) by finding an inadvisable conference appearance by 1 trustee in 2011 when he was a PhD student. 🧵 She has also decided to demand the Discord messaging service be shut down or meaningfully reduced, because 4 twelve year olds were talking to bad people on it, even though Discord's minimum ToS age is 13. (Of course, this is after the charity she hates moved some comms to Discord

For the record: I am going hard at the Rowling camp because I have seen their terrible treatment of trans people. Trans people don't have the numbers to fight this alone. They need people who aren't directly affected to stand alongside them, and sometimes in front of them... 🧵 The juxtaposition of child abuse, deviancy, perversion, and transgender status has horrified me. No one who knows and cares about a trans person sees these juxtapositions as anything but what they are: dangerous. But there's more...

Again, I'm NOT avoiding answering questions.
I am merely being as literal in my answers as he insists we take J.K. Rowling's statements such as "...education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both."

https://twitter.com/colwight/status/1577836601685655552

See also:
"I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive."

There seems to be great outrage among J.K. Rowling stans that I called Dumbledore a gay groomer.

But it is a quote from the book that he raised Harry to be a lamb to the slaughter. Then J.K. Rowling retconned him to make him gay.

So he is a gay groomer. NOW... They are going after an academic because of his writings. Not his actions. They claim that said writings confess to having a sexual desire for a child, instead of a poorly worded attempt to separate weird thoughts from actual child abuse. This makes Rowling's own writing relevant

So, again, let's recap why J.K. Rowling stans are harassing me:
Because I said she supported cancel culture, since she approved of a guy getting dropped from a charity for things he said 10 years ago. Also, she's trying to get Discord shut down. After this, they called me a "pedo apologist", threatened to destroy my career, and accused me of playing the victim. They provided a couple of snippets, not even entire pages, of writing the guy had done, that didn't provide much context.

🧵 I'm sorry, "Amber Turd" isn't nearly as bad as images of the moment someone committed violence against you being spread across the entire world as "jokes". If anything, guys like Chris Rock and Terry Crews get far LESS sympathetic treatment when they're victims. The mockery of Amber Heard ISN'T whole cloth misogyny. People don't like liars. It's also because her action trip people's disgust trigger, which is a powerful lever that overrides emotion. Majority of mockery is in response to her behavior, not bc people think abuse is funny.

Just had a thought... perhaps the biggest reason that #DeppVsHeard may chill abuse survivors from coming forward is that the media ran SO VERY MANY pieces suggesting that it should chill abuse survivors from coming forward. That they will not be believed.
Good job, media. The TRUTH is that celebrity cases are totally different from those of regular people, conviction rates for criminal abuse charges are already extremely low, and a CRIMINAL trial is a reasonable doubt standard. Why is no one talking about RESTORATIVE JUSTICE here?

Every journalist who has gaslighted Johnny Depp stans by saying they're bots or trolls has contributed to a cycle of abuse. Perhaps not intentionally, but there are real people that are trying to recover from trauma who now feel spat on all over again. Not factual. Not okay. The media NEVER LEARNS with these online phenomena. Troll farms inflame all sides of these dust ups because they want to make Western democracy look stupid. And the media plays into their hands again and again because, ironically, commentary writers get freaked out by nuance.

This is going to get me nothing but grief but... This Lindsay Ellis thing? TOTALLY LOST THE PLOT. It was not about her to begin with. It was the views that came out of her. We in North America have to collectively become less stupid about media that doesn't originate here. THREAD (See also, indigenous media) Lindsay Ellis said something stupid, that showed an ignorance of subject. To treat Avatar TLA - as some founding work of a genre linked to Asian animation... it's a chance for other people to learn WHY THAT IDEA US DUMB. BUT IT'S NO LONGER ABOUT THAT

Oh sweet Baby Yoda. Though this is a decent summary of something that got exceedingly & ridiculously out of control.

If you want your meaning of a term to stand, provide it. Don't make someone look it up then dogpile when you don't like what they find.
boundingintocomics.com/2020/10/29/you… Btw, I have been open for some time about not having much connection to any gender identity. So claims that I just manufactured that as a convenience are false. It was actually quite a surprise to me that some people feel so strongly connected to that element of themselves.

There's also this really bad theory out there that a term isn't discriminatory if it's "true" sometimes. Lots of terms have dual meanings depending on how they're applied. The issue is when your label for a person assumes negatives not in evidence. Take the word "bitch". Imagine if anyone could say "It's not sexist to say you're a bitch because you need to smile more. It's just true. " I had a guy once call me a "fish" to my face. He said it was okay because he's gay and just finds women disgusting. Obviously it's not.

Here's the problem with politics right now... political systems are set up with the understanding that politicians will listen to the people, and not do things that are unethical or unpopular because they'll be voted out of office. Of course, that's not happening. (more) There's consensus on certain issues that politicians ignore, and I don't think it's about money. I think it's also because they think voters are stupid and don't actually know what's good for them. It's about power corrupting, knowing that pols can work the ref through the media

Whether CDPR is crunching its staff is a good fight to have. It's a refreshing change from whether someone is an "SJW" or "Nazi" over a clearly labeled opinion piece. (By "crunch" I mean overworking them to the point of mental or physical illness) I saw a distinct difference in feedback compared to when people get triggered by identitarian ideology. People who got mad at me provided facts to support their positions, instead of just name calling or resorting to conspiracy theories.