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Episode 227: One Of The Saddest True-Life Stories About A Schizophrenic Deaf Muslim Amputee Gamer You Will Hear This Week
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Episode 227: One Of The Saddest True-Life Stories About A Schizophrenic Deaf Muslim Amputee Gamer You Will Hear This Week

Plus, more gender.

Discussion about this podcast

"This is proof that you don't need the lived experience to write well about these topics"

Or it's proof that mediocre or bad work is applauded as magnificent as long as the readers believe the author has certain identities and caters to the correct ideology.

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Exactly what I was thinking.

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Just wait in a few years for another "Coty Craven" to be discovered as entirely output from an AI chatbot.

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The mediocre white man strikes again

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Why not both?

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Sep 1
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That makes two of us!

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lolol, me too

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As a schizophrenic, I make two of us!

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I can’t believe anyone would question the existence of the three people I made up. This is ruining my mental health!

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Speaking of this comment section, Whenever I think I am becoming quite conservative I go to the Free Press comment section and the vile comment section reminds me why I am indeed liberal: I just can’t hang with more conservative people. I’d much rather be the more conservative person amongst people who are more liberal than I am than the more liberal person amongst conservatives. I’d like to think I have principles, but mainly I just care who I have to spend time with.

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FWIW, I know a lot of conservatives in person and don't think the FP comments are at all reflective of normal, offline conservatives.

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If there’s ever a place online where I’ve wondered if everyone is just a bot run by some hostile foreign power, that is it.

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I don’t think extreme commenters are reflective of any general group, but I consider FP to be pretty centrist outlet and yet the comment section is unhinged. Ultra liberal comment sections are also unhinged and destructive in all the ways talked about in the heterodox space. I wonder why FP attracts such aggression for a centrist space.

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They are certainly an angry bunch.

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Well, I think Free Press kind of leans toward social conservatism, which reflects Bari Weiss politics. I’ve been saying for a while now that I think that Weiss’ project is to basically take circa-1990s “conservative Democrat”/Blairite “New Labour” politics off of mothballs. I see much of the centrist/heterodox milieu tracking similarly, which has made me re-evaluate where I position myself politically, which is in a decidedly more cultural libertarian direction, albeit, more lefty on economic and environmental issues. So I remain happily politically homeless.

But on the topic of comments sections, the commentariat of FP reminds me a lot of the commenters at Quillette a few years ago. That element seems to have left when Claire Lehmann started pushing Quillette a bit away from hot-button culture war clickbait and took a more explicitly anti-MAGA stance. But it also often the case that comments sections can run distinctly to the right or left of the publication itself. Reason, for example, is a standard-bearer of old-school pre-MAGA libertarianism, but their comments section is purely hard right.

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If anything, conservatives tend to be very nice people regardless of whatever other flaws they might have.

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TFP is representative of angry, bored retirees.

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yes, I refer to them as angry blue plate grandpas. One of them once called me "woke" (completely unprompted, and for anyone who knows me completely ridiculous). I think just being a woman was enough.

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Hell, they call Katie woke. Endless entertainment. Infuriating at the same time, but how can you take them seriously after that?

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I know plenty of conservatives who don’t act like TFP comment section. That’s hardly representative. It’s like saying “I can’t hang with liberals because of how progressives behave on Twitter.” DO BETTER.

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You might prefer the comment section at The Dispatch.

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Seconded, it’s lovely over there.

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Thirded and was about to suggest this. I’m pretty liberal and I adore The Dispatch and will never unsubscribe. It is such an indescribable breath of fresh air to see a community of serious, benevolent, even-minded patriotic people.

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I can’t tell if this sarcasm and I’m afraid to go look.

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Not sarcastic, in fact! It's actually a productive comment space without the toxicity you'll find in the Free Press comments. Lots of thoughtful conservatives and liberals.

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Agree regarding the FP's comment section. Definitely on the vile side.

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They’re going to have to do something about that as they continue to grow or else it’s going to prove to be a barrier for being seen as serious journalism that can compete with the exact institutions they say they’re challenging. No idea what, seeing as how they brand themselves as being for truth-tellers who aren’t afraid to go against the grain. Unfortunately, when you set up a big tent, you really do end up with all sorts, including complete nutjobs. Perhaps they will just turn off comments for some articles, like the Times of London, where they seem to be acknowledging that straight-up news reporting (rather than editorial) really doesn’t need a thousand randos weighing in.

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I'm always confused when I see people here complain about their comment section. Do you just mean it's bad because they are politically different or is it that they are mean? Genuinely curious here. I went over and it seems most of the sections are paywalled. This random one I looked at briefly looked fine?

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-young-catholic-women-bringing/comments

Admittedly I'm not a leftist, and I only looked at one article, but not seeing the issue. That said I don't want to shame anyone for not going somewhere they aren't comfortable with. It's not exactly fun to be exposed to different viewpoints constantly.

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It’s the being mean. I am probably more on the conservative side for the BARpod audience. I even listen sometimes to Meghan Kelly and the Wall Street Journal Potomac Watch. The only other podcasts I pay for are Maiden, Mother, Matriarch, which has a lovely comment section, and The Rest is History, that doesn’t even have one to my knowledge.

So… it’s not the ideas that turn me off, it’s the nasty characters that are attracted to the commment sections of right wing political media.

I’m not even in very liberal online spaces, I just hear about them on this show. But I brace before peaking at the active comment sections of the political media I listen to, except for this show.

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That makes sense. I do think the more political something gets the worse the comment section. Although there are exceptions like how toxic the K-pop fandom is. Here the main meat of the content is internet bullshit. For the most part it's entertainment. When politics comes in it's usually with a humorous angle. So it's natural this comment section is more chill.

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Toxic culture can just wreck any kind of internet culture. Equestrian sites are unbelievably nasty--and I think there is undoubtedly an inverse relationship to how much time someone spends on the keyboard vs. in the saddle. Even the loveliest horsewoman in the world (Lady Sylvia Loch) had nasty know-it-alls on her site that made it ultimately not worth the time. I can't imagine what K-pop fandom is like :)

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I would have not expected that. I always assumed people who aren't online and are in nature would just be happier. It is concerning to hear that my assumption is being challenged. Is nothing safe!?

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Online spaces aren’t safe. Over 15 years ago I had a comms teacher who used their full name online and his real picture. He was a very stand up guy, and even back then he encouraged us to NEVER do anything online, in comments or content, that we wouldn’t sign our name to or show our face for. I obviously don’t do the same, but it’s my ideal of what healthy online behavior is.

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My rules are don't post anything that would upset my grandmother - or failing that, don't post anything that you wouldn't want read out in court.

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What Ctdcb said, plus the people just seem kind of dumb and angry

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MMM is so nice! Very respectful even if people disagree.

(I am also a TRIH member!)

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Buddies!

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Also *peek* and *Megyn*

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There is a small group of particularly nasty commenters who invade almost every post with the wildest venom you’ve ever seen. It’s not that many people but the havoc they bring is something to see. I think they must have skipped that religious post you cited - fear of the Lord I suspect ;)

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No, you haven’t checked it out enough if you don’t understand what people here are saying. It’s bad, vile, moronic, ultra angry, ultra MAGA (but in a bad way, lol), ultra anti-everything good, funny, joyful, hopeful, and sexy. And they hate puppies and rainbows (probably true.)

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It's that they are really mean, and also mostly boring. The criticisms are filled with straw men and just over the top rage. So you can't really get into an interesting discussion there. They aren't even interesting or entertaining assholes.

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It's like their whole comments section is made up of right-wing Zagarnas, and that's never fun.

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Good god, what a thought.

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It’s just a very angry bunch of bored little bees.

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I think what makes genuinely right-wing or reactionary politics (not necessarily conservatism which is in some ways its own thing) so repellent at times is that it's essentially betting against all the good in human nature, whereas Liberalism (including European liberal-conservatism) is broadly for that kind of stuff. The incentives are rather perverse. I suppose if you go far enough left you regress into equally parasitic and cynical behaviour though, it's just that they're more moralistic about their cruelty.

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I can now claim the "if both sides of an argument are getting mad at you, you must be doing something right" honor of having been called a transphobe at Lawyers, Guns and Money (not by any of the front-pagers, admittedly, but by more than one of the commenters there) and also having been criticized (for like two minutes!) by the main podcast here, in reference to literally the same subject (trans rights).

But I will say that I generally find it much more annoying to be the "conservative" (really more old-school leftist, but certainly less "woke") among leftists than to be the leftist among conservatives.

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You were criticized on this podcast because you're an asshole to everybody, 99% of the time and completely unprovoked. It's not because of your beliefs.

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This is just objectively false, and you're not going to gaslight me into believing it by repeating it over and over again.

Like I get that this is how groups police purity among their membership-- it's a lot more satisfying to pretend that you're mad at someone for being rude than to admit to yourself that you're just mad at them for not conforming to your ideological priors-- but it's really, really funny to see it being deployed by a group that likes to flatter itself that it's for heterodox free thinkers. The sheer level of hypocrisy on display here would itself make for a fascinating and hilarious deep dive.

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"objectively false"... Lol. Unambiguous evidence that you don't have a solid grasp of the ordinary meaning of words.

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You're giving yourself a lot of credit there, lol. You've been labelled an asshole, but that's about the extent of it. If that gives you a sense of pride then... well, whatever floats your boat dude.

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If it helps, once I knew your focus was in particular in employment law that helped me to understand you a lot more.

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I am of the (if not minority than generally unstated) view that if both sides of an argument are getting mad at you, you are *probably* doing something wrong.

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Aug 31
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It’s more like that rule about how if you only encounter one asshole, it's probably them, but you encounter many, it’s probably you.

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“I pitched my boss on wearing our underwear on our heads every Thursday to improve revenue and everyone called me a retard. That must mean that I’ve stumbled on a winning idea”

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In this case, I thinks more of the flip side. If everyone thinks you’re dumb, you’re probably a fucking retard.

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This argument made me think of Wim Plo's your foot to my face style

https://youtu.be/ZqaCEPwWGtc?si=_D7FVhVRvegIhVVU

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I don't think I have ever seen the Free Press comment section but certainly it can't be worse than the New York Post comment section?

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NYP is currently holding TFP’s beer.

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It's so much worse. The New York post comment section is like your uncle at thanksgiving. He says one or two crazy things but you love him anyway and you kind of get where he's coming from sometimes. The FP comment section is like the raving of a madman.

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I feel a little bad that none of the people discussed in this episode could respond to it, they can't listen to podcasts

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Auto generator transcripts are really quite good these days. I guess the question is, do imaginary people have eyes?

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Well, that's not technically true... :p

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Those Golden Goose shoes are pure "Derelicte" from Zoolander.

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I remember reading somewhere that stuff for super rich people is more likely to look like something a homeless person would wear than just a nicer version of what a merely kinda rich person would wear because an ultra rich person might worry about being mistaken for merely being kind of rich, but would not worry about actually being mistaken for being homeless.

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Richception.

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They're so hot right now.

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They are REALLY REALLY DIRTY???

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Proper "Oh no, my toddler went to the farm without his wellie boots" level of filth. You'd not let someone in the car with those on, would you? 😂

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Funniest episode in a while, by the time we got to the Kitchen Aid I was crying.

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The KitchenAid was HYSTERICAL. Idk if I was exactly crying but my eyes were watering. Couldn’t Coty think of a better way to get Sarah’s legs amputated? Like just have her hit by a car or something!

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Then there would be an accident report ir something!

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Oh, good point. She could fall down the stairs or off a ladder or something? That would still be more plausible than the KitchenAid. 😅

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Unless they were moving, or rearranging the kitchen, why would they move a stand mixer? That's an item you park in a designated spot.

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My wife makes me hide our stand mixer in the pantry, so I have to pick it up and move it to the kitchen each time I want to use it, but I'm utterly incredulous that a stand mixer dropped from any normal counter height would pulverize your foot bones badly enough that doctors would conclude amputation was the best solution rather than putting pins or screws in the bones to hold them together while they healed unless you also got some sort of horrific infection during the healing process.

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There were chocolate chips everywhere! They got into the bloodstream...

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I was driving a borrowed car while listening... and I had tears in my eyes. the whole thing was just too absurd for words!

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The listing of adjectives to describe the ideal fictional girlfriend that included "dead" was what made me totally lose it while doing laundry.

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I know the show is technically about “internet bullshit” but my favorite episodes, like this one, are more about the deranging effects of the internet and the insane incentive structures that exist for its denizens.

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We don’t talk enough about incentives in day to day life, and I’m not sire why. It usually explains 95-99% of what people do.

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"Jeff was a plagiarist, but at least he cared about people." One of many lol-worthy lines in this exceptional episode.

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The gullibility of people astounds me. Is it just being cognizant of grifters that lets me see the red flags of 50 pity-me-oppression attributes? Pick ONE, sheesh. If this is performance art at this point, five stars, no notes.

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The culture of this type of community prevents a lot of people from questioning identity attributes. The culture of oppression has made itself ripe to be scammed.

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I was out at kitchen aid amputee and amazed at how long it went on after that

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If there's one thing that doesn't astound me, it's the gullibility of people. I might listen to way too many fraud podcasts, my favorite flavor of true crime.

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The Opportunist is my guilty pleasure. Definitely doesn't increase trust in society.

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Me too. I miss the old host. ETA: the AARP podcast, The Perfect Scam, is also very good. I like Scam Goddess, too, in smaller doses.

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Oooooh, thanks for the recs! I love learning about scams/grifts/cults.

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Trust Me is another good one.

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I took a break for a year (and they also removed previous seasons from Spotify?) and came back to keep asking myself if this is the same show because it sounded so... different. Now you've confirmed it - it's the host. The episodes are only one-episose arcs and don't really grab me like the previous ones.

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Yeah, I much prefer a multi-episode, deep-dive into a subject, a la, The Dream, season one.

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Sheri Shriner for me!

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If she can start a cult, anyone can. They still sell her stones on Etsy.

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I can't overdose on so many. I'll lose all hope.

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I listened to a podcast called Scamanda (?) Files or something, about a woman who faked cancer for YEARS and grifted untold amounts of money. true sicko stuff.

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I am likewise astounded. Is it a Jersey thing? I grew up in New Jersey in the late 70s/early 80s where skepticism was the coin of the realm.

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The AMA (American Medical Association) is an interesting example of where our institutions are headed.

This is a trade organization. It lobbies Congress on behalf of medical doctors and puts out policy positions. It has no role in government and no enforcement power to actually do anything, but is still quite influential.

The AMA used to have a large majority of all physicians in the US as members, but it has dwindled over the years so instead of having >80% of doctors it now has <20%. So now, although it purports to represent the whole of the medical profession, it really represents a pretty small slice, since of course only a minority of the remaining dues-paying members are even really involved. The people who are active with the AMA now slant heavily towards silver spoon types. Those are the sorts of people who have enough money in the bank to handle the demands of the medical profession and pay for medical school while still having enough free time to get involved in politics. They’re also the sort of people who have powerful friends. So the institution is a pretty extreme example of luxury beliefs. The people who are active there literally do not know anyone who isn’t rich, and most of them probably do not see Medicaid patients, if they bother to practice medicine at all. Even from the perspective of other physicians, they’re cloistered and out of touch.

I’ve been active with my state medical association and I’ve thought about trying to gain some sway in the national AMA, but from what I’ve seen I’m not convinced that anyone who isn’t an old money type or a DEI hire can really make much of a difference.

Because it is not a governmental institution, the AMA is not very transparent and is hard to change. But a lot of actual legislators and regulators will take their marching orders from the AMA even as its influence declines.

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It’s comforting to me to hear that a minority of doctors are in the AMA. I had no idea. Thank you.

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This source says it went from 75% in the 1950’s to 15% in 2010 or so (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153537/)

This one says it’s down to 12% of actual doctors (not people who are still in training) by 2019 (https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/campbells-scoop/80583)

The AMA does not have to give information on this, but it is not doing well.

When I look at medicine as a whole, it is in big trouble because of the capture of regulatory bodies. But the AMA is not a regulatory body. So there is an opportunity to, in the Bari Weiss mold, simply build a new institution.

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I read the ama as a trade group for doctors is mostly concerned with making sure that they back up anything their members decide they want to do, so as to reduce the chance at a lawsuit.

That is, their incentives are all in favor of saying “treatment A is great and supported by evidence” and ALSO “treatment B is”. So one of the reasons the ama etc are not against unevidenced gender treatments is that doing so doesn’t directly help their members in the short term, whereas saying the treatments are fine will help protect against lawsuits.

In other words if at least some doctor wants to try some new totally experimental thing the ama will be for it. This can be good for innovation but is pretty bad for either stabilizing raising healthcare costs or in getting rid of stuff that doesn’t work.

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In general, I would agree. The AMA is going to be the lsat ones to speak out against anything that doctors are doing wrong.

Incidentally, the AMA has a code of ethics for physicians (https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/ethics).

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Interesting that the American Bar Association has seemed to lay low through all this (I say presumptuously without researching it but they haven't made the news with this nonsense). That's probably because there are always lawyers on both sides of any issue.

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They're also a very important part of a grand conspiracy in the Illuminatus! novels.

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My brother-in-law's dad was huge on the AMA conspiracy stuff. Weird stuff.

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It's similar to the BMA in the UK. It's essentially a trade union and doctors don't have to be members to be able to practice.

However, the BMJ the journal produced by the BMA is well respected and peer reviewed.

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JAMA and its spinoff journals are also classically in the upper echelon of peer-reviewed medical journals.

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I kept wondering if there was an explanation for why a Turkish immigrant would be named Susan Banks, and if no one who came across her ever found that implausible.

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The benefit of the doubt would be she anglicized her first name, and Banks was a married name.

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I personally know a woman from Laos who anglicized her name to "Susan" when she came to the U.S.. Still, Craven's LARP would have made more sense if she'd chosen a Turkish last name for the character, seeing as "Susan Banks" was never stated to have been married before "meeting" Craven.

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I spent the whole episode thinking I knew the name. Turns out it was a minor character in an Agatha Christie so that’s good.

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Thank you! That was driving me crazy.

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I think affinity fraud is an underexplored explanation for why there tends to be so much of this scamming in certain communities like disability related ones. Affinity fraud involves exploiting others within your own community, usually for financial gain. It's particularly common in some insular communities, like the Mormon community (see article on Mormons below as well as linked wiki article for an overview of affinity fraud more broadly). The combination people tending to be trusting of others within their own communities and the types of dysfunctional people who seem to be drawn to these disability groups seems to be create an environment that's absolutely ripe for fraud, whether it be for status seeking or for financial gain.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/02/20/why-so-many-latter-day-saints-fall/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud

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Exactly-- if you're running a con, you always want to do it on people who you can credibly pass yourself off as "one of."

The show White Collar is oddly good at pulling this out, weirdly enough (or maybe I just think that because I like the show)-- the main character is incredibly skilled at portraying a certain kind of upper-class twit, and almost all of his (now government-approved) cons involve some variation on that. They don't randomly ask him to portray a manual laborer for a week; it wouldn't work.

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This comment makes me think of my wife's sister and her husband. They are in their mid-late 40's and live as missionaries (kind of?). They "work" for YWAM (which I understand is Youth With A Mission, but they are well past youth). They live in a nice area in San Francisco, seem to go on vacations a lot. They aren't really doing much to help people, but they are always fundraising. They launder their money through YWAM so they can get donations funneled directly to them but also allow their donors to get a tax deduction. They have large, uber-religious families, and no one seems to question why they can't get real jobs that pay them a salary or ask if there is a cheaper place to do God's work. They act like they're poor, but their lifestyle clearly contradicts this. They claim they get really good "deals" so they can spend 2 weeks at Disney world or take a 2-week cruise home from a month in Germany instead of flying. They once sent my wife and me a quarterly newsletter which highlighted their work, and the primary thing they did was take walks in the morning and say hi to people to "brighten their day." I also say hi to people when I'm out for a walk, because that's a nice thing to do. I'm not asking people to pay me for it. I often wonder what schmucks give them money, but you don't become a zealot by asking questions and demanding evidence/results.

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Re the uselessness of gender ID as a concept, an argument I seldom see made but that I think is important- even if I as a man decide I have a male gender identity, distinct from and unconnected to my biology, how could I possibly know that was true? So it’s not merely that it’s a useless concept because some people don’t have a gender ID, the idea that you could feel you have one in the absence of dysphoria seems especially stupid

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Not only do I not have a gender identity, I don't think anyone does. If you're saying you have a feeling that you're a man, well either you are or you aren't so that's just a thought you're having about reality. If the only feature of a GI is that you think/ say you have one, then I guess if you say you do, you do, like being religious. But then it's just whatever you say it is. Whatever, it's all gibberish.

When Jesse said something like, 'at least gender identity has a coherent definition, which is circular and we can't agree on it'... circular and indescribable is simply incoherent, right?!

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To me, I think gender identity is all of the stereotypes that society puts on me because of my female body (would be the same for male-bodied people). People see me as a middle-aged woman and so expect me to behave in certain ways. My gender identity is called Beryl and she very much resembles my grandmother who had very strict VIEWS about how a lady should act.

I can defy these expectations or fall into them depending on my feelings, mood, or whatever. I don't partially like Beryl- in some ways she makes social situations easier, but in others I chafe against the gender expectations imposed on me. And I certainly don't 'identify' with Beryl. In fact, I think if she fucked off and took Nigel (the male version) with her, people would be a lot happier.

Wear what you want, do whatever hobbies make you happy, but don't cut off your penis because you like glitter and rainbows. Or poison yourself with testosterone because you prefer short hair and comfortable shoes.

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There is *something* beyond sex and sexuality that seems to be a pretty fundamental aspect of our personhood. Maybe it's just left-brain vs right-brain dominance? I'm not sure that "gender identity" has always been as invalid as it is now, because I suspect that it has *become* incoherent and useless as a result of how the term has been used over the last ten to fifteen years.

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You mean what used to be know as a personality?

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No, personality is different, personality is the collected total of all the things about how you act. Gender identity as a valid concept is more like an aesthetic orientation.

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The idea that people without gender dysphoria would have a “deeply felt sense of being male or female” is ridiculous. It would be like people with two legs having “a deeply felt sense of having two legs.”

Dysphoric people have a deeply felt sense of being the *wrong* sex — that’s clear enough. We already have a name for that feeling: gender dysphoria.

TRAs have tried to normalize the idea of “gender identity” being a deeply felt sense everyone has because this would normalize transness.

The meaning of “gender identity” for, like, all of social science until very recently was simply a person’s *awareness * of their own sex. We all have that.

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`Dysphoric people have a deeply felt sense of being the *wrong* sex — that’s clear enough. We already have a name for that feeling: gender dysphoria.'

What you, and Jesse apparently, fail to realize is that sexologists, etc. use gender identity to explain *why* people feel gender dysphoria. That is, gender dysphoria arises because of a mismatch between one's sex and one's gender identity. It's a long-establish theory as to why some feels they're the wrong sex.

Don't like the theory then falsify it or propose another. One doesn't just get to waive away +60 years of (soft) science by making a facile, and at this point cliched (ahem, Katie) comparison with the `soul'.

As for Jesse's criticism of Serrano's example: her example just needs to be updated because a man walking around in a dress means far, far different things than it did when she made it. Here's a better example:

`"Gender identity” refers to the subjective internal feeling that one is male or female. Most of us rarely, if ever, think about our gender identities. But if we imagined that others were treating us as the opposite sex—insisted that we were the opposite sex—most could get an idea of the mental anguish a child with [gender identity disorder] may feel.'

- J. Michael Bailey, `The Man Who Would be Queen'

How about another researcher trans people really, really dislike but nonetheless finds gender identity a useful concept:

`So what is [Ken] Zucker’s position? First, he believes that the diagnosis of childhood GID [(gender identity disorder)] is useful and valid, and the diagnosis is not merely a value judgment that boys who like girls’ activities (or girls who like boys’ activities) are sick or wrong. This is due to his conviction that children with GID suffer, and that the suffering is not only attributable to bullying by closed-minded peers and adults.

...

`However, when I spoke to Zucker about the current debate about childhood GID, I came away with the impression that these days, he feels besieged primarily on the left. He has had several recent ex- changes in academic journals on the issue of GID, all with critics who believe that the GID diagnosis is essentially gender repression...'

Honestly I'm starting to get a bit uncomfortable with where Jesse and Katie are going these days with respect to gender, sex, and all things trans. When one gets to the point where they're throwing out a DSM-sanctioned diagnosis based on such clumsy and shoddy reasoning as `I don't feel like I have this thing, so this thing must not exist', I think that perhaps it's time to step back and consider whether one is treating the issue impartially and fairly.

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I think Emily said it best here: "Not only do I not have a gender identity, I don't think anyone does. If you're saying you have a feeling that you're a man, well either you are or you aren't so that's just a thought you're having about reality".

I do believe that gender dysphoria exists, but it is disordered thinking. We ARE our bodies; it's impossible to be in the wrong one. Every cell in one's body is sexed, and contains your own personal DNA blueprint.

One cannot actually feel like they are a male in a female's body, because they have no conception of what it feels like to have a male's body. It's impossible, it's fantasy.

It seems clear that the best treatment is to accept the body you were born with, and make it the best and healthiest body it can be.

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I'm sorry but the amount of intellectual hubris on display here is simply stunning (not just you, Molly, to be clear).

The modern idea of gender identity (GI) dates back to the work of Stoller and Kohlberg in the 1960s. Since then researchers have published thousands of papers on the topic, including studies that document the process by which children acquire their gender identity.

While much of the existing work on gender identity comes from the soft sciences, more recent work has looked at the biological components of gender identity, e.g., `The Biological Contributions to Gender Identity and Gender Diversity'* by Polderman et al., 2018. Some of the earliest work on GI also examined how hormonal interventions during development (experiments performed on animals) would lead to changes in behavior consistent with GI.

This mountain of evidence was produced by hundreds if not thousands of researchers, and I find it dumbfounding that most here are willing to simply reject it out-of-hand---if they are even aware of it!---and still claim to be grounded in science/facts/reason/etc. This is anti-intellectualism of an incredibly pernicious variety.

`It seems clear that the best treatment...'

Maybe it's clear for you but, as Alice Dreger (author of Galileo's Middle Finger) has pointed out, there are numerous studies, including ones by Ray Blanchard, that indicate `well-screened' sufferers of gender dysphoria are better off after receiving HRT and other medical interventions.

*The paper actually contains the line `Every person has a gender identity'. Such a bald assertion does not make it past peer review unless it is taken as a fact.

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I understand that people who talk about gender dysphoria often use “gender identity” to explain its existence.

What I’m saying is we have no evidence that gender identity as “a deeply felt sense of being male or female” exists. (Unless we’re counting self-report as evidence, in which case there’s also evidence for ESP.)

I’m also saying that this particular definition of the term “gender identity” is recent.

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If Person A creates a theory that is not falsifiable, how is it Person B’s responsibility to disprove it? This isn’t how it works in anything from drug testing to English papers. If the theory is not falsifiable, that is the end of it: it cannot be tested, people who believe in it do so as an act of faith, and everyone else who does not believe it is not doing anything wrong.

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Back when I had long hair, I used to get misgendered as female from time to time. This did not cause me any trauma - I thought it was pretty funny.

Now as I understand it, I do have a "gender identity" in that I see myself as male. But as far as I can tell I don't care what pronouns people use for me, or whether they believe I am male. I'm not invested, again as far as I can tell, in whether other people consider me male.

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Please consider the sad, sad case of David Reimer as an example of how distressing it can be when society and your family insist that you're something you're not.

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Reimer is a tragic case that should not be used to prove anything aside from the fact that John Money was experimenting on and abusing children.

His case does not prove that he had an innate male gender identity, he simply was male. It would be an insane conclusion to claim he would have been fine if he had been born with a "female gender identity".

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He was a male and the way he knew that he was a male, despite lacking the genitalia and being socialized as a female, is because he had a male gender identity.

Without an innate gender identity, he would not have known he was a male.

I never said he would have been fine had he been born with a female gender identity, nor do I think what Dr. Money did was OK.

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I believe you have just defined "unverifiable".

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I can’t tell if you’re answering me because of how the comments are threaded… if so thanks! My specific point was not just that it’s unverifiable but that the absence of dysphoric feelings makes it especially unverifiable and meaningless

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I was responding to you, you're welcome, and the idea that it is unverifiable both outwardly and inwardly.

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It is definitely *possible* to have a coherent concept of "gender identity" as distinct from sex, for example, those cultures which have a "third gender" identity for feminine male. This third gender identity is coherent, and it obviously serves some kind of useful purpose, or else it wouldn't show up as having evolved essentially independently in a bunch of different cultures.

But the concept of gender identity *we in this culture specifically* have been dealing with is *not* coherent, and thus it is useless if you have good intentions.

But if you have *bad* intentions then the incoherent concept of gender identity we have been dealing with in our culture specifically *is* quite useful, because it allows you to confuse and upset people and draw attention to yourself by starting an argument that could never possibly finish.

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most of the examples I've seen really are just homosexuals that are put into a third category so as to de-homo them. Look at the Hijra people who are born male and ted to be confined to sex work for males. or I forget where it was, but It was a sort of "female husband" situation, where "certain" females were allowed to live with other women in "sexless" "marriages" in the absence of men due to war.

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I genuinely don't get this comment. Like, wouldn't you just... know it? That's like saying "even if I as a religious person decide I have a Christian identity, how could I possibly know that was true?" You know that it's true because it's what you think. Cogito, ergo sum and whatnot.

Like I know I have a male gender identity because I feel male. I realize YOU might not have an easy way to double check that, but from MY perspective it's completely obvious.

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You seem to "not get" a lot of comments around here, for quite a while now. Have you considered working on your reading comprehension?

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Do not engage with His Lordship

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Just allow his heavenly light to wash over and cleanse you of all wrong-think. He is the light and the way. There is no other.

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Now I understand Him. For He is unknowable.

It all makes sense now…

Maybe one day I can truly walk the path of the Zagarna. For now I’ll just try and bask in His light as much as I can stand it.

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ZigZag is an 👽 supreme being. Enjoy the glory

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Gee thanks, now I'm a gnostic

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May it be so.

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It’s funny for a self-proclaimed lawyer to have that much difficulty with reading comprehension. Then again, he may be a lawyer in the sense that the representatives for Mr. Mata in Mata v. Avianca are lawyers.

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Contrary to what you might thing, Zagarna is NOT a contrarian for contrarian's sake.

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Did I say I couldn't read the words the comment was using? I do not think that I said that.

I have read the words, I understand the concepts being conveyed, and those concepts are deeply alien to me.

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Could be you're an 👽? I mean that pic isn't proof or anything but I'm sensing a strong alien gender energy, ZigZag.

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What does it mean to “feel male”? How does that feel?

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I’d say “feeling male” is when you reach down and start grabbing your dick, but apparently females can have those too now so idk.

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Do women have to resist fiddling with their genitalia all day? Is this the line?

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I don’t believe they do. They’re more developed in their brain bits.

Whilst I can’t go more than 2 seconds without thinking with/about my junk, they’re focused on more intellectual things, like kittens, Starbucks, and interior decorating.

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Memories of Beavis shaping his hands in the air after the therapist asks him how he feels about his mother - while Butt-head mutters, “That’s not how I feel your mother”

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I 'feel male' because I am male - how could anyone possibly disentangle their actual sex from some nebulous concept of gender identity, in the absence of dysphoria?

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Even then, though, dysphoria cannot logically be the feeling that you are the OPPOSITE sex. I could accept, perhaps, that you feel you are the WRONG sex, but there is no possible way of knowing what a "woman" or a "man" feels like, especially for someone of the opposite sex. On its face it makes no sense.

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It's the fashun du jour

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I will grant it’s possible that some non-trans people have a gender identity in the sense of a deeply held feeling of being male/female. But I don’t have one, except in the extremely trivial sense that I will identify myself to others as a woman / female when prompted (because it’s materially true).

All I’m looking for really is an acknowledgement that not all people have a gender identity and thus the idea that it’s a better way of categorizing people than sex in circumstances where sex/gender matters is at least up for debate, as opposed to being accused of some type of bigotry for not holding a very particular world view

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I don't really understand how you can FEEL female or male, you just are. It's like feeling 5'4 or feeling white with brown eyes.

Other people and society might treat me in a specific way because they see my physical appearance, but doesn't necessarily change how I feel. Plus, how can I know how anyone else, whether we share psychical characteristics or not.

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Also, does my identity of having blue eyes change if somebody is colourblind?

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I keep saying, everyone needs to identify as agender. Once everyone realizes they too belong in the Queer Clerb, a lot of the ridiculous parts of gender stuff will be irrelevant.

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🎶I smell sex and gender here, mmmhmm

Who’s that writing not too clear

Who’s that being overly queer

with their medical terminology,

Oh birthing parent this surely is a dream🎶

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"Weird Benjy Shankovic" bringin' the 90's🎵to BARPod ftw 🙌 and no, this is not the kind of *weird* that now (as of two or three weeks ago) automatically makes you a Republican, phew

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Oh there’s much more where that came from . . . If you scroll through my past comments on barpod and Fifth Column you’ll find more of my, uh, literary output.

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I will do some excavating now thanks🎵! You have been on my radar since we *almost* met in Chicago (like a sliding doors thing but Nika helped bring us together anyway :-)

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Aww, I’m glad to be on someone’s radar! [sheepishly, sotto voce:] I also have a Substack, if you’re really that interested . . .

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👍😅

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Get Eli Lake to make an AI song of this.

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Quirktastic new lyrics to pop songs is the lowest form of culture, even below puns.

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So, we live in an era in which "identity" matters and certain identities matter more than others.

At the same time, we lived in an internet mediated world, in which, as the cartoon had it, "The internet doesn't know I'm a dog."

Verifying identities is harder, while claiming the right ones is more important.

Grifters' paradise.

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As I learned today, the greatest thing about the internet is:

On UberEats, the Szechuan restaurant doesn’t know you’re white.

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Soo disappointed that Katie and Jessie aren’t aware of the huge munchie red flags that POTS/MCAS/EDS are in combination.

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Absolutely. I'm surprised EDS isn't on Katie's radar already, every single lesbian I know claims to have it.

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I’ve now self diagnosed with POTS having previously assumed the symptoms were down to being over 40 and a bit out of condition.

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I know a woman with EDS but she’s literally a contortionist.

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I don't think that's correct. My understanding is that they are basically the same condition, or at least so heavily comorbid as to effectively be the same condition. A quick google search says that something like 80 percent of people with EDS have POTS.

Maybe it's the case that people who make a point of ADVERTISING that they have all three of POTS/MCAS/EDS are likely to be Munchausens, because if you weren't trying to attract sympathy you'd just say you had one of them, and describe it as including the symptoms of all three. Not aware of any evidence of that theory, though.

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Oh they are three very very different diseases. And they weren’t considered related until they started becoming way way more popular as there’s no particular reason for them to be related.

Pretty much they’re easy to fake or interpret random symptoms as having them. As was pointed out many many people can feel lightheaded after standing or have weird rashes or irritated skin. It can be pretty easy to fake what you need to fake and there’s a lot of discourse on how doctors don’t really understand the diseases and that you should do X thing to make sure you get your diagnosis (especially POTS which has a more defined test then EDS or the kind of MCAS everyone now has which is the only type without a genetic test). There’s also particular doctors that people like to go to, a lot of self-ID, tons of people having the worst case ever of it, social media influencers in the space, merch, etc.

TBF it seems likely that a lot the people are closer to actually believing in some of it and then making themselves worse then purely using to manipulate so there is an argument to be made that it’s more factious disorder with some manipulation then truly munching.

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Obvious caveat that I am not a clinician; this is pure amateur hour.

That said-- I don't think there is a genetic test for MCAS. There are some known genetic markers that increase your risk, like with breast cancer, but it's not definitive. There IS a genetic test for several types of known EDS-causing genes (for types other than hEDS); perhaps you're thinking of that? If we end up locating a genetic basis for hEDS, the theory would be that that genetic disorder also causes symptoms of what we currently call MCAS and POTS. Which is reasonable enough in abstract. It's hard to definitively prove the ABSENCE of a genetic basis for something, since it could always be that we just haven't looked in the right place yet.

This paper (which is clearly, and justifiably, skeptical of the proliferation of MCAS diagnoses) says the link between MCAS and hEDS/POTS is "not definitively proven":

https://www.jaci-inpractice.org/article/S2213-2198(21)00676-0/fulltext

On the other hand, it may be necessary to screen out the factitious disorders in order to deem the proof sufficient, I don't know.

Here's my current bottom line: of the people who are claiming this constellation of symptoms, it's likely (but apparently unproven beyond correlation) that some genuinely have all of them because they're related, some (maybe the biggest group) have conversion disorders where mental-health challenges are manifesting in physical form via suggestion, and some are Munchausen's/factitious disorder. And probably some are malingerers who are trying to get on disability, although the smart ones of those will call as little attention to themselves as possible. Not a very satisfying description, but it is what it is.

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This is just not true—the thing about them not being considered related until they were “way more popular,” and especially the thing about there being “no particular reason for them to be related.” I think a basic knowledge of EDS and secondary POTS would make it very obvious how they could be related.

I have POTS (not EDS or MCAS) but I think it’s a lot easier to get it as a diagnosis but like you said, it is extremely difficult to fake symptoms for a TTT. They analyze your vitals a lot, they’re checking for patterns that would be better explained by another condition. I don’t think these are easier to fake than many other conditions. But every chronic illness group I’ve been in has been full of people trying very hard to get better and better.

hEDS doesn’t have one test but other EDS forms do. But everyone I know with EDS took 10+ years to get a diagnosis and it’s extremely difficult to find a doctor who understands the condition well enough. Yes, there are “particular doctors,” but I promise you your average doc won’t know how to take on complex cases. I have had doctors tell me completely false information before that could easily be disproved if they actually read the literature. I’ve known people who nearly died while trying to see regular doctors before getting a better recommendation off of a Facebook group.

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EDS tends to spark other conditions. POTS is extremely common with EDS and tends to be more commonly a secondary condition, MCAS is also very common with EDS.

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For anyone interested in the Chicago show with Dawkins and Jesse, I suggest NOT buying your ticket from the link that is in the show notes because the website adds a $10 "delivery fee" to send you the email with your ticket in it. Instead, visit Chicago Theater's website and go from there. Also, ticket selection is better. I almost bought a balcony ticket in row P for $77 through the link in the show notes, but ended up with row A in the same section for $73 via the other site.

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I'm going to wear my Blocked and Reported shirt at the Dawkins show. If you see me be sure to come up and say hello. Btw I've been informed by the website that 414 tickets to the show have been sold in the last hour.

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Wait, what? Blocked & Reported shirt? Did you buy merch ?!

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I bought the shirt (along with a hoodie) when the original store opened back in like 2021 or 2022.

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Legend.

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I take that back. I bought a total of 3 T-shirts and the hoodie from the first online store, but I've never worn 2 of the tops since they are sized quite small. I even bought them in XXL knowing how slim and form fitting the cut would be. That's how women's clothes are cut and I like a looser feel without looking like a box as I do in a shirt cut for men. But I digress. The women's XXL fits like a M or a tight large. I shit you not. It wouldn't look remotely big on someone with Katie's frame. Then when store 2.0 was launched I got a Pervert for Nuance top.

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Debating going, want to but am also lazy so it’s a battle.

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It’s the last time Dawkins will be making public appearances like this ever so if you can get there you should go!

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It will be an interesting night. You should go. Jesse is always funny IRL.

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I really want to go, but it's on my kid's birthday and I guess I love him or whatever...

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Just a note about the "birthing parent" discussion with respect to lesbian couples. "Biological mother" doesn't necessarily capture the situation, because the woman giving birth isn't necessarily the biological mother. It might be the case, for example, that the pregnant woman is carrying an embryo created from her female partner's egg (also known as "reciprocal IVF" or "shared motherhood"). In this case, the woman giving birth isn't the genetic/biological mother, but is still the only one giving birth.

Which person is actually giving birth can also be relevant for maternity leave, disability coverage, etc. Many employers will grant a longer maternity/parental leave for employees who are the "birthing parent," to recognize the physical burden of actually giving birth. Traditionally, that was just a sex-based policy: maternity leave for women vs. paternity leave for men. But if the female employee is using a surrogate, adopting a child, or has a female partner giving birth, she can be a parent/mother but not the "birthing parent."

I still think this could be communicated as "woman giving birth," but the point remains that "mother" doesn't always capture the nuances, and in certain contexts when the difference matters, a more specific term may be necessary.

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Good points. I’d propose an even simpler phrasing: “birthing mother.“

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This is very good. I often get mildly annoyed when people reference my “biological parents,” (I’m adopted) because I don’t define “parent” as the people who contributed sperm, an egg, and a uterus. I refer to them as my progenitors. But they don’t have any sort of familial relationship to me, they’re just genetic donors.

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Getting worked up about any of this is precisely the problem.

I know philosophy gets a bad rap with the Hoi Polloi but a significant phenomenological writer, Merleau-Ponty constantly wrote about how meaning was constructed in the space between author/reader or speaker/listener. It seems to me that much idpol value speak is simply one person trying to impose their definitions regardless of the audience’s understanding and ability to process existing words with nuance and contextuality. If I use a generally applicable term it should suffice without anyone screaming about their special circumstances because that probably isn’t the topic of conversation per se.

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I don't think these awkward technical terms should replace "mother" in daily life. But there are some situations when the distinctions matter, like certain medical, legal, and insurance contexts, when it's necessary to convey that a specific person is or isn't giving birth.

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A lesbian coworker used the term “carrying partner”

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I thought that was for airlines?

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But what happened to the black child?!?!

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That baby's name was Rachel Dolezal, but that's a story for another day

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The gullibility involved in this con is really astounding - it’s probably coming from people’s hearts being in the right place, but they end up thinking that someone with a marginalized identity / history of victimhood is pure and can do no wrong. So never mind that a quick Google would show no evidence of any Gallaudet professor by that name, no modeling agency or portfolio of their photos…I get wanting to have compassion, but you gotta engage your brain.

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I think its much more likely that people fell into one of two camps-

1) Those who wanted her to be real as she is very useful to make a point "this Muslim schizophrenic deaf amputee agrees with me ergo I am right"

2) Those who thought she was full of shit but didn't want group one to eviscerate them.

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I’m guessing the backstory is largely ad-hoc and Craven never really intended all the parts she made up to fit together or even be mentioned at the same time

Just continuous improv and vibes, borrowing from whatever diversity element seems useful at the moment (race, religion, physical disability, mental disability, etc). If everyone just goes along with every tiny detail and never takes a step back to look at the greater story so far it can go on for quite a while

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I think most people in this space just aren't very smart, or they would be doing something actually useful in the world.

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People so desperately want to be able to say that they have a friend, colleague, or recruit from multiple intersecting identity groups that they suspend their disbelief in situations where most sensible people wouldn't. They want it to be true even moreso than they actually believe it to be.

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It bothers me that like one of the disabilities just can’t be enough for somebody to be prominent in the world as an activist.

So like my brother has schizophrenia and one of the things has been happening lately is that he is finally really OK with exploring technology . So we have gotten him a smart phone and gotten him off cable and so he’s starting to like see what’s out there. It’s been really neat, but it’s been like a lot of work to get him to this point and a lot of work for him emotionally to handle it because he has difficulties handling his cognitive difficulties There are real cognitive issues connected to schizophrenia for a lot of people so his ability to learn was really impaired because he’s had to contend with so many different symptoms. The fact that schizophrenia isn’t like enough of a disability just really strikes me it’s like supremely fucked up and you gotta wonder what is going on. It’s so hyper competitive that it really diminishes what people with disabilities go through because somehow somebody with schizophrenia would just be too vanilla for anyone to care about.

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It’s insane that schizophrenia, one of the most difficult mental disorders to treat and to live with, could be considered vanilla. It’s so upsetting. I have had experiences with friends whose schizophrenia led to death and the long, painful struggle they went through was horrifying. That seems enough for any one person.

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Hope your brother gets a good experience from the new device

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He loves it. He’s discovered YouTube in part because it has all these records on there that he couldn’t get as MP threes because people just put that stuff on there. He loves music and he listens to music all the time and it’s been really good for him to get into streaming and YouTube and he really gets excited when he calls me and talks about the bands he discovers and the bands that he is able to listen to again.

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I sincerely hope the rabbit holes on YouTube don’t amplify any of his symptoms. Hopefully he stays on a wholesome trajectory.

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I'm a big fan of arbitrarily spelling out part of MP3s :)

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I feel that you did not adequately explore how hurtful this deception was to all of the ACTUAL Arabic Muslim Turkish schizophrenic deaf double-amputee female gamers of color, who now have the additional emotional labor of dealing with people who believe they don't exist. Do better.

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The most unbelievable part of the Susan Banks story was the part where multiple people in the gaming world apparently read about her and didn't smell a rat.

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Or they did, but blowing the whistle on someone “marginalized” wasn’t worth the hassle.

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I bet it’s mostly this.

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I think it's more accurate to say "multiple people in the gaming activism world" didn't smell a rat. Normal developers and people who play games would have no reason to know anything about this (fake) person

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Smell a rat?! That's racist!

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To be fair, this kind of thing has happened in more mainstream journalism. That famous Jimmy's World story from the Washington Post in 1980 is a perfect example. I knew very little about the scandal when I read the actual article for the first time a few years ago. But when I read the article, my brain just kept going "this is fake." Granted, I knew it was fake, but the descriptions of what happened just seemed to violate basic truths of how children interact with the world.

I felt the same way when I read the Rolling Stone "A Rape on Campus" story. I actually read that thing when it came out, before its veracity was being openly questioned, and I didn't know that it was stirring up a big controversy at UVa. As was reading it, my initial thought was "oh I misread something in the introduction, this is some kind of fictional story" because it just didn't pass basic logical checks.

In both cases, people just didn't want to lean very hard on their priors about how the world works. Because it involves marginalized people, they were inclined to think "well, maybe that is how the world works, I'm just not aware of it."

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Creating an entire website dedicated to providing trigger warnings might be the most female-coded part of this story. There is a very specific modern archetype (young or middle aged, neurotic, very online, progressive woman who collects identities like pokemon) that lives for that sort of thing.

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At some point it flips to "what actually makes this thing interesting in any way?"

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One of the aspects of gender identity that I find interesting is how it echoes the stories we read to our children, eg, Cinderella, The Ugly Duckling, etc. We tell them that inside of them is a princess, or a super hero, hidden inside, who will someday be recognized as Their True Selves, stunning and brave, to be lionized and lauded.

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What a delightful episode. My favorite kind.

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At first I wanted a schematic of all the characters and their relations and foul deeds, then I just surrendered to the madness.

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I really liked the moments where Jesse chastised Katie over her inappropriate laughing.

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I want, just once, to find out that an internet character is actually a dog

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It’ll turn out to be a Boston terrier then we’ll all have another reason to hate it.

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Toto!!! That gives me an idea for a re-make of the film, with alphabet-pride-queer- rainbow munchkins (a la latest Snow White remake). The wicked witch of the west is a terf, of course.

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having read Wicked... I do think the wicked witch (in the novel, at any rate) would end up being accused of such thought crimes. did they queerify the seven dwarves, and also evade endless think pieces? society is slipping,

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Reading through the IGN piece, it also demonstrates to me how damaging to Journalism this social/professional taboo surrounding deadnaming/not acknowledging that someone transitioned is. It a) makes it easier to obfuscate a narrative. B) when discussing a case like this with a serial fantasist/grifter it is actually important context for understanding their credibility

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Yeah one of my biggest "peaking" on trans specifically (a decade ago?) was this case of a grifter/fraudster who was defrauding a bunch of people as a man. Got caught, transitioned, and then started grifting/defrauding again under the new feminine identity.

And when journalists caught them out on this and made both identities part of the story, the criminal killed themselves and the online world had a field day about how the journalists were murders.

Sorry but your prerogative to keep your past a secret and your gender journey obfuscated does not extend to using it to help perpetuate a criminal career. It is absolutely 100% appropriate for a journalist to bring it up in that context. No discussion.

The people who seemed to think your personal history should be 100% sacrosanct under all circumstances because bringing it up might make you feel bad or have negative consequences to you, particularly when that personal history involved fraud/grifting, was absolutely fucking mind blowing.

Was really the leading edge of the "my fragile mental health trumps all other legal/moral concerns".

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Was this the piece in Grantland?

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The taboo against “deadnaming” really grinds my gears because it’s asking people to pretend not to know something they know, which is Orwellian, and because it lets a small portion of people completely memory-hole their past actions consequence-free.

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The KitchenAid tragedy *killed* me.

Normally I run from any discussion about “the gaming community” but this was one of the funniest BARPods in a while.

Real pics of Coty Clemens anywhere? Anyone?

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I can't believe Katie did the black woman voice lol

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We are blessed

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I can’t believe how bad it was. I love Katie.

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Feeling attacked as a farter-snorer

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Paused the episode a few minutes in to say that I hate when people fake POTS, they cause it to be dismissed. I've talked about this here before, but my sister, after a 2020 covid infection, developed POTS, but it would not be diagnosed until later. 4 weeks after infection, on may 4th 2020, she stood up to walk to the bathroom, and collapsed. At the ER she had a sudden onset fever of 104 and a heart rate of 208. She suffered a cardiac arrest and had an anoxic brain injury, and is now actually disabled, literally unable to walk unassisted. She just got over her second covid infection and called me in terror at 1am, after standing up briefly, with rails and guards, in the shower. We checked her heart rate, which wasn't going down, and it was 150 at rest. It burns me up that people fake having it, but women are more prone to autoimmune disease, and I think as years go on more and more people will be forced to reckon with the fact that covid causes post viral issues, many of them in women, but also many of them in men and young men. I was considering getting a novavax booster until I read a mother's comment that her 19 year old son developed POTS after receiving it, and can no longer play sports. They didn't seem woke or liberal to me. I understand everyone likes to think that they will never develop a disability, and that if they did, they would never be like those cringe wokesters who have the bad decorum to talk about it publically. Katie might thing it's really cool and sticking it to the shitlib SJW types who broke her heart by canceling her for her (eminently sane, and smart, and quite brave ) reporting on gender madness, but I can tell you first hand, it's not not not wanting to stand up or get out of bed.

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Faking POTS is really not okay. If people are faking it, people who actually have it are less likely to be believed and that's a real problem because t's more common in women and so the symptoms are frequently dismissed as psychosomatic even though there's a relatively simple test for it. I used to have Orthostatic Hypotension which has similar symptoms but is a less dangerous and I am so glad it's finally gone. It can be really scary because if you faint, you might hit your head or break a bone. Hope they can find a treatment for your sister's POTS.

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Tbh, a problem I have is that I see people more often say someone is faking POTS—without any evidence besides “that user is chronically online and thus must be faking it”—than I see someone who actually seems to be faking POTS. I also find that people in chronic illnesses groups online spread less misinformation about it than people who are trying to “find munchies,” like illness fakers forums. I’ve met plenty of chronically online chronically ill people, some with other mental illnesses as well, but never met someone personally who was “faking it.” There’s far too many assumptions all the time.

Orthostatic Hypotension is not fun at all! It’s encouraging to hear that it’s gone for you; I hope for that day with my own chronic illnesses.

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Sep 1Edited

Sometimes people who haven’t had a lot of health problems think they can just be overcome if the sick person would only “toughen up”. It doesn’t help that so many online people fake or “self diagnose” various conditions either for attention or because something really is wrong with them and they’re desperate for a diagnosis. Sadly everyone will eventually start experiencing health problems and then most will have the decency to feel guilty for having been so glib about it when they were young and healthy. Or we can look on the bright side... maybe they’ll be hit by buses and never have to be sick! 🤭 Either way, good luck to you and your sister.

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Cait, I love it every time you comment in here about chronic illness! Very grateful for it.

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Okay, enough is enough. I’ve had Boston Terriers for the past 17 years, and they are the most remarkable dogs. They are the first American breed, and they are incredible companions.

The creator of Goldendoodles regrets what he unleashed on the world.

Katie, you’ve started a fight you’re ill equipped to finish.

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I like Boston terriers and goldendoodles. I don't really have a dog in this fight.

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Nice.

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I’ve never had one but I’ve known three personally and they’ve all been friends of the cat. Any dog who is cat friendly is okay in my book farting or no. Cute little buggers!

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Mine were cat-friendly until my parents’ cats passed and they rewilded.

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That’s wild. A lot of dogs enjoy the grooming if they’ll just give cats a chance.

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My mom's cats want nothing more than to groom my sister's golden retriever. The dumb lug thinks it's an attack.

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Awww that’s a shame! He’d love it if he give it a chance. We’ve always had dog grooming cats. My cat now has worn a bald spot on my husband’s head from grooming him when he comes back from a run. At least that’s what he SAYS has caused the balding ;)

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I did think it was hilarious that she came in swinging like that when she has what seems to be one of the most hated breeds on the internet. I do too, so not judging, but I do feel like by getting a doodle I’ve revoked my rights to hate on any other dog breed 😂

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See, you know your place. That’s what being a responsible doodle owner is all about.

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They are wonderful dogs!! Small

but great with kids.

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Mine is curled up on my lap as I’m typing this.

Yeah, my Bostons always loved kids. We don’t have any kids of our own, but any time they’re around kids they absolutely melt. So many cool smells.

And don’t tell her she’s small, she’ll try to take on a German Shepherd.

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Bostons are just the sweetest, best dogs ever. They only fart for the same reasons every other creature does: dietary reasons! And they are much less flat-faced and sedentary than related species that suffer major health issues like Frenchies and Pugs. Not just offended because of fighting words against my fur baby but also because it seems like some ignorance played a part here, too.

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My old girl Minka is very terrier forward. In her younger days, she could jump onto my kitchen counter, just an absolute athlete. Now she spends her days sleeping on my lap or in a nearby sunny patch.

My little warrior has had kidney disease since she was 2, and I give her subcutaneous fluids every morning and evening to keep her hydrated and happy. She’s been my ride or die for 13 years, I’m just not sure how many rides she has left in her.

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I love that terrier energy and that bulldog cuddliness. Thanks for sharing, always glad to hear about dog owners really standing by their poochies, especially the Bostons. 🐶 I hope Katie didn’t mean it.

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She’s just talkin shit. I talk shit on doodles too, but they’re people’s babies.

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I have a Newfoundland puppy. He's amazing but very high energy and sensitive and embarrassing to take out in public at the moment.

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I had a Newfoundland as a kid, they are so awesome except when you have to scrub the drool strings off of the ceiling 😂

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Newfoundlands are one of my favorite breeds. I live in the desert, so it’s a non-starter for me. Plus, my wife would never.

The biggest problem you’re going to have with taking him out in public is that he’s so big I’ll be able to find you and scrub the floof.

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You can't miss him. 93 pounds at 9 months.

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I'll say it. I like pugs. They're adorable, and perfectly suited for their job of rolling in the folds of the robes of Chinese emperors. Such slander from Katie.

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I’ve also never met a pug that was anything more that a ball bag full of friendliness. “Retro pugs” refer to a movement toward less exaggerated features and healthier dogs, which I think is good.

Also, pugs have been around since 400bc, which is badass.

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And they saved Amsterdam from a fire by running around and borking until everyone woke up! Our family had one when I was a teenager, he was not particularly athletic but lived to 15 and his only health issues had to do with his back legs at the very end of his life. I've definitely seen some overbred pugs but if they are anything like the breed standard they're healthy, long-lived little guys.

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I’ll look that Amsterdam story up. Godspeed, little 4-legged foreskins.

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A cursory look turned up this story about how they became a mascot of the House of Orange, but my mom told me the fire story and I think it's also true 😂

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompey_(dog)

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THIS.

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An interview with the then non-binary Craven: https://pridesource.com/article/meet-the-nonbinary-michigan-powerhouse-who-has-revolutionized-gaming-for-the-disabled-community

There are some pretty choice words about white men from someone who later became one. Also, the article never says what the "discriminatory language" was in Assassin's Creed Valhalla that she complained about.

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If Valhalla was at all racist it was racist against Anglo Saxon Christians, and it definitely whitewashed Viking 'colonialism'.

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Those pics, I can’t but again be reminded of Judge Dredd’s 1982 satire ‘blobs’ - about a mass of citizens trying to rebel against surveillance by erasing their features.

https://x.com/douglaswolk/status/1083379841599066112

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Strange that there are no pictures of Susan Banks in that article 🤔

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Scared to listen. Does the podcast describe why the Muslims amputated her?

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No no, she plays games about being a Muslim with no limbs.

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Thanks for the info. I now have the courage to listen.

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They wrapped her stumps in muslin but a typo got out of hand.

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I hope she didn't end up like Nic Cage in Moonstruck.

https://youtu.be/sLmhb86cX34?t=104

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All-time banger of an episode. I'm going to listen to this one twice. The "disability justice" online space is a rich mine of content for this show.

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HSP = highly sensitive person. I'm an HSP and it mostly sucks. I take things way too personally, cry easily, and used to think social justice twitter was a referendum on my existence until I quit because it was making me suicidal.

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Ugh, I had some of that. Got deep enough into social justice (or read enough Ta-Nehisi Coates) that I felt horribly guilty for bringing white children into the world. At some point I snapped out of it. I wish I could remember what peaked me. Maybe it was Robin diAngelo? Or the white people washing black people's feet? Or witnessing the racial abuse my husband experienced at work? Or just my relationships with black women, which were so different from theoretical race relations in social justice world.

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TNC red-pilled me. I was a faithful reader, admiring his enthusiasm for traveling and learning French as an adult. But the greater his personal success, the more pronounced his depression about the future. I thought he was not so much a prophet as a man suffering from clinical depression and treating him as a prophet neither aided him nor the very real problems faced by people living in the margins

(I keep deleting a sentence or two about his hissy fit when the press disclosed TNC’s purchase of a historic home. It was probably just a rocky adjustment from private to public individual. However, cynical me wonders if part of his discomfiture stemmed from the cognitive dissonance between his lifestyle and his proclamations that Blacks were destined to be downtrodden.)

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Yeah, he lost me at "Between the World and Me." I thought it was basically abuse for him to tell his son that white people want him dead.

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Oh shit that’s me

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Katie’s accent is gold!

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I'd really like to see AI create a version where Katie reads as an elderly black woman from West Tennessee.

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Infinitely better than that AI-generated nonsense.

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This episode made me realize that BethAnn McLaughlin could have gotten away with the Sciencing Bi scam if she’d bothered to give herself a fake disability at the same time.

I was skeptical of this story from the outset just based on context cues, but I became particularly skeptical when they mentioned a woman from Turkey teaching at an American university for the deaf, as well as communicating with someone who just happened to have taken a sign language class. But then I got to wondering, is it common for deaf people from outside the US to learn ASL? I assume it’s not the lingua franca that English is, but maybe I’m wrong about that.

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I am not sure if this is the case for everywhere in the world, but different anglophone countries have different sign languages. For example in Australia it's AUSLAN, and in the UK they use BSL. A fun fact I learnt at some point is that ASL developed from LSF (French sign language).

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Right which is why I initially thought it would be strange for someone from Turkey to know ASL! But then I realized that’s just an assumption on my part.

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Also I can’t believe Koty didn’t get canceled for that Bess story. That seems like the sort of thing that could really come back to bite Koty and even IGN if the right corner of the internet notices. Maybe shit’s going down on Blewski.

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Right, so gender is a social construct, including "gendered behaviours". Male mammals are almost universally more aggressive than female mammals. So what social construct does the American Medical Association propose male lions, tigers, and bears(oh my!) are adhering to? Rad fems argue that gender is completely a social construct, and it is funny watching them try and juggle the arguments. Even Julie Bindel is now saying that, though she is loathe to admit it, there are behaviours which are just more likely to be native to either males or females.

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We may even be in reaching distance of online feminism discovering that “more likely to” does not equal “presents consistently across the population”

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Louise Perry is always talking about bell curves and how we seem to forget about them when it applies to gender generalizations. Most men are taller than most women, but there are women who are taller than most men, for example. The exceptions prove the rule.

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I don’t know that the exceptions “prove” the rule. There are some domains where the bell curves have basically no overlap (testosterone levels, for example). But the exceptions are consistent with the rule.

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You’re right.

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The funny thing about that lengthy definition Katie read is that it still basically amounts to stereotypes. But many of these stereotypes contain a grain of truth. Carole Hooven has talked a lot about how hormone exposure (even before puberty and in utero) affects aspects of our social conditioning. This is why certain personalities tend to correlate with sex, though there's still plenty of room for deviation from that. I'm not sure if some behavioral traits can be fully decoupled from sex, but I don't think that ought to be the goal. The ideal scenario is to give people as much individual agency as possible, and I think the obsessive categorization of gender ideology undermines that. Neither conforming to nor deviating from gender stereotypes should be punished, because it's ultimately not the most important aspect of a person's character.

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I wouldn't say "a grain of truth", considering sexual dimorphism is a thing and sex specific behaviour is consistent throughout mammals-hence me say "lions, and tigers and bears oh my". It is female lions who hunt, but it is male lions who kill other lions. It amuses me that we tip toe around the subject with euphemism purely not to seem sexist. The irony is, that it is out of the same politeness not to offend that compels people to use preferred pronouns, but in this case it's not to offend feminists.

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“ sex specific behaviour is consistent throughout mammals”

Thats… actually not true, but also not relavent.

There are lineages that have developed a variety of unusual strategies, see naked mole rats for example. Mammals are a bit less likely than other lineages to have come up with wild strategies because our reproduction is crazy complicated and tied to sex with the whole pregnancy thing (whereas with fish, birds, reptiles, well eggs are portable so you can get weird things like mouth brooding and females laying and then taking off).

The irrelevant bit is that what matters for predicting what is plausible for humans biologically isn’t what “mammals” do, but what’s in our immediate evolutionary history.

It’s likely the case that the ancestor of all great apes went through a change to larger stronger males from an ancestor that was less sexually dimorphic. This accompanied a change to a polygynous mating system in which a few males dominate. We see variations on this system still exist in gorillas chimps and orangutans. Then, in the more recent history, in both bonobos and humans (partly but probably not entirely independently) have become less sexually dimorphic. In humans this was accompanied by an increase in male parental care which is basically unknown in other apes AFaIK. Biparental care is rare and thus notable in mammals, and often comes along with other traits - in the case of humans we have reduced muscle mass and sex dimorphism, and obviously our giant brains allow us to have more stable relationships and sharing of experience and technology etc. and agains that’s also where things get complicated. Since we Can learn gender roles, it becomes hard to tell what’s what in the psychological domain.

Biologists interested in evolutionary explanations for things look at trajectories of change over time. From that perspective it’s not so important that most mammals do x. None of this means that humans are “not sexually dimorphic” obviously that is measurable. But we absolutely know that the behaviors of males and females have changed in many different ways and definitely it’s the case in our lineage.

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I am aware of that. The exceptions where females are larger would be something like monotremes ;they are exception when comes males vs females in terms of size and strength. An males are more aggressive, generally.You seem to me extracting and “ought” from and “is” in what I wrote which is was never there and to say that female chose monogamy doesn’t really prove anything other than smaller less aggressive doesn’t prove it made males and females equally aggressive. If that was the case it doesn’t really help prove the existence of “patriarchy”.

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I’m not applying an is - ought fallacy. I’m correcting your scientific statements which were simply not accurate.

In evolution what has predictive power is shared ancestry and change within lineages. It matters very little what lions or naked mole rats do, or even what “the average mammal” does when it comes to making predictions about humans.

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I wasn’t referring solely to sex-specific behavior. I was talking about stereotypes, what gender ideology adherents would refer to as "presentation." I literally said that some behaviors likely can't be decoupled from sex and I'm a feminist myself. I wasn’t trying to "tip toe" around anything, you're just projecting that on to me.

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It's all nonsensical. Gender stereotypes weren't invited to describe the two genders, they arose from the two genders and are observations about them. There's probably not a single male or female on the planet that exhibits 100% of their gender stereotypes, and certainly people enjoy things from both sides, so you could argue it's a spectrum. But a spectrum still defined by a binary: male and female and everything those two sexes historically prefer and exhibit.

In this sense, it's funny to think about nonbinary people. In my mind, a truly nonbinary person would only enjoy things like drinking water, breathing air, being awake, sleeping, warming up or cooling down depending on temperature, being comfortable, dislikes nausea, and enjoys ice cream. Behaviors and "preferences" that aren't typically coded male or female.

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That may have been true of some, or even most feminist thinking years ago, but I don't think that is the case now.

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Gender Identity is such a luxury belief. Book Recommendation: Undergroud Girls of Kabul.

“is a book by Jenny Nordberg that documents the bacha posh of Afghanistan. Bacha posh translates from Dari as "dressed up like a boy." It is a term used in Afghanistan and in this book to describe children who are born as girls but are dressed up, raised and treated as if they were boys. The girls will usually serve as a son for the family until she hits puberty.”

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Wow amazing to see people in the wild who have read this book.

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Katie, I know you said you didn't want to talk about it, but please do an episode on the Jones Act and why WA state can't buy Electric Ferries from Norway. Get one of your libertarian friends to co-host with you

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I grew up in Maine. Portland is an amazing food city— like one of the best in the US.

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I expected to see outrage about the new AMA draft guidance as the top comment. Y’all, this shit sucks. AMA Style controls how all medical research papers are written, does it not? If these draft guidelines are accepted, gender ideology becomes officially baked into medical science. (Without any scientist ever investigating whether gender identity even exists.)

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I think many of us have already given up on a lot of these organizations caring about science.

It’s clear it is feels/ideology/political point scoring are what is guiding the AMA. So that it is doing silly things isn’t that surprising.

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`Without any scientist ever investigating whether gender identity even exists.'

Gender identity has been accepted by the scientific community for over 50 years. It appears in thousands of papers written by scientists.

The people denying the existence of gender identity are the ones who are ignorant about the science.

Gender ideology is distinct from gender identity.

I would also say that the case of David Reimer more-or-less proves the validity of the theory (in that it could have been used to falsify the idea). David could not be made to believe that he was female because he had a male gender identity.

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I already replied to you above, but please stop using David Reimer as any kind of proof regarding gender identity. John Money literally abused him.

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David was made to anatomically resemble, and raised as, a female (including I believe receiving HRT?). He knew that he wasn't female, and struggled immensely and ultimately tragically, because he had a male gender identity.

Without that innate sense of being a male---i.e., his gender identity was male---how would he have known that he was a male otherwise?

The abuse he suffered does not change this.

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AMA doesn’t control how medical research is written. That’s at the level of the journal. Many journals probably do use the AMA’s guidelines.

And yes, it’s bad, but I don’t think anyone is all that surprised or outraged at this point given what we’ve already seen. If the AMA turned around tomorrow and required basic reality to be reflected in language with regards to these topics, there would be a revolt in academia. They’re bad actors, but they’re hardly the originators of this.

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Do not most medical journals use AMA style? (If not, what style do they use?)

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There’s NLM (National Library of Medicine), Harvard, and Vancouver as well. Depending on how broadly you define medicine, APA style is seen as well as this is common in the social sciences.

This reference seems to think Vancouver is more common, though I don’t know about that (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7322669/). I couldn’t find anything really quantitative as to what are the most popular citation styles.

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I read the Draft AMA Style Guidelines. Here are some terms that they say should be avoided in medical writing:

- pregnant women

- women of childbearing age

- biological sex

- biologically female

- biologically male

- opposite sex

- “he or she”

The only thing I found heartening in these guidelines is that they say writers should use “sex” instead of “gender “ when they mean biological sex. If the guidelines are actually adopted, one result could be a sharp decline in the word “gender” in medical journals. I’d love to see this change across all the sciences — that way, readers would have a better idea whether what’s being discussed is real or woo.

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The way I've been thinking of it is: if I were somehow magicked into a woman's body, would I then feel like I was trapped in the wrong body?

I'll never know for sure, of course, but my best guess is that I would get used to it, and prefer to stay that way instead of getting surgery and hormone replacement. I just don't care that much that I am male instead of female, and I don't expect I'd care much if it was the opposite.

(Which is not to say other people are wrong to care. Everyone gets to decide for themselves what is important to them.)

I had been wondering how many people feel similarly. Based on a few people I've talked to IRL, and now Jesse and Katie's conversation, maybe it's not that rare.

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My wife has used the analogy to citizenship: people are born in a country, some feel a strong emotional attachment to it, others don't really but still have no desire to leave, a few will go to the trouble of emigrating but usually for more practical reasons than "I was always French on the inside".

As for myself, I don't believe in gendered souls and never did. I do think that transitioning helped me in my life, but that's for a bunch of contingent reasons and not a simple matter of "identity". I actually found the whole framework of gendered souls / gender identity to be tremendously unhelpful in deciding whether I should do it or not. Of course there are other labels like "nonbinary" or "agender" which might describe me, but that feels like going even further into a philosophical framework that I have a fundamental disconnect with.

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This is such a now-common internet story. I remember something like this, at a much smaller scale, happening in a forum I was a part of in the early 2000s. A well-known forum member killed themself and there was a brief period of “well that’s terrible.” At that time, however, there was a lot more very quick skepticism that this person even ever existed at all and the conclusion most people came to was that this whole entity was fake.

In a weird way, the people getting scammed by this shit are now more vulnerable, because it’s gauche to question online identity claims. But any account that you see with the thousand pity characteristics, you should just be extremely skeptical of. If it’s too good to be true, then it’s not true.

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In regards to the beginning of the show where you discuss gender roles in regards to how we choose to dress, our internal sense of gender identity is not a great guide to what we look good in or will feel comfortable in, and that has everything to do with our body shape, which is dictated by biological sex. The platonic ideal of the male figure is a V (wider shoulders than hips), and the platonic ideal of the female figure is the hourglass. All fashion seeks to emphasize those traits.

This is why men don’t look good in dresses, it’s not social expectations, it’s because dresses emphasize the hourglass shape. Same with women wearing more traditional masculine clothing such as coats with wide shoulders.

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Men look amazing in skirts and dresses when they are properly tailored - see ancient Greeks / Romans etc. unfortunately it’s difficult to find skirted garments cut for men’s bodies anymore.

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> This is why men don’t look good in dresses, it’s not social expectations, it’s because dresses emphasize the hourglass shape. Same with women wearing more traditional masculine clothing such as coats with wide shoulders.

I wonder if this gender confusion is exacerbated by the fact that, here in 2024, perhaps only 30% of men and women have proper shapes. How many women have hourglass shapes? They're all spherical now. And how many men have waists that are the narrowest part of their frame, followed by their hips and then widest at their shoulders? Most men's guts are now the widest part of their bodies.

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It's really quite sad to pay any attention to the general size of people when I'm out getting groceries, say. I feel certain that people didn't look like they do now when I was a kid.

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It’s kind of shocking. I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago in the Logan square neighborhood. So many obese young people everywhere. It didn’t used to be like this. I work in a school and it’s the same thing. We really are a very unhealthy society.

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No, it’s honestly been a really dramatic change even since I was in college (15-20 years ago now, yikes). I think I’ve read that the average weight of an American woman is now 170?? Although the saddest thing is to see how many *little kids* are fat. 😕

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I'm 15 pounds lighter (a 5'10 61 year old male) than the average American woman! And I don't look skinny.

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I recently watched a l video of a montage of photographs from a council estate in my town from the 80s and 90s. There were about 100 pictures and they were all of people, usually groups of different people. It was amazingly striking how nobody, literally nobody, was visibly overweight with the exception of older (60+ looking) women.

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Sad but true.

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Generally agree, although there were some very trim and stylish women’s dresses and jackets in the 1940s with padded shoulders.

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True. Also some of the 80s women’s jackets tried out that style. It’s usually in reaction to the ideal, and never seems to catch on

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Eh… shoulderpads honestly were *extremely* common in the 40s—not in the exaggerated, quarterback style of the 80s, though—but OTOH they were often balanced out by peplums at the hips. So I guess it was still an hourglass shape, but maybe a more angular, Deco hourglass. (I just love the styles of the 40s so much.)

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Any time "femme fatale" gets mentioned it's Blade Runner's Rachael that comes to mind. The noir film dame archetype to me.

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It took me some time to remember I wanted to say this, but reading aloud the housekeeping from a written script is NOT A BAD IDEA.

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Completely agree with Katie that brachycephalic shouldn't exist. When I meet someone with a Boston or a Frenchie I lose respect and have to compartmentalize my immense dislike for what they've done which is paid >$5000 for a brachycephalic dog. The dog's respiratory system is deformed so they suffer they're whole lives.. I'm so disgusted and dismayed that they continue to be the most purchased dog. Stop it people!

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My sister-in-law has several bulldogs that were rescued from a puppy mill, including the mama. I love that my sister-in-law is so big hearted. I also don’t understand why she is drawn to the shape of dog in the first place, but I’m just glad these pups found a good home.

Myself, I have two rescue kitties, and I have to say that no amount of breeding will ever improve on the basic design of cats. Although I am much taken by Siberians! And Bengals!

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Except for some breeds like Persians because their little faces are all smashed in. They have breathing problems too, the poor things.

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Yes, I do applaud people who rescue brachy dogs. Hopefully the rescue will pay for their vet bills because they're ongoing. It's obscene the selective breeding with those Bulldogs not only are their respiratory systems deformed, but their shape of their bones and joints often are as well.

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I want a Siberian because they’re just so giant and fluffy. (Don’t care for Maine Coons, they’ve got those weird sort of snout-like faces.) Otoh I worry that a creature with a triple-layered coat which evolved to live in Siberia might not be happy in the American South.

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Never heard of a Maine Coon dog, just cats.

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That’s what I meant. So are Siberians! Behold the floof: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_cat

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Oh I see, I thought you were talking about Huskies! My bad! Oh my, this is one is to die for! (( heart eyes )) As for Maine Coons, it has been my experience that they are very chill love bugs. I do think you have to consider the climate but if strictly indoors it shouldn't be as much of a problem.

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They’re also just… gross-looking. I must be missing whatever impulse makes people think something is so ugly it’s cute; I just think it’s ugly.

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I will note that the initial list of Bio Qualifications had DID pretty high up in the sequence, so it's really no surprise there were four of him.

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I have a pair of Golden Goose sneaks. I love them! They are works of art! They hurt like hell! Don’t ask a lesbian for style advice. Ask a mo like me.

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John Waters would approve!

One of my favorite t-shirts was found at a Goodwill and then hand painted to look like it was recovered from a dumpster after being fought over by two very filthy dogs.

This is clearly not a substack one comes to for style advice. =)

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Knew this had Sciencing_Bi energy.

Also, IDK if it is just me but when i post on my phone I can't edit, but on the browser I can.

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"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." - Deaf Queer Disabled Schizophrenic Muslim Gamer Obi Wan Kenobi with a Black Son

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Don't give Disney ideas.

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I really appreciate Jesse’s effortless use of “scuttlebutt.”

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Gawd yes!

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I'm afraid I'm going to have to cancel my subscription after hearing Jesse commit the crime of disability erasure. When Katie admitted to being a person with Aging Eye Syndrome, Jesse insensitively misacronymed it as "AGS". It is not AGS. It is AES. Do better, Jesse.

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I generally sympathize with those that get ripped off, especially if it’s something that the average person can’t understand (eg a crooked financial advisor). But it always makes me happy when gullible ideological idiots get ripped off- like those that funded Patrisse Cullors’ mansion or those who donated to “We Build The Wall”. In this case, an obvious grifter preyed on the morons who were taken in by the stacking of various pet victim identities. The overall moral of the story should be “stop caring about such demographics” but that unfortunately won’t happen. A fool and his money…

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Thrilled that Golden Goose is getting the BARpod treatment. Suggestion for the next Sneaker Review: those horrible “dress sneakers” Doug Emhoff wears

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Katie obviously learned nothing about laughing about peoples' pain from Giggle's owner's fine of 10K for laughing at the defendant in court.

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Laugh while it’s still legal, I say.

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Got that right

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I am pretty proud that I was simulataneously laughing right along with her, especially at the kitchen mishap leading to a double amputation. As Mel Brooks said, "Tragedy is when I get a paper cut. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

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The triple diagnosis of POTS, EDS, and MCAS is known as the Munchhausen By Internet Trifecta. Anytime you stumble across anyone claiming all three, just assume that they're doing it for attention.

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Very proud of Jesse and Katie coming out as agender this episode

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The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The Ancestor's Tale, Climbing Mount Improbable: Richard Dawkins is beyond brilliant and such a good writer.

I am very happy for Jesse to be among the chosen. Dawkins is talking to all my favorite people (that I don't know personally): Michael Shermer, Coleman Hughes, Jesse. He put out a request for who he should speak to and I suggested Bob Costas because he is more than sports, and he is an outsanding interviewer. And he'd be different!

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Classic! It was obvious where this story was going, and it was a wonderful journey to get there.

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They can tickle, but we can’t giggle.

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I always worry that people think that I’m fake because I have a certain magnifying manner of describing events BUT, and I stress the but, without ever lying. I don’t get how these ones fly under people’s radar, though. It’s so writ large an lie, especially after it goes from one person to the next in the same community. Then again, I was in a messageboard in my early twenties where some middle aged lady was passing around photos of her daughter, pretending she had cancer, and sexting everyone (except for me, to be clear).

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You must have felt so unpretty.

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Had a bit of an ugly duckling feeling, yeah, but I look like Shrek so it’s not really new.

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There has been a massive amount of effort put into games accessibility, it’s now possible for completely blind people to play mainstream games just with the use of some descriptions and audible signals about directions et cetera.

My other substantive point about this episode is we finally found an accent that Katie can do reliably.

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Isn’t she from one of the Carolinas? That’s how they talk there.

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Is that really true? That blind people can play video games?

My son has a blind friend and the friend’s dad used to host old-school DnD games so his son could have a video-game-like experience with his buddies.

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It’s by no means all games, but some of the Blockbuster releases of the last few years are pretty well playable without any sight.

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Why would a completely blind person want to play a video game? A large part of a video game is visual stimulus and visual reward. I’m sure some sort of narrative heavy games where choice is prioritised over coordination is key make sense to adapt but really if you’re completely blind then your reward and interactions are inherently limited in a sphere where hand/eye coordination from visual prompts to attain visual reward is kinda essential.

Not everyone can do everything, 120kg powerlifters aren’t going to be good rock-climbers but we don’t reduce the incline of a climbing wall to help them feel included.

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I’m told the latest Mortal Kombat release is groundbreaking in this area, and unless you switched on the adaptations you wouldn’t even know. Seriously, are we meant to sit in the dark and weave baskets all day for the rest of our lives?

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Was very curious, so watched a review on yt and wow, the audio narration of the fatalities is amazing lol. I'll admit I didn't really get why a blind person might want to play a game like MK, but the adaptations are incredibly neat!

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This was very stupid. But Katie and Jesse were extremely funny, so worth a listen for that alone.

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Games journalism is a real dumpster fire, and insofar as I can tell, there isn't anyone out there seriously trying to professionalize it. Every time some institution with money tries to take a stab at professionalizing the space, they get intellectually captured by some culture war bullshit. Culture war bullshit that always cuts both ways, both "left" and "right", "woke" and "anti-woke", "gamergate" or "anti-gamergate" or whatever the flavor of the day is. It's pathetic.

At the end of the day, the main outlets for games journalism are also still captured by big corporate money, and the ones that aren't are ideologically captured by some culture war agenda such that their output is deeply untrustworthy and often near worthless. The industry has all kinds of problems, both internally and externally, but I can basically never trust reporting on anything. This includes reporting on somewhat dry issues like labor conditions at game studios and the broad impact of studio mergers. The reporting is all ideologically captured, low effort, low standards garbage. Some of it might be totally true, but you'll never know because the outlet clearly lacks any commitment to journalistic standards and nakedly wears its bias all over the rest of its work.

I used to read Computer Gaming World back in the early 1990s, and the journalism in that thing, while not exactly the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, was at least trying to aspire to some kind of standard. As a whole, the likes of IGN or GameSpot (or god help us Polygon or Kotaku) are not worse than early 90s CGW as a whole, but they're not better. They've just made a lateral move. They've become more investigative and interesting and thus better in certain ways, but in surrendering any aspiration to serious journalistic standards they've become worse. All of this would be fine if it was 2001 or something, but it's been several decades now.

There is an argument that games just don't matter very much, and IGN is just as good as it's possible for games journalism to get. You're not going to get a Wall Street Journal for gaming, because gaming is too casual and too low stakes. Maybe, but then you could say the same thing about good sports journalism, and they have had respectable, high quality outlets for over a century.

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Golden Goose are very low quality per Rose Anvil. Prepare to be even more shocked https://youtu.be/0nLb5K7MbIQ?si=WXNB0IfQv4XiLeSw

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This was great, thanks! Basically the show is the metaphor for Coty.

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*the SHOE goddamn autocorrect

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Love the Rose Anvil YouTubes

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It was his most vicious shoe teardown. "It's as if they made the shoes to fall apart"

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that's just how realistic they are 😅!

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I very quickly put together some merch on Zazzle —

https://tinyurl.com/Barpodmerch

If anyone wants higher quality products that are actually screen printed, and also a url that is easier to share — sorry. I can set those up pretty easily too but I need $ for that and I’m not going to do it as a volunteer. I have actual paying clients I need to prioritize 🙂‍↕️

Also I’ll probably spam this a few times for visibility, apologies in advance.

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Guys, this one is fucking hysterical.

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This was a solid gold episode, so good I made my dog listen to on the way to walkies today

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I re-listened which is not something I normally do.

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To Katie: My son has taken "The Airporter" from Bremerton to SeaTac several times, and says it's quite convenient.

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Ain’t gonna lie, this was a great ep., funny af from start to finish. Thx guyx..

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Loved the episode. At the end I was wondering why Jesse or the 80s baby didn’t call folks to follow up on the rumours at the end? Was it just that there were no concrete leads? It seems like an opportunity to add some reporting to the story, though I know they’re both in the middle of books.

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Can anyone point me to the episode where they talk about the Woody Allen thing? I've searched and the only thing I can really find is an article Katie wrote for The Stranger

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I was wondering the same. Even if people exaggerate the narrative, he hooked up with his wife when he was 56 and right after she was out of high school. Creeper. It is like the Armie Hammer situation in which because the accusations were weaponized by bad actors that somehow the creep is absolved of creepiness.

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I’m not sure exactly which episode is the one where they played down the Woody Allen allegations. But I agree with you, Amy, that Armie Hammer is a creep and even if he’s not guilty of the worst of the worst, he still a creep. There’s enough in public domain that’s not contested to make me think this. Ditto for Neil Fucking Gaiman, too. Do I think Gaiman is a straight up rapist? Probably not. Do I think he’s a master manipulator, a cad, and a jerk whose books I won’t read anymore? Why, yes.

My biggest gripe with our hosts is that their sympathies for people who’ve been canceled make them a little too gullible when it comes to exonerating people accused of sexual misdeeds. I certainly see how the MeToo moment resulted in sloppy thinking, such as the attack on Aziz Ansari for not being a mind reader. I also see how there are a lot of fucked up dynamics that people are socialized into when it comes to heterosexual mating rituals. Those dynamics deserve discussion without demonizing people who haven’t done anything horrible but also have been, perhaps, presumptuous.

In a better world, people would communicate more clearly about sex, and men and women wouldn’t feel so compelled to follow gendered scripts where they are unclear about their motives. Women, in particular, are exposed to some near-psychotic elements in female socialization that tells them they must not appear too easy, but also must please a man. That’s a recipe for an ugly stew of mixed messaging. Guys are socialized to keep pressing for more and to ignore subtle cues that might be intended to put a stop to the proceedings without humiliating the guy.

I think this blind spot results from a combination of the experiences of having been canceled themselves, even though they’ve bounced back in many ways, and then their personal circumstances. As a lesbian, Katie has not likely been exposed to a lot of sexual coercion from men. (Also probably not zero coercion.) As a considerate man who thinks the best of almost everyone except Michael Hobbes, Jesse probably finds it hard to imagine how predatory men can be. There are tons of good men in this world. But a smallish group of predators and opportunists makes a mess for the rest of us.

A healthier sexual politics would enable us to say that coercion short of sexual violence is still bad, in a lesser way than rape, and that coercion most commonly results from negligence or recklessness on the part of the male partner. (That doesn’t rule out same-sex coercion or women pressuring men. I’m speaking to the most common form. I’m aware of CDC statistics that show men are also quite often subjected to coercion and manipulation in the sexual realm; the degree of traumatization is far less, probably because men are generally less vulnerable, physically. I don’t want to hand wave this, only to highlight where the worst damage occurs.) Most of this behavior should not be criminalized, except at the far edges where criminal recklessness would apply. But we would all be far better off if we could throw a wrench into these unhealthy sexual scripts and communicate clearly and expect each partner to be attuned to the other. That means working to change norms.

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This is a great comment. Thank you for taking the time.

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Golden Goose is yet more proof that people will buy hideous shoes so long as you market them as luxury goods.

Gotta say, I"m impressed by the audacity of selling Swarovski crystal covered sneakers that look filthy.

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How dare you talk shit about Boston terriers, Katie. Those are fighting words, worse than insulting someone’s kid.

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Extremely funny, thanks.

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Sure, Golden Goose shoes are very expensive but at least they are also poorly made: https://youtu.be/0nLb5K7MbIQ?si=_6rRNyJAbi98htfn

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How come none of these mainstream outlets have republicans or conservatives to write about the right? And please don't point to the token former republicans that no longer hold any conservative beliefs as examples. The ONLY credible example right now is David French. Speaking of which, why haven't you guys done more about him? The debate with Sohrab in 2018 alone is worth an episode.

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Who would you recommend besides David French? Does Charlie Sykes count? George Will?

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Sep 4Edited

Trustworthy conservative voices? The Dispatch staff is pretty great, that used to include French. Jonah Goldberg is probably my favorite, but Charles CW Cooke from National Review is pretty great too. Sarah Isgur from The Dispatch is also rock solid.

Edit: I like George Will, I haven't followed Charlie Sykes as much in recent years

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Sep 4Edited

It's hard for me to take anyone from The Bulwark very serious, even though I like some of them, because while they at least used to proclaim to still be conservatives, all of their acts since Trump took office have been to obstruct or hurt the cause of conservatism. Shit like The Lincoln Project. I am not in the tank for Trump, but that doesn't mean you suddenly abandon all your principles and adopt leftist ones on response.

Neocons were originally leftists who saw the light and came over to the right. It seems that a majority of neocons have returned to their former vomit like dogs. They were conservatives for 20-30 years and then abandoned ship, it seems.

Edit: I'm too young to be a real neocon, but I identify as one in the same vein as a Matthew Continetti.

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Whenever these stories surface, I always wonder what the motivations are. Is it simply some anarchist who likes to see what he can get away with? Is it a person who just wants to be accepted into these communities so he tells the stories people want to hear? Or is it just a grifter trying to make a buck?

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I suspect Munchausen by Internet

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I think you linked to a predatory ticket reseller for that Dawins event? Or at least that was my experience with them in the past. Consider changing the link to go to the actual venue.

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Yeah, that was my bad and I changed the link. Unfortunately the Chicago Theatre itself links to Ticketmaster, which isn't much better...

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Ticketmaster will at least probably sell you an actual ticket as opposed to (without telling you) the promise of a ticket that they go and buy later and deliver to you at the last moment (with ridiculous fees and pressure sales tactics).

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What I’m kinda stuck on is how much real product was created that seemed to actually help the target audience: an apparently useful website; guidelines for the gaming industry; etc?

THIS stuff appears to be real and useful and there was no real discussion of this in the pod or the article - which is neither here nor there, but something about that stuck out to me. Those things are an accomplishment , right? (Not really sure what I’m trying to say here 🤷🏻‍♂️).

Anyway, if these things were successful in terms of use, why would the “leading suspect” here not just take credit for it at some early point. Seems like something to be proud of.

And yes, the charade is connected to the use of apparently useful identities and (perhaps) scammy money- making, although that possible aspect wasn’t covered in too much detail.

It seems like there must have been a specific thrill out of creating all these personas, maintaining them, moving them forward to the next level - like a video game in “real life.” Even though I’m not entirely convinced that the motives were just “bad,” I’m not particularly sympathetic to the main character. Still…

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If a made-up person happens to be sort of a composite of a lot of real-life people who have unmet consumer preferences, then it's possible that responding to satisfy that fictional avatar might inadvertently have the positive effect of also satisfying a bunch of real people. Unfortunately, it's more likely that the fictional avatar is unrepresentative in some key way, resulting in the company's response being off the mark. It is, uh, generally better to do consumer research in a more organized way.

There's three possibilities, I think, for what was driving this. One is that it's a sex thing. The second is that it's some variation of Munchausen's-by-internet gone extremely too far. But given this person's history of fraud, I think it was just a con.

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Asking me to stake a bet where an interested party controls the outcome of the bet genuinely IS trolling, so, go jump in a lake. What a bunch of intellectually-dishonest crap. If you genuinely think I'm a troll, then ban me-- you're an idiot to think that, but that's fine, people have the right to be idiots on their websites and other people have the right to point that fact out. If you don't, then stop lying. That's all I'm going to say on the personal attacks here.

Redirecting this away from me-as-inexplicable-main-character-of-the-podcast and toward the actual content... it's easy to dunk on cherrypicked snippets from that guidance, but if you read it, it's actually quite explicit regarding the fact that biological sex and gender are not the same thing and need to be reported separately (and carefully, i.e. not mixing up those terms and treating sex and gender as synonymous) where it's medically relevant to do so. If anything, it seems to push back against attempts in some anti-scientistic weirdo circles to pretend that gender is the only thing that matters to human society.

I really think the description of it is misleading.

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God you're such a twat

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Other posters manage to have civil disagreements with each other. You are consistently unpleasant, to the point where some people have stopped commenting in order to avoid you. Is there a court order requiring you to subscribe to this podcast? Because you appear to have contempt for both the hosts and the listeners.

If you're going to repeatedly make rude posts about Katie voting for Trump, don't be surprised if she pushes back on that, as she has every right to do.

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The way this asshole pays to be here cracks me up.

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If Katie considers it rude to vote for Trump, or to be thought of as someone who might do so, perhaps she should not publicly play footsie with the idea on a widely distributed podcast medium.

You cannot be all "I'm not saying, I'm just saying" about something and then come off all pissy when someone calls you out on it.

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Put your money where you mouth is ZigZag. You cannot mouth off like that and then come off all pissy when someone calls you out on it.

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[eyeroll emoji]

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Zagarna, would you like to do a trade? You donate $25 to Givewell and I'll vote for Kamala.

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I finally found you! I felt like I was the only subscriber who didn't know who the resident heel was.

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Complaining about personal attacks…pretty rich coming from you. I do wonder if your personality disorder (as presented here) comes from either your innate psychological condition or from believing that all “marginalized groups” (no matter how noxious) deserve mandatory acceptance because you yourself choose to act in a way that alienates those around you.

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See, the thing that your insults miss here is that I actually do have real-life relationships that I can use as a check on this, and the check that I am getting is that the complaints about me here are utterly baseless and exclusively because I don't agree with people who find the lack of positive reinforcement for their bigoted views threatening.

I would, however, love to hear your full accounting of which "marginalized groups" are "noxious."

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If my friends say I'm great, I must be great and everyone here is a vile bigot. Facts on facts. No notes.

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Bro, you talk to people here like you hate them.

The rest of us don’t do that.

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Who are you talking to?

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Why do you pay for a premium subscription to a podcast that you don't seem to like? Wouldn't it be more satisfying for you to put that money towards a different podcast or an extra coffee every month?

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I've said this many times before, but whatever, substack's search function is terrible.

Anyway, I quite enjoy the PODCAST; this episode, for example, was hilarious. I very much enjoy listening to grifters behaving badly on the internet. The fact that the listenerbase is full of vile people doesn't impact that. I have no doubt that the listenerbase of, say, the band Turnpike Troubadours is full of vile people (it almost couldn't not be, given the demographics and location of their fanbase), but that doesn't stop me from buying their records.

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The great ZigZag is the only righteous gendered 👽 here. We're the vile bigots and if he says it, it must be true, given our demographics and location. He's not only a lawyering genius but also a demographics surveyor and supreme analyzer. We don't deserve the ZigZag highness who can only see flaws in everyone but himself because he's a supreme being and his friends told him he is great.

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I actually read them. I think they’re dangerous because, if adopted, they’d embed into medical writing an untested faith-based claim, which is the idea that gender identity exists in nondysphoric people.

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Honestly I thought they were talking about the poster who gets mad as hell about covid.

Loads of people here give me trump voter vibes, which is a surprise but fair enough. The BARpod Reddit is the same.

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IMHO, Zagarna expresses their opinions vigorously, and their opinion differs from the mainstream, and I disagree with most of their opinions, but they're not a troll, they're just passionately heterodox for this environment.

I know that Katie's schtick is that she says offensive things, but singaling out one member of the commenters is kind of jerky. I think we should have Zagarna guest host a pod with Katie and see how it goes.

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Episode 267? Have I been asleep for a year?

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Commenting on the ability to count of two members of marginalised communities is litteral violence and white supremacy at its worst.

Also I came to post this very same remark.

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Guilty your honour.

And I can’t believe that my first time as first poster was to ask for a correction. I am the Maths Karen.

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I'm going to make a day of it on Sunday. I just hope the ice cream museum and the medieval torture museum are open that day.

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Bremerton to SeaTac is only 1h 20m on public transit.

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The walk from the frickin light rail stop to the terminal is another 30 minutes though. Adds up.

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30m for just 1,500 to 2,000 ft? What the hell kind of airport is this?

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I don’t know how many m I just know it takes freakin forever to get from the train to security. You have to go through several very long walk ways and parking garages.

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Yeah I thought that was a pretty funny excuse. Yes the ferry system is a mess but it is not that bad. And she can just drive around and it is doesn't add much if you're going to sea tac. She acts like she is living an on some far off island entirely dependent on a small decrepit boat that runs twice a day at random. Clearly she just really doesn't want to travel for work haha.

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There are towns on the border with Syria where the majority of the population speaks Arabic as their first language, which tells us two things: (1) Jesse is an ignorant peon who needs to bone up on the ethnography of the Levant, and (2) the whole story is obviously true.

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One of the funniest episodes I've heard so far.

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Katie pretending bridges don’t exist and that’s why she can’t travel …

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There’s an old episode where Katie discusses her terror while crossing bridges in a car. No word on whether Moose shares this phobia.

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Right? Go north, it adds about an hour travel time, but there’s no waiting for the ferry schedule.

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Anyone else not able to find a photo of the shit/vomit shoes? I found some dirty looking shoes on golden goose, but nothing that looked like What they described. I’m now on team Jesse for just using a screenshot.

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Oh, it comes pre-burned so I don't need to waste of any of my cigarettes making my shoes look badass!

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$900!!

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If it is those then my imagination is much more graphic…. But I do live in Portland and have seen the actual people who live on the streets here. Those shoes are stupid, but I wouldn’t call them disgusting and they don’t look like they’ve been shat on.

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Oh yeah, Katie is definitely exaggerating- Jesses reaction makes that clear. And maybe it’s not actually these ones because the price they discuss is like 2,000.

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Katie's just high as balls the whole time, right?

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Katie: I'm nooticing

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Would a non-circular argument for gender be what pronouns you use? Ex. A man is someone who goes by he/him pronouns.

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But pronouns are externally determined, by the person referring to you in your absence. They are not consistent.

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At a recent event, a person who had formally introduced themself with they/them pronouns wandered off from the group I was in, where immediately everyone discussing this person (in a nice way, as they are very helpful) switched to sexed pronouns.

You really do not get to control how others talk about you. You’d think people who have been to middle school would understand this.

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I think a better non-circular definition for gender would be that’s it’s determined by what pronouns other people spontaneously use *for* you.

e.g., if people would call you “he,” you’re a guy. I think this is actually the de facto definition although people don’t realize it.

Gender is a social construct, not a personal or individual construct. So really it’s society who decides.

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You may have cracked it.

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I think gender is best explained as *perceived* sex, but my opinion isn't very popular.

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Most golden goose sneakers are under a thousand dollars? Yes still crazy expensive if you ask me but you can easily get a pair for 600 or 700. Also hear they’re ridiculously comfortable!

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When I Googled the brand, Saks Off Fifth had a pair for $240. Which is still $240 too much.

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What episodes do they talk about Woody Allen?

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Biggest takeaway is supposed GAMER Jesse can’t pronounce Ubisoft.

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Only one thing better than a heel…a heel tag team!

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I didn't realize that Jesse and Katie did an episode on Woody Allen, or did they? They've mentioned it a few times. Anybody know which episode it is? I've searched his name and have not found it.

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Definitely best episode ever.

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Woody and Song Yi ? did adopt two daughters.

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Isn’t Soon Yi, his partner, his former girlfriend’s adoptive child, who he first met as his girlfriend’s child? That’s the icky part.

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I’m not normally a Woody Allen defender (I think he’s pretty clearly an ephebophile) but IIRC Soon Yi was legally an adult at that point and her relationship with Mia had broken down (as happened with a lot of the adopted kids) so she had moved out. They actually weren’t around each other that much apparently, until Woody’s own relationship with Mia started to fall apart. Weird hill to die on I know. Woody’s cancellation is one that doesn’t bother me too much, but I hate this pattern where the accusations always escalate and the record is never corrected because that’s seen as defending the behavior somehow.

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Soon Yi was in her teens when they were running around together, and while yes, technically she was an adult, ( maybe- accounts vary) it’s still fucked up and incestuous in spirit if not in law. I don’t think he gets a pass on this, at least not as far as I am concerned.

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You are somewht erasing her agency. They've been married for an eternity in Hollywood years and she seems happy with it.

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Maybe I’m weird for not being quite as squicked out but it’s my understanding that “he was a sort of father figure” or “she was underage when it started” comes from Mia fudging the timeline as part of her smear campaign against Woody and it bothers me that the campaign has been so successful, since that’s made it harder for some of Mia’s other adopted kids like Moses to talk about how awful she really is.

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It’s the sort of behavior - not criminal, not beyond the pale, not even technically wrong, maybe - that you still know as an adult not to engage in if you don’t want to be the butt of jokes forever. He made his choice.

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Sure, but IMO we should criticize people for what they’ve actually done, and Soon Yi was more like a random young adult to him rather than a child or his step daughter. The age gap on its own is weird enough.

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Which is what I did? He isn’t going to date his adopted children, that would be gross and wrong. But he’ll date his former girlfriend’s adopted children.

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Ok sure, I found your use of “his girlfriend’s child” misleading given the circumstances but I guess the phrase is ambiguous so perhaps I just misunderstood you.

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I AM a Woody Allen defender, not that it comes up much. I would like to point out that they are still married 27 years later. Seems like true love to me!

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That’s a little far for me but it’s my understanding that she had a difficult early life so you know what, if this is what’s made her happy I’m happy for her!

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Yes. They got married and adopted two daughters.

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I guess if he adopted them, he’s less likely to date them in the future? Oh god, I need a silkwood shower now.

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Before he even gets there I assume Jesse is referring to federal district court Judge Robert Hinkle, who has opened multiple written decisions averring that it's settled scientific fact that everyone has a gender identity....

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Katie and Jessie don't feel like they have a gender identity. Are they just at one end of a spectrum, equivalent to Katie's inability to visualize things? Some people don't feel like they have a gender identity and some feel like they do, and some feel like their gender identity is changeable.

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Were such a thing as a gender identity to exist, I doubt it would be noticeable in someone where it matched there sex. Hence you wouldn’t think you had one.

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I've always heard the thought experiment as being about imagining that you wake up the next day in a body of the opposite sex. The gotcha moment is that you're supposed to find this distressing, thus proving you're cis and just don't want to admit it.

My problem with that personally is that I still just... can't imagine I'd care that much? I don't feel that identified with the shape of my meat suit, beyond it being functional and standard enough to be unremarkable to people because I don't like attention. I genuinely feel I'd be more distressed waking up in a body of my current sex but a different body type (because it'd fuck with my self-image) than one of the opposite sex but similar on the functionality and conventional attractiveness scale.

I don't know to what extent this is true for other people who don't feel they have a gender identity, but that's how it is for me.

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The notion of waking up in a body of the opposite sex is meaningless to me because I don't think I have any existence aside from my body. It's not a "meat suit", it's me. If it was to metamorphose into the body of a woman, I would not be "in" the body of a woman, I would be a woman. But humans don't change sex, and this doesn't happen.

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This is also how I think about it. I *am* my body. I *have* brown eyes. If I woke up tomorrow with blue eyes, I would be a person who used to have brown eyes and now have blue eyes. It would be weird, but I can’t understand in what sense I would still be a brown eyed person - no matter how I imagined myself to still be.

I thought growing up that I “should have been” male. It’s hard to describe what this feeling was like. I have often wished I was born male. That makes me a female who has often wished she was male. Still female.

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Interesting! And a fair counterpoint. To be clear, I in no way believe that humans can change sex; the operative phrase here was "thought experiment."

I think there's some overlap in the sense that if I woke up in a man's body, I would absolutely be "me, a man" and not "me, a woman in a man's body." But part of that is specifically because I don't perceive my personality as being all that related to what kind of junk I have, beyond whatever influence sex hormones have on the human experience (which I tend to think is "some, but not defining").

I just don't imagine I'd experience it as some massive mind-body mismatch, or feel that I have some inner essence that depends on being female-shaped to not be in distress.

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As a gay dude, I think I’m the exact opposite. I would be freaked the fuck out waking up with different junk. Discovering I’d acquired a significantly younger and fitter body would make my year.

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That's fair -- younger, fitter, or more attractive would be different. I was thinking "substantially _less_ attractive" but trying to be delicate about it.

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It's fairly commonplace for people in normatively dominant positions to deny that they have a particular identity (e.g. straight people denying that they have a sexual orientation, American white people denying that they have a race, etc.).

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What kind of American white people do you know that deny they have a race?

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I could have sworn that it was progressive orthodoxy 5 seconds ago that race is a meaningless social construct, too.

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I’ve listed mine as “Human” since I was 15

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I have literally never met a straight, white person who has denied being straight and white. With the exception of straight white girls who claim to be gay boys.

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Except all the men in dresses that claim to be lesbians and inundate lesbian bars and dating apps where they are not at all wanted or welcome. Lot more of them than the girls that pretend to be boys.

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So you've never met Rachel Dolezal , Elizabeth Warren, Iron Eyes Cody, Ward Connerly, Sacheen Littlefeather, Jessica Krug, or Satchuel Cole? Me neither. But I'm pretty sure they exist/existed.

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I get that. But that’s the whole question about identity, it only matters when it matters. Hetero white people in situations where that is the norm aren’t going to experience the downsides of minority status. So even thinking about that identity, let alone verbalising it, is a waste of time.

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My vision is seriously degraded on account of my not readily-apparent disability. Consequently, I don't care about what's happening in the gaming world. I also don't care about what's happening with many other visual art pieces.

I remember watching season three of "The Bear" on Hulu. I was paying attention, largely, to the dialog, and storyline. While those were very close to what I heard from folks in the restaurant biz, I probably would have only awarded season three a B+/C-. It was _okay_, but...

Then one night I was watching, trying to get through after my wife's interest had waned, and I ended up sitting on the end of the sofa nearest the screen.

Holy f'n s those are some incredible shots.

Hon, may I have to remote so I can pause and look?

Okay, but I do want to watch Bridgerton, so don't take too long.

It's not at all apparent, just by looking at me, that I'm disabled. You'd have to do some tests to see. Stand straight with your eyes closed! Um, yeah, I'm gonna fall. The scars on my nervous system can only really be seen by sticking me in a giant electromagnet.

The same goes with my ethnic/racial background. I have blue eyes, so I'm just a white dude, right?

I'm a lot more native than Senator Warren. My ancestors didn't maintain tribal regs because doing so wasn't very wise in the days when President Biden was hanging out with Senators Eastland and Hollings.

The local Southern Christian Men's group might choose to leave you a brightly-lit lawn ornament. It's bad enough that you're a member of the Papist Conspiracy....

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Jsingal69: send me a message. I am also in Portland, ME today.

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I honestly just can't imagine being bothered by it. If someone insisted on calling me 'she' it would just be childish, and others would see it as such. It's the least cutting 'insult' imaginable.

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Jesse, I’m with you. I have been misgendered on the phone often in my adult life. I have a low alto voice, and if I’m a little hoarse due to a cold or allergies, I can get mistaken on the phone quite readily. But because I’m comfortable in who I am, being called “sir“ doesn’t destroy me.

I worry a lot that young people today are being inculcated into a kind of fragility where their very “existence“ depends on the perceptions of other people, and where “correct“ use of pronouns becomes a make or break situation for their mental health.

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But the reason it would be a childish insult in Jesse’s case is that nobody actually believes he’s a woman; the *only* reason to call him “she” is to attempt to hurt his feelings. If I call Roxanne Tickle “he”, it’s because he’s a whole-ass man, and “he” is the English pronoun used to refer to men.

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Yes, it is the intent to insult that would be viewed negatively (and choosing a childish way to do it would be amusing to me if someone did it to me). On the other hand, if I were posting with an intentionally ambiguous name, I wouldn't be bothered at all if I were called "him." (When first on the internet I wanted to figure out what people would assume.)

I do call people with the he or she pronoun that is preferred (based on obvious presentation or request), however. But I understand that others might not without it being intended as an insult. (And if someone committed a crime or so on I think it is important to accurately identify the sex.)

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Yes, this is true I think (even if it is not actually in those definitions). But the problem is that the only solutions offered are 1) to transition to the point in which you pass, 2) to try to get other people to stop using language the way they would naturally use it.

The first isn’t practical for some people, and there are side effects, including sterility that we should take seriously at an individual and societal level. The second isn’t realistic in every case, and anyway it’s unhealthy to require people to lie on your behalf and/or convince themselves that “she” means something other than what it has always meant until yesterday.

Of course there is a third solution which is to come up with strategies for dealing with the reality of one’s sex, even if it’s uncomfortable.

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I love those third solutions. I was born in 1963, which makes me one of the oldtimers around here. I remember when Free to Be, You and Me came on TV. That was the way.

I have so many students who have pursued body modifications in hopes of becoming tiny men. Most will never pass as male, apart from maybe 20% who started as relatively tall women. Passing will become harder as broader swathes of the public tune in to the tells: small hands, broad hips, helium voice.

I wish these young people good lives because they are decent and lovable human beings. But they have exchanged one set of problems for another, and I fear the new set of problems will prove harder for them in the long run than if they’d stayed identified with their natal sex.

Not all of the young people I worry about will end up regretting their choices. People have an amazing capacity to adapt to hard circumstances. The sunk cost fallacy is powerful even when we’re strongly aware of it – and most people are not. But I hope that the regretters will find support if they choose to detransition. I hope that they all - including those who remain trans-identified - will find happiness in the long run. I wish I could guide them toward gentler ways to deal with dysphoria without getting run out of town as a bigot.

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I would be upset because its very rude to use somebodys pronouns (correct or not) when they are present. Otherwise I wouldn't care at all. If it was out of spite I would be baffled and amused, it would be like somebody calling me "silly billy" to upset me.

I do not have a gender identity. I am a woman. Also I completely reject the idea that this is a majority norm thing. I know I have a sexuality because it's easily defined. I want to fuck men, not women ergo I am straight.

Now we have established I couldn't care less about my pronouns what question do I need to answer to understand my gender identity? I am no more or less comfortable being called a woman than I am being called British or brunette or size 6 feet. It's just a benign fact.

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So gender identity is how you want other people to think of you in the context of sex? And if you don't care you don't have one?

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You can't control how people perceive you. That's bonkers. You can tell people how you perceive yourself and that's fine and well but that's pretty much all you can control.

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“You can’t control how other people perceive you.” It goes beyond that: the other people themselves can’t even control how they perceive you. They just do it. I can’t help noticing whether someone is male or female any more than I can help noticing whether they’re tall or short.

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Registering sex is an evolutionary adaptation. It’s baked in. I was pretty committed to a blank-slate view of humans, and I still think we are massively constrained by gender norms in ways that divert us from becoming our most fully-actualized selves. But sex is a bedrock, and we notice it for reasons that are not that hard to understand! Seeing sex is critical for reproduction. For women, perceiving sex is protective because minority of men pose a violent threat to women.

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So it's as real as a soul or religious faith then isn't it? A useful term for those that believe but otherwise useless. Which is why it probably shouldn't be included in mainstream medical literature.

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I have no preference about how "people" identify me. I was an online gamer for years and was constantly misgendered and it never bothered me. I would only bother correcting people if I was going to spend time with them (in game) as it's just polite.

I suppose I would find it annoying if somebody kept insisting I was male but only in the same way I would find it irritating if somebody insisted I had red hair or was 6 foot. Does that mean I have a hair identity? A height identity? Or does it just mean I am annoyed at people insisting that an objective fact is wrong? If somebody kept insisting that you had some physical feature you didn't would you find that annoying?

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Do they? In the subjects presence? I consider that very rude, maybe you need a better social circle if you are regularly hearing your pronouns being used. I very rarely hear them. It's what I find so baffling about pronoun policing for non-public figures.

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Calling them gender pronouns comes from a time when gender was synonymous with sex. We just didn’t use the S word in front of kids.

They aren’t really ‘gender identity’ pronouns, they’re sex pronouns.

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What does that mean?

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Also I am not sure what this has to do with anything. It doesn't matter how often it comes up, I would still be annoyed if somebody kept getting something objectively wrong about me. For example I used to dress a little bit alternatively. I would often get called a goth despite owning no black clothes. It used to wind me up, I have nothing against goths it just annoyed me because it was objectively not the style I was dressed in.

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Not believing in the coherence of the concept of gender identity is not the same thing has saying that in a world OF gender identity you don’t have one.

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A lot of straight (and not asexual) people will claim not to have a sexual orientation when asked about that, too. Or they will respond by saying "normal."

This is commonplace across a wide range of stigmatized demographic characteristics; (some) people view even being asked if they are part of a stigmatized group as insulting.

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Citation needed.

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10659155/

I do not think it a coincidence that nonresponse rates are higher where there's more stigma against LGBT identities.

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In Scotland my name is masculine associated, in America it’s both Male and Female associated.

My partners name is female associated but it’s popular short form is also male associated.

As a result we both have been misgendered at the same time and frankly NEITHER OF US GIVES A FUCK.

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Spend enough time around a certain subset of gay men and you find them referring to each other as she. It’s fucking irritating.

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I don’t use preferred pronouns as a general rule, not because of spite. I believe that pronouns are sex based, and also a third party decision in most cases.

So I would be annoyed and baffled if someone used male pronouns for me, because I am female, and pronouns are attached to sex. It would be incoherent.

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If I called you super tall would you care? Like "Hi super tall person. How is the weather up there?".

It is annoying because it is wrong. In the same way everyone intentionally breaking speech norms is annoying.

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People mistook me for a boy a lot as a child because my parents kept my hair short. On the internet, there's also the tendency to assume that the person you're talking to is male. It doesn't faze me for people to refer to me as male because it doesn't really matter. If someone claimed that I was Australian or Buddhist or a skiing enthusiast, they'd be wrong but I'd feel no reason to be hurt or offended either.

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Pronouns are related to sex, so if I'm a male and therefore use the appropriate pronouns. I don't have a gender identity. If you choose to do whatever you want with it when referring to me in 3rd person, it's on you - I'll still remain a male regardless of your choices.

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Both of my teens were regularly “misgendered” when they were little kids; my daughter preferred her hair very short and my son preferred his very long. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Never once did I see either of them react negatively when someone assumed they were the opposite sex. It may be related to the fact that I tried to instill a couple ideas from a young age: your sex is immutable, regardless of how you act or look or think, and it’s not nearly the most important thing about you.

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Both of my boys wore their hair long at various points in their childhood and teenage years. Both sometimes opted for the “girl“ toy at McDonald’s on those rare occasions where we went to get them a happy meal. They weren’t fazed by being misgendered then.

My younger son did go through a period of gender turmoil as we exited the worst of the pandemic. It was pretty awful. But having seen how he had dealt with these earlier experiences, I knew that he didn’t have lifelong dysphoria. He’s just a male human being who – like his brother – wants to be free to express himself. I so much want to normalize this!

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I was also a short-haired little girl, and a tomboy, and was misgendered often. It never bothered me. If I woke up in a man's body tomorrow, I wouldn't care. If I had to have a double mastectomy, I would also not have a crisis of gender identity over it. I literally don't care. Am I normal? Probably not. The entire hangup over gender identities has always been boring and confusing to me and I just assumed it was the autism.

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I'm very liberal about pronouns, for the simple reason that a pronoun is for the use of the speaker. If they aren't useful they won't be used.

What I tell people (if someone really wants to know) is that I'm a man, but if they want for whatever reason (maybe a desire to speak gender-neutrally in general) to refer to me as they or them, it's totally fine and I support them in doing so.

Obviously if someone is being deliberately insulting, the issue there is the insult, not the form the insult is taking.

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No.

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For context, I'm a gay man in his fifties, and remember when gay men slightly older than me would refer to each other as "she" and maybe give each other female nicknames as well. So at best it would seem slightly retro, at worst rude and silly.

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I'm a gay man in my 60s and this is very familiar to me.

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Today I had the experience of someone going so far out of their way not to accidentally insult me (or I assume that was the motivation), I was misgendered as they/them.

My name is coded female, 100%. But I was referred to repeatedly as they/them. Is that just the default now if you haven't personally met and done a pronoun ritual with someone?

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How would Jesse and Katie know?

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They kind of cover this in their descriptions of the thing nit being real when they talk about wearing a dress.

Jessie probably wants to be called ‘he’ because that’s how society calls biological males and it would be unusual for him to be called ‘she’. Indeed by choosing to use ‘she’ you’re probably making a dig at him in choosing that so yes he’d likely be upset in certain contexts. In a (non-existent) world where men are called he or she then that Jessie probably wouldn’t care. Likewise in a world where men wearing dresses is normal then Jessie would probably wear a dress if the notion took him. But, despite the efforts of AGPs and TRAs we aren’t in that world and men generally don’t wear dresses and aren’t called ‘she’.

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It hasn't happened to me, but I genuinely think it would mean nothing to me (aside from if I thought someone was intentionally trying to be rude, but then the specific gesture is irrelevant).

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