Been near Port Townsend a few times when we pulled into Naval Magazine Indian Island a few times when I was stationed in Everett ('10-'12) - never made it into town though due to schedules.
One of the things they drill into us - esp as officers - is "Perception is reality". These situations are insanely stupid and eminently avoidable every time. I find it extremely difficult to believe that the only place the Y could "employ" a non-passing transwoman was in the locker room. Beggars belief.
Changing/locker rooms are one of those situations where a little common sense goes a long way in virtually every single case (and I'd like you folks not to equivocate so much on this). Every private (24 hr, etc) and public (on-base military, etc) gym I've gone to in the last 10+ yrs has single-occupancy changing/bathrooms (often but not always labeled "family" or something else - if it doesn't sound obvious) - in some cases, ALL the changing rooms are single occupancy. Situations like this are pure virtue-signaling, just asking for outcomes such as what occurred - and the resulting publicity and outcry makes things ridiculously more difficult for all the normal folks who just want to blend in and live normally.
I think I deleted my comment by accident. But to reiterate: I didn’t like the way Julie Jamon was portrayed in this segment. She was portrayed as an unhip 80 year old who is unfamiliar with the “transing” of the young people. She clearly wasn’t unfamiliar with all this, as she already had a line in the sand drawn for herself and that is whether the male was intact or not.
Additionally the boy, who only 4 months prior could not have claimed to be a woman in any way, was portrayed as some poor transwoman being hassled at work. Dishonest reporting in my view as this boy was clearly not transitioned. We have zero guardrails around this now. Zero.
The more that comes out about this, the more skeptical I am that the moral, ethic, and sympathetic thing to do is to pander to this. I say no.
If a person has no sense of how they appear to the world, if they cannot maintain a grass-touched view of themselves as passing or not, they shouldn’t be going into any opposite sex bathroom, and the state should not permit public facilities to change the laws. We have pseudo self ID in the Pacific Northwest. It’s appalling.
There should be absolutely no controversy to the situation where a woman questions whether a male (yes a trans woman is male!) should be in a women/girls locker room/changing room supervising young girls changing out of bathing suits.
Asking about this should not be controversial at all.
Using confusing language such as "the old lady asked her about her genitals" (when the "her" in this sentence is referring to a male (a person-with-a-penis)) completely obfuscates what is going on and purposefully paints the older woman as a creep.
I can't believe this is remotely controversial. She has every right to wonder why a male (a person-with-a-penis!) is in the girls changing room observing girls change.
I agree with you 100%. To me, the pressing question is this: Why should this young man's identity and feelings, regardless of how sincere they are, take legal precedence over the feelings, rights and SAFETY of Julie Jamon as well as women and girls everywhere who want and expect privacy from men while showering, changing clothes, using the toilet, changing a tampon, fleeing a violent male partner or serving out their prison sentences?!?
Julie Bindel, the UK feminist referenced in the notes of this episode, has said that the fear and threat of male violence is the one thing that unites all biological women. Katie seems unwilling to acknowledge this reality and/or unwilling to prioritize the safety and well being of women and girls over the comfort and safety of men who declare themselves to be women without having to meet any hormonal or surgical requirements whatsoever.
And speaking of Self ID (I'm a woman simply because I say I am), make no mistake about it: The Democratic Party is working very hard to pass the Equality Act, legislation which would make Gender Self ID the law of the land, yet this segment of B&R is the first time I've heard this bill or its name even mentioned. Jesse minimizes it's potential impact by saying it will never pass, a puzzling conclusion considering that the Democratic House has already passed it and the Democratic Senate has tried. (This is a sad but true fact, one that I'm not happy to report.) Jesse also fails to note the very big differences between the UK's Equality Act and the one pending in Congress. Considering the many UK references in this episode, making that distinction would have been helpful.
Well said. Totally agree. Katy and Jesse make using the right pronoun the highest moral necessity when discussing this.
I think Katy would be willing to take the gloves off a little, but maybe feels tied by her public voice on it. I think it’s fine to editorialize this issue. Only someone who really doesn’t respect women scratches their head over whether the locker room should remain exclusive from a man who calls himself Clementine.
I’m tired of the hosts laughing at the ridiculousness of this stuff, only to moralize in sum that we need to respect the pronoun at the end of the day.
Shocked and dismayed that we have had not one, but two episodes involving opera drama, and yet you still haven't used the title "Tantrum of the Opera." Sad!
I wrote this comment before I even got to that part of the episode. Feel free to blame me a bit for being overly hasty in wanting to deploy a really lame pun, but I think Katie, Jesse, and Trace also share some of the responsibility for the harm my comment has caused.
I think it's odd no one has mentioned the feelings of the little girls and their parents in the Port Townsend case. My six year old would have been mortified if a dude in a position of authority was watching her take her swimsuit off, and I would have been LIVID. I am in fact not sympathetic to the 18-year-old kid who didn't recognize that is inappropriate. I honestly think that is very close to the bar for a sex offense — Katie said 'it sounds creepy,' but that's because it is creepy. If that had been my daughter, I would have talked to police about it.
One more question I have about that incident: I've heard it described as a male body wearing a woman's swimsuit. To be super crass: due to biological differences, male and female swimsuits have different amounts of fabric. How were this dude's balls not hanging out? I can't imagine a normal woman's swimsuit being able to provide appropriate coverage for male privates.
I agree with you 100%. I have daughters that are elementary age. I would be arrested for my reaction to hearing that a guy was supervising my daughters. I don't care a bit about how he sees himself, he's a male from the day he was born until the day he dies.
No one cares about parents. We're mocked by the Left for showing an interest in what's being taught in schools. The Biden administration pushed to have parents at school board meetings to be considered domestic terrorists by the FBI last year. What will they do about the trans extremists that show up and disrupt every event held by women? (There was a "save women's sports" rally in DC a couple of months ago, and they had a lot of trans activists being loud & obnoxious, drumming to drown out the speakers.) The message of trans rights extremists with their actions here, and the death treats to JKR, is that if you speak you will be intimidated & threatened.
I'm tired of the push to be compassionate by confirming people's misperceptions of reality. It's body dysmorphia, this is not new -- when it was mostly girls with anorexia and bulimia (other dysmorphias), it's odd that society wasn't jumping through hoops to make affirm their feelings. They had a misperception of their actual bodies which caused them distress. I'm not affirming that, and I won't affirm this, especially when it's clear as day that this has unequal effects on girls & women.
Re: the swimsuit. I don't even want to imagine that. I imagine tucking was involved (which I hadn't realized until recently that it involves pushing the testicles inside the body a bit). He could've been wearing shorts over a one-piece. No matter, the Y had a female staffer on hand but they didn't think it mattered for whatever reason. Which pisses me off because I sometimes considered joining the Y but I'm not supporting that. Trans inclusion means women/girls may end up excluding themselves if their concerns aren't considered -- which they clearly are not.
Also, what about observant Muslim women/girls (and maybe other religious sects)? I've read that they cannot participate in this kind of inclusion because it goes against their religion. And whether or not you are religious, it's a right to be a religious person in this country. Are of the people calling out Islamophobia are going to cancel Muslims for not welcoming trans-identified males into female only spaces?
To be fair to your local YMCA: I am a member of my local YMCA. They seem to protect women's spaces more than the public city pool facilities. They have very prominent "trans inclusive" signs on the single stall family changing rooms — no problem there. Then they have signs on the women's rooms explaining that it's for women and boys under 5 years old. No "feel free to use whatever locker room aligns with your gender identity," like at the city pool. I don't know what would happen if a dude was trying to use the women's locker room, but I'd say it is subtely discouraged at our Y, though it is fucking awash in rainbow flags. The Y is also the most diverse place I spend time with, and their commitment to lower-income/minority group, including loads of immigrants, seems to be not bullshit, so there's that.
The Y in Port Townsend said that women like Julie should know that the wonen’s rooms are trans-inclusive just by seeing the flags. That was an explanation for why no further notice is posted. I wouldn’t take it for granted at any facility with changing/locker rooms for women. It’s de facto coed.
I agree with both of you and have wondered about the girls and their parents. Unfortunately it seems possible that if they are uncomfortable with it they can't freely express that concern. I would be very concerned. I have a daughter I would not have supported a male (even if they believe they are a girl) in the changing room with my daughter while changing. I wouldn't ever want to be in the position of telling a young girl, "yes, that (clearly obviously male) person is a woman just like me and grandma and you. Don't think otherwise and you should feel comfortable around this person and all people like them even if they have penises, as long as they say they are a girl/woman, they are!"
That is where we are now. This has long lasting implications on how we move around in the world as women and girls.
Also, I didn't really "get it" until recently, but I have seen folks (usually TERFS :) ) say the kid *wanted* this particular position (not a job at the front desk, for example) and the athletes want to be on women's team, they push these boundaries - for the *validation*. This seems to ring true.
The parents very likely depend on the YMCA for childcare. In a city that small, they might be the only game in town. It would be an enormous bind for them.
Even if they're effectively making women's and girl's sports co-ed by including trans-identified males -- if they got rid of women's sports entirely and made it all co-ed the trans-identified males would pout because they don't get to be on an explicitly women's team (which are again, effectively co-ed by including trans-identified males).
Then she's lying. Katie is the opposite of a TERF. If anything, she's a TRAF (Trans Rights Activists' Friend) who believes in Self ID, a position revealed by her willingness to categorize the young man at the Y, who has yet to transition, as "a trans woman" and to call trans identified males exactly what they want to be called. That means men like serial killer Harvey Marcelin, who declared himself to be a woman at the age of 83 (!) and has now brutally killed three women, are referred to as "she" "her" and "woman"!
Forget about the tiresome details B&R keeps relaying to us about the woke implosions occurring at obscure organizations. What I want to know is WTF went on between the NY Times copy desk/editors and the two female reporters who wrote the article about Marcelin? Were they all rowing in one direction or was there conflict about which gender to use in referring to this monster? Seriously. THAT would be interesting and important.
SHE KILLED TWO WOMEN. AT 83, SHE IS CHARGED WITH DISMEMBERING A THIRD.
You make great points here. I’m seeing more & more reports of crimes being allegedly perpetrated by “women” in the media, & yet if there wasn’t a photo the public would have NO IDEA the suspect is a dude. It’s straight up disinformation, & you’re right-- THAT would be a good episode. Journalists who obscure reality to satisfy an ideology aren’t good journalists.
Salman Rushdie spent about 9-10 years in hiding, not “decades.” He has not been hiding for about 20 odd years and makes regular public appearances, often to extol the importance of free expression like he was going to do in Chautauqua. He refused to allow Islamist extremists and Iran make him live in fear and tried to live a full life as best he could. He even managed to get married and divorced to a couple of different women - both of them glamorous, successful, and beautiful - have another child, and get a knighthood since Satanic Verses came out. Rushdie is an incredibly brave and principled individual, a genuine icon of free expression and liberal values.
Wait, I was born and raised in Olympia. Katie are you telling me that the governors house in Olympia is a lie?
Edit: I'm also on the 80 year old woman's side. It's insane to me that we allow people's psychological disorders to grant them access to places they shouldn't be.
Edit edit: I laugh my ass off every time Katie says "what she perceives as a man". I think it's wild that women allow their gender to be reduced to a bunch of, frankly, sexist stereotypes. Like how so often women who "transition" to men just think that means being hairy, fat, and dressing like a skater in 1998. Trans people have the same problem as authors writing the opposite gender. They can, but sometimes the results are wildly off of reality, like in 13 Reasons Why or Harry Potter (no male author would have Harry discard the elder wand, come the fuck on)
Yeah, Katie seemed to be implying the 80 year old woman was seeing things wrong. It was literally a male watching women undress in a locker room, that point doesn't even seem in dispute here. The fact that this male identifies as a woman is secondary and doesn't mean the old woman was wrong in what she saw.
I kept thinking that exact thought. The woman wasn't mis-seeing anything. She was seeing a male. Not someone she "perceived" to be a male. A true actual male. In the girls/women's changing room.
I think it is like this. She saw a male in the women's changing room. She incorrectly perceived that male as a man. And THAT is why it is all fucked up. Sex is now immaterial
I don't think that she was "incorrect" in perceiving the male as a man. Her perception may not align with that male's perception or progressive orthodoxy, but "incorrect" implies some type of objective standard.
I had a whole thing written out. So. Ok. The transwoman perceives herself as a woman. She cannot control how others see her. I have to say. I am torn. If someone has spent years looking at their body and wondering why there is a penis there, I cannot imagine how awful it must feel to be addressed as a man. On the other band. It is insane that trans women are supposed to be viewed as women and treated as women. Addressed as women? Sure. But why are trans women allowed in women's changing rooms, especially when 4 months previously they would not have been
I think Katie is being strategically noncommittal.
There is still a massive number of average, well meaning liberal feminist women who are “being kind” because it’s fashionable but who also have genuine compassion for people with gender dysphoria. As they learn more and more of what is going on, the compassion may remain but the courage to at least call a male a male increases. The challenge for terfdom is to help these women on this journey while not scaring them off by coming across as the nasty “actually transphobic” terfs (who truly do exist, just like there’s a small nasty extremist fringe in any group, but they are a tiny group). Hence, self-moderated language.
As a conservative, I am stumped as to why being kind goes as far as to letting men dictate to women what being a fucking woman is. Is there a more egregious example of mansplaining?
No, and that's what I told my son who tried to mansplain womanhood to me. I'm progressive, but I'm not on board for this crap. But the kids are being indoctrinated everywhere they go.
You said: "I think it's wild that women allow their gender to be reduced to a bunch of, frankly, sexist stereotypes," Joe. I agree with you. I was nice at first, as a good Democrat, but no more. It was driving me crazy listening to Katie talk about Julie Jaman (the 80 year old) like the woman was reacting this way because she's old and doesn't get it. Humans cannot change sex. If that makes me a conservative now, I hope the GOP's big tent can make space for people recovering from TDS (still don't like Trump, though, just not insane about it anymore). The Democrats have lost the fucking plot, and they've lost me.
The tent is big enough imo and if we can PLEASE reclaim the GOP from the trumpian hacks, I'd be overjoyed. I actually started in the other direction of liking trump cause he was delivering on his promises and I could put up with him being a boorish, rude person because of it. But I'm pissed at trump cause he lost the election single handedly and they lost the senate afterwards for not shutting up. All that to say, we're probably both in a similar camp there. We need more people like you to come in and moderate the wild ones on the edges.
Thank you for the warm welcome, Joe. I'll consider your offer. :) It's funny now seeing how many people that are Conservative being willing to listen to people who are/were Democrats, because I see no willingness to engage people with ideas outside their bubble on the left (thinking of all of my college friends here, they will not read anything if it's not from an outlet they approve of).
I started listening to Matt Walsh and while I don't agree with him on a lot, as a parent his energy on fighting gender ideology is appreciated by this longtime Lefty (who identifies as Independent, I guess). I tried listening to Ben Shapiro but he talks too fast for me, and I'm a person who often plays podcasts at 1.25x.
I was born and raised in Olympia Washington and now live up near Seattle. If I don't interact with outright communists, my circle would be very small. I do lament that it seems like so many of the people I know have no clue what conservatives believe apart from the caricature they get on MSNBC. those friends of mine who know where I sit started out asking me questions Iike I'm an alien and then eventually realized that SOME of the goals are different, but it usually does come down to small differences in strategies on how to accomplish the same thing. For instance, I think private sector unions are stupid (in this day and age) and generally hurt workers, but that public sector unions should be criminal. The reflex is usually to kick out against me, but then when I say, "why should the people we are forced to pay taxes to be allowed to collectively bargain against and hold hostage the people they allegedly serve?" and they understand a bit more even if they disagree.
From a beardy bro in a comment on a Tweet I made earlier. Made me think of your comment here. Mansplaining misogyny to me. *big sigh*
“You are still pretending that you speak for all women. You understand that women's identities aren't invalidated just because they don't parrot your bigotry right. You're trying to erase the majority of women who don't think like you and its incredibly misogynistic.”
Nice on a day when I get a random DM from a woman I used to tweet back-and-forth with but nothing recent--she had to tell me she was “disconnecting” because I’m a TERF. (Just to point out how left-leaning women... which I was but not anymore... get it from everyone.) 😂
"The challenge for terfdom is to help these women on this journey while not scaring them off by coming across as the nasty “actually transphobic” terfs." I'd argue that no one is transphobic. It's a word devoid of meaning now because it's used far too often. Also, I'm not afraid of trans people, therefore it's not a phobia. If people want to call women that advocate for women's spaces, and child safeguarding, TERFs (I always imagine it said by someone with a pic of an anime girl holding a gun pointed straight ahead... because Male Violence), so be it. Today's TERFs are yesterday's Feminazis, except now it's not the Right targeting us (well, a certain amount will), but the Left.
There is always pressure on women to show compassion, which is totally playing on female socialization as a means of manipulating us. Where is the effort by trans activists to make men welcome males that don't conform to sex stereotypes? There is none. Men aren't expected to change their views (except maybe a small number of gay males that are now getting pressure from heterosexual trans-identified females to consider them as partners).
A British publisher got a world of much-deserved shit on Twitter for announcing a memoir by a trans man about how "he navigates gay culture." It's homophobia with glitter on it.
I have some thoughts re: the Port Townsend section of the episode.
From Katie’s intro: “An 80-yr-old women was banned from a YMCA bc she saw a TW, she didn’t realize that this person was a TW, she thought it was a guy, in a locker room, it was an employee of the Y, & this person was watching little girls change."
And a little later describing what Julie Jaman heard while she was in the shower at the YMCA: She heard what she perceived as a male voice, & saw these little girls in the changing room.”
It's kind of frustrating to hear someone who sees this issue w/far more nuance than most—describe an incident involving an older woman w/language that almost questions the woman's perception of reality (that we all shared before 5 min ago).
The tactics of the trans rights activists in Port Townsend last week are remarkably similar to the ones Jesse mentioned the activists took in the UK when feminists were trying to host discussions on how self-ID affects women. Make loud noises to distract the women & make it hard to hear anyone, physically swarming the area and pressing in (I saw a video from a UK event where a woman, Julie Bindel? -- not sure -- was stuck in a stairwell trying to get into an event and a bunch of obnoxious little shitheads were intimidating her and preventing her from getting up the stairs to her event).
If there's no conflict between women's and trans rights, as the trans activists say, then why are they preventing women from assembling to speak?
Port Townsend police chief Tom Olson really dropped the fucking ball, he made the Uvalde police look brave by comparison - his six officers at the rally last week were across the street, not helping women at the rally until several 911 calls were made, even when people were going across the street to ask for help. He can be heard in the 2nd video recommending that if the women speaking don't feel safe, then they should go home. What the actual fuck. They're exercising their right to free speech & the right to assemble. It's his damned job to make it safe for them to do so. Does he think the Antifa bros are paying taxes? It's the older people (they're also the ones that vote most consistently).
Jesse: “I did not want to read more about this story.” He hosts a podcast about what ppl talk about on Twitter. Men get the freedom to ignore stories like this bc it doesn't affect them.
This is far from the end of issues involving the need to respect the privacy/dignity of older women, & safeguarding concerns re: males interacting w/children, least of all LITTLE GIRLS UNDRESSING TO USE THE BATHROOM.
Women have come to expect that we will have a female attendant in a room if a male doctor needs to exam us, that a female will be doing our mammogram (boobs out in a small room w/one other person & an X-ray machine). It’s going to be next to impossible to keep males from doing those jobs w/little girls, in medicine or personal care if the Democrats ever pass the Equality Act bc the purpose of it is to let gender be on level with sex, which means no distinction can be made for making anything
Older women, & non-verbal younger women in facilities requiring assistance w/ intimate personal care deserve to have that care provided in a way that best serves their safety & dignity. Sex denialism makes it impossible for women & girls to advocate for ourselves.
Going back to Julie Jaman’s more urgent concerns re: a male supervising little girls getting undressed... this matters to me as a parent of two elementary age girls. I live in a blue state, and I honestly don't think I can count on any organization that offers programs for children to take this shit seriously, and I can't entrust my children to them, or give them my $. They can virtue signal their hearts out--but I'm not putting my kids at risk.
I don't know specifically what provisions in the Equality act govern medicine, I would like to think that women will be able to have procedures/tests done for them by females since I don't think those qualify as 'public accommodations'. Still I think that if the equality act wants to gain widespread acceptance it should probably look more like the British Gender recognition act which makes necessary compromises while balancing interests of women and girls in changing rooms etc. but I don't think that will happen unless there is a real push by manchin/sinema/collins.
You’d like to think that, but it puts gender on the same level as sex across the entire government. If that was the case there would be no way to say only biological females can do this, or biological females have still have a right to have intimate personal care be provided by other biological females.
You’d like to think that rapists & murderers (including those who murdered women & girls) would not be put in women’s prisons with biological women in prison--who according to the Vera Institute have 86% survivors of sexual assault, often repeatedly by different men since childhood (bc of circumstances of being born in poverty), but it’s ALREADY HAPPENING even w/o the Equality Act. The only difference is that no one cares right now (except “TERFs”) bc it only affects ppl in lower socioeconomic classes. If women support the Equality Act the party will say it will help us, and maybe there’s some small things that are good--but we’ll be carving it in stone that sex and gender are to be considered women with the same weight.
Right now it depends on which state we're talking about some states basically already have self-id and allow biological males into women's prisons and changing rooms. The Equality act would apply everywhere and to be honest some of these provisions would do a lot of good in many other states if we can strip out all the blanket self-ID parts, I think it's important to remember that the bill as it exists is dead in the D-held senate and would need to be changed drastically if it were to pass in the future.
I realize it’s restoring an Obama-era policy, and I have to admit I wasn’t following this issue back then, because I would have disagreed with it had I known.
From the weeseeyouwat page and the phrase "[...] we as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color theatre workers [...]", does anyone else feel a grammar pet peeve at the way "people of color" is used as an adjective despite being a noun?
Like I know they're trying not to split up BIPOC as the full acronym, but grammarly speaking, it feels like it should be "theatre workers of color." And they're not the only ones who've done the noun-as-adjective thing; it's a growing, grammatically wonky trend.
Because they're arguing that native English people should step aside to make room for "indigenous" voices... aka the same native English people that they're saying should step aside. It's a term that really only works in recently-ish colonized nations like Canada, the US, and Australia.
"indigenous": originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native
You're welcome to redefine the term to mean something else (similarly to how many people redefined "racism" to mean "prejudice + power" so that only white people can be racist), but that doesn't mean everyone else has to accept that redefinition.
Are you American? That might explain why for you “indigenous” has a particular meaning that doesn’t include relatively recently-formed nation states like Turkey or Albania.
As a native disposses citizen of Eire, I demand a land acknowledgement. And as a dispossessed descendant of the pogroms, my husband and daughter should get an even better one.
Interestingly, the judge who ruled on Michelle Carter’s verdict (it wasn’t a jury trial), specifically argued that Michelle regular suggesting, supporting or urging Conrad Roy to kill himself did not amount to manslaughter. There was only one message in question, that had she not sent it he would have allowed her to walk free. Conrad got out of his car while attempting to kill himself with exhaust fumes and when he told her he got out, she told him to get back in.
Conrad Roy had had suicide attempts prior to meeting Michelle and Michelle had a history of rehab for eating disorders and self harm. A really unfortunate fate that two extremely unwell and codependent teenagers crossed paths in the first place. Reading the messages, its hard to for me to say if Michelle even thought she was doing the right thing my supporting his expressed will to die. The story is sick and horrifyingly tragic, but I think there was a lot more to it than she bullied him to death for the attention.
Yes, I'm just about as much of a free speech absolutist as you get, but I haven't found the Carter verdict troubling at all once I learned about the facts of the case. Convicting someone of manslaughter for actively commanding a specific individual whom the speaker knows is in the middle of committing suicide to finish the job doesn't have much of a slippery slope beneath it.
Exactly. The narrative is way over-simplified. I've read the texts between them and it presents a very morally gray situation as only black and white.
Conrad was friends with Michelle for over 2 years. During this time, he stated his intention to kill himself as fact over and over and over again. She spent countless hours listening to his struggles as he dismissed her own, offering ideas and methods of help that he all rejected. Several times he would say something ominous then ghost for the rest of the night, leaving her to wonder if her friend had killed himself until he sporadically got back in contact a couple days later. Repeatedly she suggested getting an adult like his mom involved, and his response was that if she told anyone it could effectively end their friendship while also implying his mom already knew. It's true that a more mature person might have considered sacrificing the friendship for the sake of Conrad getting help, but Michelle was a teenager with depressive issues of her own; also, Conrad had already attempted suicide twice before, so his parents were well aware of his suicidal thoughts. It was only 2 years in when she began encouraging him, either because he had said so repeatedly and vehemently he wasn't going to be happy in life or because she felt (as she alludes to in the texts) that confronting him with the reality of his threats would help snap him out of it. While it's true she texted a friend that she told him to get back in the truck (which the prosecution used as key evidence despite her habit of lying while another text that he had forced himself on her was apparently not trustworthy enough to consider), there is no evidence of what was actually said in the phone call; on the contrary, the text records indicate she may have genuinely thought he wasn't actually going to do it. Conflicting also with the narrative that she just did this for attention was that she continued texting him for nearly two months after he died; these texts were just too extensive for it to all be performative.
Frankly, it's still bizarre to me that she was convicted. In my opinion, the prosecution's narrative she did it for attention does not hold up to a closer examination of her relationships with the friends and with Conrad. A closer examination, however, was not possible in the trial because the judge ruled that their conversations from two years ago, where she was consoling and trying to get him help before trying another tactic, should be stricken from the record, even though it puts their relationship into an entirely different context. What's much more likely than attention-seeking is a depressed teenager mishandling an already terrible situation. People say he wouldn't have killed himself if she hadn't gotten involved. Given his prior suicide attempts and his family's indifference to getting him more support (leaving him to seek help from someone who was ill-equipped), I find this strenuous at best.
Interesting. In my head, I went through what is generally considered over the line vs not and came up with that maybe the line is something like “detailed instruction on how to kill a specific person or carry out a large attack,” which seems like it matches the judge’s argument
Katie is NOT a TERF! In a recent episodes, she proclaimed that she is NOT a TERF.
TERFs do NOT believe in self-ID laws or in using the preferred pronouns of male rapists and murderers in order to be polite. Katie fully supports both.
For anyone who wants to dive into the appraisal lawsuit, the complaint filed by the plaintiffs is available for free here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64901934/connolly-v-lanham/ The initial appraisal was done in June 2021. The second appraisal was done in January 2022.
Below is a tangent not really related to the lawsuit or anything from the episode:
It drives me nuts that newspapers don't usually include court filings with the articles they run. They used a copy of it to write the story, why not share it? If this document wasn't on Courtlistener, someone wanting to read it would have had to spend $3 on PACER (the federal court website) for a copy. If you ever use PACER, please consider installing the RECAP browser extension available here: https://free.law/recap . It automatically adds documents you download from PACER to the Courtlistener website so others can access them for free.
Having recently read Noise by Kahneman, Sunstein, and, uh, the other guy, I wonder if noise audits have ever been done on house appraisals. Seems like a place where you would expect a large amount of noise, in addition to whatever possible bias might be present. I.e. maybe they're just BS in general? Any skeptical real estate experts out there?
Quite plainly this incident is an anecdote at best, and cherry picked at worst. It's shocking that an article can be written about it given that journalism is supposed to adhere to some sense of objectivity (in the scientific sense).
When Jesse says "it's complicated", he really means (and should say!) "there are many plausible confounding factors" that need to be investigated before a conclusion can be drawn.
I wish I could take credit for it but someone on the interwebs made a very astute observation about these "racist" appraisals:. None of the aggrieved ever file a formal complaint with their state's appraisal board. If they did so, a panel of appraisal experts would evaluate both appraisals side-by-side to determine incompetence, negligence, malfeasance etc.
Instead, the aggrieved first run to politically-motivated HUD apparatchiks, or even worse, civil courts.*
*note: it doesn't matter who occupied the White House. The bureaucrats out in the field have well-oiled machine running. Political.appointees come and go. Bureaucrats live like vampires.
If every aggrieved homeowner was first required to submit a complaint to the state board, it's possible these stories might magically disappear.
I've never heard of a specific "noise audit" in connection with a real estate appraisal, but appraisals will definitely mention nearby heavy traffic areas, airports, etc. that are noise sources.
To clarify: here I meant "noise" in the sense of "random error in judgment" as opposed to physical sound. In that sense a "noise audit" means a careful analysis of the amount, patterns, and sources of inaccuracy of a certain judgment.
In this case such an audit would analyze a large number of house appraisals (ideally with multiple simultaneous appraisals of the same house by different appraisers) to see how much variance there is in the numbers.
One of the points Kahneman et al make in their book is that in many important judgments people and institutions make (e. g. judges making sentencing decisions) there is a large amount of unwarranted variation that isn't biased -- not consistently slanted for or against some group -- but still leads to unfairness or inefficiency.
So that means that when you see a discrepancy between two judgments that seems unreasonable, it could well be due largely to noise -- random variation, or variation due to extraneous factors (e. g. time of day, whether the judge was tired, etc.) rather than (or in addition to) bias based on group membership. If you have a baseline estimate of how much noise tends to appear in a certain kind of situation, that helps tell you how likely it is for a particular discrepancy to truly be due to bias. Hence the value of a noise audit.
If I was a judge in this case, I would ask why a third appraisal wasn’t done to rule this exact scenario out. Home appraisal is about as inexact a science as could be imagined.
To add to this: any scientific approach must as its first step, even before looking at possible factors, check the *reproducibility* of the observations -- i.e. measure the noise.
You can have the most insightful factors and hypotheses in the world, but if your measurements are noisy, you will be able to conclude precisely nothing, unfortunately.
I used to be acquainted with Sam T. in person many years ago. He struck me as a really mild-mannered, nice guy. I believe our mutual acquaintances who've kept up with him still think of him that way. To me, his online persona looks like a sad case of Twitter Wars Brain taking over his IRL demeanor.
Interestingly, no-one over here says “Edin-boro” - it’s more like “Edin-burh.” It’s yet another one of those U.K. place names where you pronounce the first syllable and then sort of skim over the rest. See also: Marylebone (MAR-li-bun), Grosvenor (GROVE-ner), etc.
Murika place name pronunciations are inexplicable. Greenwich, CT = GREN-itch. Greenwich, NY = GREEN-witch. Calais, VT = CAL-lus. And some were changed due to wars, eg, Berlin, NY = BURL-in, Moscow, ID = MOSS-ko.
I like the sound of Pits-boro. Oh, well, maybe someday...
Been near Port Townsend a few times when we pulled into Naval Magazine Indian Island a few times when I was stationed in Everett ('10-'12) - never made it into town though due to schedules.
One of the things they drill into us - esp as officers - is "Perception is reality". These situations are insanely stupid and eminently avoidable every time. I find it extremely difficult to believe that the only place the Y could "employ" a non-passing transwoman was in the locker room. Beggars belief.
Changing/locker rooms are one of those situations where a little common sense goes a long way in virtually every single case (and I'd like you folks not to equivocate so much on this). Every private (24 hr, etc) and public (on-base military, etc) gym I've gone to in the last 10+ yrs has single-occupancy changing/bathrooms (often but not always labeled "family" or something else - if it doesn't sound obvious) - in some cases, ALL the changing rooms are single occupancy. Situations like this are pure virtue-signaling, just asking for outcomes such as what occurred - and the resulting publicity and outcry makes things ridiculously more difficult for all the normal folks who just want to blend in and live normally.
I think I deleted my comment by accident. But to reiterate: I didn’t like the way Julie Jamon was portrayed in this segment. She was portrayed as an unhip 80 year old who is unfamiliar with the “transing” of the young people. She clearly wasn’t unfamiliar with all this, as she already had a line in the sand drawn for herself and that is whether the male was intact or not.
Additionally the boy, who only 4 months prior could not have claimed to be a woman in any way, was portrayed as some poor transwoman being hassled at work. Dishonest reporting in my view as this boy was clearly not transitioned. We have zero guardrails around this now. Zero.
The more that comes out about this, the more skeptical I am that the moral, ethic, and sympathetic thing to do is to pander to this. I say no.
If a person has no sense of how they appear to the world, if they cannot maintain a grass-touched view of themselves as passing or not, they shouldn’t be going into any opposite sex bathroom, and the state should not permit public facilities to change the laws. We have pseudo self ID in the Pacific Northwest. It’s appalling.
There should be absolutely no controversy to the situation where a woman questions whether a male (yes a trans woman is male!) should be in a women/girls locker room/changing room supervising young girls changing out of bathing suits.
Asking about this should not be controversial at all.
Using confusing language such as "the old lady asked her about her genitals" (when the "her" in this sentence is referring to a male (a person-with-a-penis)) completely obfuscates what is going on and purposefully paints the older woman as a creep.
I can't believe this is remotely controversial. She has every right to wonder why a male (a person-with-a-penis!) is in the girls changing room observing girls change.
I agree completely.
100% this.
Also. It is very clear the trans woman was not post op and in fact still has a penis.
I agree with you 100%. To me, the pressing question is this: Why should this young man's identity and feelings, regardless of how sincere they are, take legal precedence over the feelings, rights and SAFETY of Julie Jamon as well as women and girls everywhere who want and expect privacy from men while showering, changing clothes, using the toilet, changing a tampon, fleeing a violent male partner or serving out their prison sentences?!?
Julie Bindel, the UK feminist referenced in the notes of this episode, has said that the fear and threat of male violence is the one thing that unites all biological women. Katie seems unwilling to acknowledge this reality and/or unwilling to prioritize the safety and well being of women and girls over the comfort and safety of men who declare themselves to be women without having to meet any hormonal or surgical requirements whatsoever.
And speaking of Self ID (I'm a woman simply because I say I am), make no mistake about it: The Democratic Party is working very hard to pass the Equality Act, legislation which would make Gender Self ID the law of the land, yet this segment of B&R is the first time I've heard this bill or its name even mentioned. Jesse minimizes it's potential impact by saying it will never pass, a puzzling conclusion considering that the Democratic House has already passed it and the Democratic Senate has tried. (This is a sad but true fact, one that I'm not happy to report.) Jesse also fails to note the very big differences between the UK's Equality Act and the one pending in Congress. Considering the many UK references in this episode, making that distinction would have been helpful.
Well said. Totally agree. Katy and Jesse make using the right pronoun the highest moral necessity when discussing this.
I think Katy would be willing to take the gloves off a little, but maybe feels tied by her public voice on it. I think it’s fine to editorialize this issue. Only someone who really doesn’t respect women scratches their head over whether the locker room should remain exclusive from a man who calls himself Clementine.
I’m tired of the hosts laughing at the ridiculousness of this stuff, only to moralize in sum that we need to respect the pronoun at the end of the day.
Shocked and dismayed that we have had not one, but two episodes involving opera drama, and yet you still haven't used the title "Tantrum of the Opera." Sad!
Yes, it was. Starts at 39:50. They dedicated 20ish minutes to the topic.
Theatre, surely?
Clearly we need an answer to the eternal question "What's Opera, Doc?"
I mean, it's in the episode title. If anyone, blame Jesse and Katie, or Trace, not Human Being, right?
I wrote this comment before I even got to that part of the episode. Feel free to blame me a bit for being overly hasty in wanting to deploy a really lame pun, but I think Katie, Jesse, and Trace also share some of the responsibility for the harm my comment has caused.
No, I think you are the victim here. Your punTastic initial comment turns out to have been wasted.
I think it's odd no one has mentioned the feelings of the little girls and their parents in the Port Townsend case. My six year old would have been mortified if a dude in a position of authority was watching her take her swimsuit off, and I would have been LIVID. I am in fact not sympathetic to the 18-year-old kid who didn't recognize that is inappropriate. I honestly think that is very close to the bar for a sex offense — Katie said 'it sounds creepy,' but that's because it is creepy. If that had been my daughter, I would have talked to police about it.
One more question I have about that incident: I've heard it described as a male body wearing a woman's swimsuit. To be super crass: due to biological differences, male and female swimsuits have different amounts of fabric. How were this dude's balls not hanging out? I can't imagine a normal woman's swimsuit being able to provide appropriate coverage for male privates.
I agree with you 100%. I have daughters that are elementary age. I would be arrested for my reaction to hearing that a guy was supervising my daughters. I don't care a bit about how he sees himself, he's a male from the day he was born until the day he dies.
No one cares about parents. We're mocked by the Left for showing an interest in what's being taught in schools. The Biden administration pushed to have parents at school board meetings to be considered domestic terrorists by the FBI last year. What will they do about the trans extremists that show up and disrupt every event held by women? (There was a "save women's sports" rally in DC a couple of months ago, and they had a lot of trans activists being loud & obnoxious, drumming to drown out the speakers.) The message of trans rights extremists with their actions here, and the death treats to JKR, is that if you speak you will be intimidated & threatened.
I'm tired of the push to be compassionate by confirming people's misperceptions of reality. It's body dysmorphia, this is not new -- when it was mostly girls with anorexia and bulimia (other dysmorphias), it's odd that society wasn't jumping through hoops to make affirm their feelings. They had a misperception of their actual bodies which caused them distress. I'm not affirming that, and I won't affirm this, especially when it's clear as day that this has unequal effects on girls & women.
Re: the swimsuit. I don't even want to imagine that. I imagine tucking was involved (which I hadn't realized until recently that it involves pushing the testicles inside the body a bit). He could've been wearing shorts over a one-piece. No matter, the Y had a female staffer on hand but they didn't think it mattered for whatever reason. Which pisses me off because I sometimes considered joining the Y but I'm not supporting that. Trans inclusion means women/girls may end up excluding themselves if their concerns aren't considered -- which they clearly are not.
Also, what about observant Muslim women/girls (and maybe other religious sects)? I've read that they cannot participate in this kind of inclusion because it goes against their religion. And whether or not you are religious, it's a right to be a religious person in this country. Are of the people calling out Islamophobia are going to cancel Muslims for not welcoming trans-identified males into female only spaces?
To be fair to your local YMCA: I am a member of my local YMCA. They seem to protect women's spaces more than the public city pool facilities. They have very prominent "trans inclusive" signs on the single stall family changing rooms — no problem there. Then they have signs on the women's rooms explaining that it's for women and boys under 5 years old. No "feel free to use whatever locker room aligns with your gender identity," like at the city pool. I don't know what would happen if a dude was trying to use the women's locker room, but I'd say it is subtely discouraged at our Y, though it is fucking awash in rainbow flags. The Y is also the most diverse place I spend time with, and their commitment to lower-income/minority group, including loads of immigrants, seems to be not bullshit, so there's that.
The Y in Port Townsend said that women like Julie should know that the wonen’s rooms are trans-inclusive just by seeing the flags. That was an explanation for why no further notice is posted. I wouldn’t take it for granted at any facility with changing/locker rooms for women. It’s de facto coed.
I agree with both of you and have wondered about the girls and their parents. Unfortunately it seems possible that if they are uncomfortable with it they can't freely express that concern. I would be very concerned. I have a daughter I would not have supported a male (even if they believe they are a girl) in the changing room with my daughter while changing. I wouldn't ever want to be in the position of telling a young girl, "yes, that (clearly obviously male) person is a woman just like me and grandma and you. Don't think otherwise and you should feel comfortable around this person and all people like them even if they have penises, as long as they say they are a girl/woman, they are!"
That is where we are now. This has long lasting implications on how we move around in the world as women and girls.
Also, I didn't really "get it" until recently, but I have seen folks (usually TERFS :) ) say the kid *wanted* this particular position (not a job at the front desk, for example) and the athletes want to be on women's team, they push these boundaries - for the *validation*. This seems to ring true.
The parents very likely depend on the YMCA for childcare. In a city that small, they might be the only game in town. It would be an enormous bind for them.
Even if they're effectively making women's and girl's sports co-ed by including trans-identified males -- if they got rid of women's sports entirely and made it all co-ed the trans-identified males would pout because they don't get to be on an explicitly women's team (which are again, effectively co-ed by including trans-identified males).
After years of resistance, Katie finally self identifies as TERF.
Then she's lying. Katie is the opposite of a TERF. If anything, she's a TRAF (Trans Rights Activists' Friend) who believes in Self ID, a position revealed by her willingness to categorize the young man at the Y, who has yet to transition, as "a trans woman" and to call trans identified males exactly what they want to be called. That means men like serial killer Harvey Marcelin, who declared himself to be a woman at the age of 83 (!) and has now brutally killed three women, are referred to as "she" "her" and "woman"!
Forget about the tiresome details B&R keeps relaying to us about the woke implosions occurring at obscure organizations. What I want to know is WTF went on between the NY Times copy desk/editors and the two female reporters who wrote the article about Marcelin? Were they all rowing in one direction or was there conflict about which gender to use in referring to this monster? Seriously. THAT would be interesting and important.
SHE KILLED TWO WOMEN. AT 83, SHE IS CHARGED WITH DISMEMBERING A THIRD.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/nyregion/harvey-marcelin-shopping-cart-body.html?smid=url-share
You make great points here. I’m seeing more & more reports of crimes being allegedly perpetrated by “women” in the media, & yet if there wasn’t a photo the public would have NO IDEA the suspect is a dude. It’s straight up disinformation, & you’re right-- THAT would be a good episode. Journalists who obscure reality to satisfy an ideology aren’t good journalists.
Salman Rushdie spent about 9-10 years in hiding, not “decades.” He has not been hiding for about 20 odd years and makes regular public appearances, often to extol the importance of free expression like he was going to do in Chautauqua. He refused to allow Islamist extremists and Iran make him live in fear and tried to live a full life as best he could. He even managed to get married and divorced to a couple of different women - both of them glamorous, successful, and beautiful - have another child, and get a knighthood since Satanic Verses came out. Rushdie is an incredibly brave and principled individual, a genuine icon of free expression and liberal values.
And two of those years were in my spare room. He was always leaving his dishes in the sink. And the loud phone calls with Hitch and McEwan!
But those late-night toke sessions made up for it all. >sniff<
I still can’t believe the dude was married to Padma Lakshmi of all people. And in the 2000s!
Wait, I was born and raised in Olympia. Katie are you telling me that the governors house in Olympia is a lie?
Edit: I'm also on the 80 year old woman's side. It's insane to me that we allow people's psychological disorders to grant them access to places they shouldn't be.
Edit edit: I laugh my ass off every time Katie says "what she perceives as a man". I think it's wild that women allow their gender to be reduced to a bunch of, frankly, sexist stereotypes. Like how so often women who "transition" to men just think that means being hairy, fat, and dressing like a skater in 1998. Trans people have the same problem as authors writing the opposite gender. They can, but sometimes the results are wildly off of reality, like in 13 Reasons Why or Harry Potter (no male author would have Harry discard the elder wand, come the fuck on)
Yeah, Katie seemed to be implying the 80 year old woman was seeing things wrong. It was literally a male watching women undress in a locker room, that point doesn't even seem in dispute here. The fact that this male identifies as a woman is secondary and doesn't mean the old woman was wrong in what she saw.
I kept thinking that exact thought. The woman wasn't mis-seeing anything. She was seeing a male. Not someone she "perceived" to be a male. A true actual male. In the girls/women's changing room.
I think it is like this. She saw a male in the women's changing room. She incorrectly perceived that male as a man. And THAT is why it is all fucked up. Sex is now immaterial
I don't think that she was "incorrect" in perceiving the male as a man. Her perception may not align with that male's perception or progressive orthodoxy, but "incorrect" implies some type of objective standard.
I had a whole thing written out. So. Ok. The transwoman perceives herself as a woman. She cannot control how others see her. I have to say. I am torn. If someone has spent years looking at their body and wondering why there is a penis there, I cannot imagine how awful it must feel to be addressed as a man. On the other band. It is insane that trans women are supposed to be viewed as women and treated as women. Addressed as women? Sure. But why are trans women allowed in women's changing rooms, especially when 4 months previously they would not have been
It makes the two of us transphobic bigots, thats for sure.
I think Katie is being strategically noncommittal.
There is still a massive number of average, well meaning liberal feminist women who are “being kind” because it’s fashionable but who also have genuine compassion for people with gender dysphoria. As they learn more and more of what is going on, the compassion may remain but the courage to at least call a male a male increases. The challenge for terfdom is to help these women on this journey while not scaring them off by coming across as the nasty “actually transphobic” terfs (who truly do exist, just like there’s a small nasty extremist fringe in any group, but they are a tiny group). Hence, self-moderated language.
As a conservative, I am stumped as to why being kind goes as far as to letting men dictate to women what being a fucking woman is. Is there a more egregious example of mansplaining?
No, and that's what I told my son who tried to mansplain womanhood to me. I'm progressive, but I'm not on board for this crap. But the kids are being indoctrinated everywhere they go.
Well, cheers. We can shake hands on this issue.
You said: "I think it's wild that women allow their gender to be reduced to a bunch of, frankly, sexist stereotypes," Joe. I agree with you. I was nice at first, as a good Democrat, but no more. It was driving me crazy listening to Katie talk about Julie Jaman (the 80 year old) like the woman was reacting this way because she's old and doesn't get it. Humans cannot change sex. If that makes me a conservative now, I hope the GOP's big tent can make space for people recovering from TDS (still don't like Trump, though, just not insane about it anymore). The Democrats have lost the fucking plot, and they've lost me.
The tent is big enough imo and if we can PLEASE reclaim the GOP from the trumpian hacks, I'd be overjoyed. I actually started in the other direction of liking trump cause he was delivering on his promises and I could put up with him being a boorish, rude person because of it. But I'm pissed at trump cause he lost the election single handedly and they lost the senate afterwards for not shutting up. All that to say, we're probably both in a similar camp there. We need more people like you to come in and moderate the wild ones on the edges.
Thank you for the warm welcome, Joe. I'll consider your offer. :) It's funny now seeing how many people that are Conservative being willing to listen to people who are/were Democrats, because I see no willingness to engage people with ideas outside their bubble on the left (thinking of all of my college friends here, they will not read anything if it's not from an outlet they approve of).
I started listening to Matt Walsh and while I don't agree with him on a lot, as a parent his energy on fighting gender ideology is appreciated by this longtime Lefty (who identifies as Independent, I guess). I tried listening to Ben Shapiro but he talks too fast for me, and I'm a person who often plays podcasts at 1.25x.
I was born and raised in Olympia Washington and now live up near Seattle. If I don't interact with outright communists, my circle would be very small. I do lament that it seems like so many of the people I know have no clue what conservatives believe apart from the caricature they get on MSNBC. those friends of mine who know where I sit started out asking me questions Iike I'm an alien and then eventually realized that SOME of the goals are different, but it usually does come down to small differences in strategies on how to accomplish the same thing. For instance, I think private sector unions are stupid (in this day and age) and generally hurt workers, but that public sector unions should be criminal. The reflex is usually to kick out against me, but then when I say, "why should the people we are forced to pay taxes to be allowed to collectively bargain against and hold hostage the people they allegedly serve?" and they understand a bit more even if they disagree.
You are not wrong.
From a beardy bro in a comment on a Tweet I made earlier. Made me think of your comment here. Mansplaining misogyny to me. *big sigh*
“You are still pretending that you speak for all women. You understand that women's identities aren't invalidated just because they don't parrot your bigotry right. You're trying to erase the majority of women who don't think like you and its incredibly misogynistic.”
Nice on a day when I get a random DM from a woman I used to tweet back-and-forth with but nothing recent--she had to tell me she was “disconnecting” because I’m a TERF. (Just to point out how left-leaning women... which I was but not anymore... get it from everyone.) 😂
Wait, it's mysoginistic to NOT let a man tell you what a woman is?! 🤣🤣
"The challenge for terfdom is to help these women on this journey while not scaring them off by coming across as the nasty “actually transphobic” terfs." I'd argue that no one is transphobic. It's a word devoid of meaning now because it's used far too often. Also, I'm not afraid of trans people, therefore it's not a phobia. If people want to call women that advocate for women's spaces, and child safeguarding, TERFs (I always imagine it said by someone with a pic of an anime girl holding a gun pointed straight ahead... because Male Violence), so be it. Today's TERFs are yesterday's Feminazis, except now it's not the Right targeting us (well, a certain amount will), but the Left.
There is always pressure on women to show compassion, which is totally playing on female socialization as a means of manipulating us. Where is the effort by trans activists to make men welcome males that don't conform to sex stereotypes? There is none. Men aren't expected to change their views (except maybe a small number of gay males that are now getting pressure from heterosexual trans-identified females to consider them as partners).
A British publisher got a world of much-deserved shit on Twitter for announcing a memoir by a trans man about how "he navigates gay culture." It's homophobia with glitter on it.
https://twitter.com/thebookseller/status/1559938614909452288
JK 👏 ROWLING 👏 LIKES 👏TO GO 👏BOWLING.
I just remember it's the same vowel as in her first name, "Jo".
Source? :)
I heard it from Salman.
I have some thoughts re: the Port Townsend section of the episode.
From Katie’s intro: “An 80-yr-old women was banned from a YMCA bc she saw a TW, she didn’t realize that this person was a TW, she thought it was a guy, in a locker room, it was an employee of the Y, & this person was watching little girls change."
And a little later describing what Julie Jaman heard while she was in the shower at the YMCA: She heard what she perceived as a male voice, & saw these little girls in the changing room.”
It's kind of frustrating to hear someone who sees this issue w/far more nuance than most—describe an incident involving an older woman w/language that almost questions the woman's perception of reality (that we all shared before 5 min ago).
At one point Katie questions whether anyone was assaulted. In the first video on this Substack, at 22:02 you can see women being pushed on the ground (the longer video is frustrating to watch). https://thedistance.substack.com/p/mayor-police-bear-responsibility?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2
The tactics of the trans rights activists in Port Townsend last week are remarkably similar to the ones Jesse mentioned the activists took in the UK when feminists were trying to host discussions on how self-ID affects women. Make loud noises to distract the women & make it hard to hear anyone, physically swarming the area and pressing in (I saw a video from a UK event where a woman, Julie Bindel? -- not sure -- was stuck in a stairwell trying to get into an event and a bunch of obnoxious little shitheads were intimidating her and preventing her from getting up the stairs to her event).
If there's no conflict between women's and trans rights, as the trans activists say, then why are they preventing women from assembling to speak?
Port Townsend police chief Tom Olson really dropped the fucking ball, he made the Uvalde police look brave by comparison - his six officers at the rally last week were across the street, not helping women at the rally until several 911 calls were made, even when people were going across the street to ask for help. He can be heard in the 2nd video recommending that if the women speaking don't feel safe, then they should go home. What the actual fuck. They're exercising their right to free speech & the right to assemble. It's his damned job to make it safe for them to do so. Does he think the Antifa bros are paying taxes? It's the older people (they're also the ones that vote most consistently).
Jesse: “I did not want to read more about this story.” He hosts a podcast about what ppl talk about on Twitter. Men get the freedom to ignore stories like this bc it doesn't affect them.
This is far from the end of issues involving the need to respect the privacy/dignity of older women, & safeguarding concerns re: males interacting w/children, least of all LITTLE GIRLS UNDRESSING TO USE THE BATHROOM.
Women have come to expect that we will have a female attendant in a room if a male doctor needs to exam us, that a female will be doing our mammogram (boobs out in a small room w/one other person & an X-ray machine). It’s going to be next to impossible to keep males from doing those jobs w/little girls, in medicine or personal care if the Democrats ever pass the Equality Act bc the purpose of it is to let gender be on level with sex, which means no distinction can be made for making anything
Older women, & non-verbal younger women in facilities requiring assistance w/ intimate personal care deserve to have that care provided in a way that best serves their safety & dignity. Sex denialism makes it impossible for women & girls to advocate for ourselves.
Going back to Julie Jaman’s more urgent concerns re: a male supervising little girls getting undressed... this matters to me as a parent of two elementary age girls. I live in a blue state, and I honestly don't think I can count on any organization that offers programs for children to take this shit seriously, and I can't entrust my children to them, or give them my $. They can virtue signal their hearts out--but I'm not putting my kids at risk.
I recommend listening to Julie's interview on the Quillette podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/quillette-podcast/id1441708286?i=1000575842845
I don't know specifically what provisions in the Equality act govern medicine, I would like to think that women will be able to have procedures/tests done for them by females since I don't think those qualify as 'public accommodations'. Still I think that if the equality act wants to gain widespread acceptance it should probably look more like the British Gender recognition act which makes necessary compromises while balancing interests of women and girls in changing rooms etc. but I don't think that will happen unless there is a real push by manchin/sinema/collins.
You’d like to think that, but it puts gender on the same level as sex across the entire government. If that was the case there would be no way to say only biological females can do this, or biological females have still have a right to have intimate personal care be provided by other biological females.
You’d like to think that rapists & murderers (including those who murdered women & girls) would not be put in women’s prisons with biological women in prison--who according to the Vera Institute have 86% survivors of sexual assault, often repeatedly by different men since childhood (bc of circumstances of being born in poverty), but it’s ALREADY HAPPENING even w/o the Equality Act. The only difference is that no one cares right now (except “TERFs”) bc it only affects ppl in lower socioeconomic classes. If women support the Equality Act the party will say it will help us, and maybe there’s some small things that are good--but we’ll be carving it in stone that sex and gender are to be considered women with the same weight.
Right now it depends on which state we're talking about some states basically already have self-id and allow biological males into women's prisons and changing rooms. The Equality act would apply everywhere and to be honest some of these provisions would do a lot of good in many other states if we can strip out all the blanket self-ID parts, I think it's important to remember that the bill as it exists is dead in the D-held senate and would need to be changed drastically if it were to pass in the future.
Biden instituted it already for federal prisons across the country.
I realize the Equality Act isn’t going anywhere, but as a policy document it lays down how the party sees this issue.
https://19thnews.org/2022/01/biden-administration-releases-new-transgender-federal-prison-policy/
I realize it’s restoring an Obama-era policy, and I have to admit I wasn’t following this issue back then, because I would have disagreed with it had I known.
https://womensdeclarationusa.com/equality-for-all-act/
From the weeseeyouwat page and the phrase "[...] we as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color theatre workers [...]", does anyone else feel a grammar pet peeve at the way "people of color" is used as an adjective despite being a noun?
Like I know they're trying not to split up BIPOC as the full acronym, but grammarly speaking, it feels like it should be "theatre workers of color." And they're not the only ones who've done the noun-as-adjective thing; it's a growing, grammatically wonky trend.
Also- do they mean indigenous to just the Americas? Because we are all indigenous to somewhere.
Ngl, SJ movements in England uncritically using BIPOC to criticize native English people is never not hilarious to me.
Top American exports:
Gasoline
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Inane culture war bullshit
Because they're arguing that native English people should step aside to make room for "indigenous" voices... aka the same native English people that they're saying should step aside. It's a term that really only works in recently-ish colonized nations like Canada, the US, and Australia.
Seems like what is intended is more like "colonized" voices, then.
"indigenous": originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native
You're welcome to redefine the term to mean something else (similarly to how many people redefined "racism" to mean "prejudice + power" so that only white people can be racist), but that doesn't mean everyone else has to accept that redefinition.
Are you American? That might explain why for you “indigenous” has a particular meaning that doesn’t include relatively recently-formed nation states like Turkey or Albania.
As a native disposses citizen of Eire, I demand a land acknowledgement. And as a dispossessed descendant of the pogroms, my husband and daughter should get an even better one.
Good plan
https://youtu.be/4y9NtHlJvbY
Interestingly, the judge who ruled on Michelle Carter’s verdict (it wasn’t a jury trial), specifically argued that Michelle regular suggesting, supporting or urging Conrad Roy to kill himself did not amount to manslaughter. There was only one message in question, that had she not sent it he would have allowed her to walk free. Conrad got out of his car while attempting to kill himself with exhaust fumes and when he told her he got out, she told him to get back in.
Conrad Roy had had suicide attempts prior to meeting Michelle and Michelle had a history of rehab for eating disorders and self harm. A really unfortunate fate that two extremely unwell and codependent teenagers crossed paths in the first place. Reading the messages, its hard to for me to say if Michelle even thought she was doing the right thing my supporting his expressed will to die. The story is sick and horrifyingly tragic, but I think there was a lot more to it than she bullied him to death for the attention.
Yes, I'm just about as much of a free speech absolutist as you get, but I haven't found the Carter verdict troubling at all once I learned about the facts of the case. Convicting someone of manslaughter for actively commanding a specific individual whom the speaker knows is in the middle of committing suicide to finish the job doesn't have much of a slippery slope beneath it.
Exactly. The narrative is way over-simplified. I've read the texts between them and it presents a very morally gray situation as only black and white.
Conrad was friends with Michelle for over 2 years. During this time, he stated his intention to kill himself as fact over and over and over again. She spent countless hours listening to his struggles as he dismissed her own, offering ideas and methods of help that he all rejected. Several times he would say something ominous then ghost for the rest of the night, leaving her to wonder if her friend had killed himself until he sporadically got back in contact a couple days later. Repeatedly she suggested getting an adult like his mom involved, and his response was that if she told anyone it could effectively end their friendship while also implying his mom already knew. It's true that a more mature person might have considered sacrificing the friendship for the sake of Conrad getting help, but Michelle was a teenager with depressive issues of her own; also, Conrad had already attempted suicide twice before, so his parents were well aware of his suicidal thoughts. It was only 2 years in when she began encouraging him, either because he had said so repeatedly and vehemently he wasn't going to be happy in life or because she felt (as she alludes to in the texts) that confronting him with the reality of his threats would help snap him out of it. While it's true she texted a friend that she told him to get back in the truck (which the prosecution used as key evidence despite her habit of lying while another text that he had forced himself on her was apparently not trustworthy enough to consider), there is no evidence of what was actually said in the phone call; on the contrary, the text records indicate she may have genuinely thought he wasn't actually going to do it. Conflicting also with the narrative that she just did this for attention was that she continued texting him for nearly two months after he died; these texts were just too extensive for it to all be performative.
Frankly, it's still bizarre to me that she was convicted. In my opinion, the prosecution's narrative she did it for attention does not hold up to a closer examination of her relationships with the friends and with Conrad. A closer examination, however, was not possible in the trial because the judge ruled that their conversations from two years ago, where she was consoling and trying to get him help before trying another tactic, should be stricken from the record, even though it puts their relationship into an entirely different context. What's much more likely than attention-seeking is a depressed teenager mishandling an already terrible situation. People say he wouldn't have killed himself if she hadn't gotten involved. Given his prior suicide attempts and his family's indifference to getting him more support (leaving him to seek help from someone who was ill-equipped), I find this strenuous at best.
Interesting. In my head, I went through what is generally considered over the line vs not and came up with that maybe the line is something like “detailed instruction on how to kill a specific person or carry out a large attack,” which seems like it matches the judge’s argument
6 minutes in and Katie incontrovertibly outs herself as a Terf. Love it.
I will contribute to a crowdfunder for Katie to move to Port Townsend, run for city council, and rename it Terfsville.
Katie is NOT a TERF! In a recent episodes, she proclaimed that she is NOT a TERF.
TERFs do NOT believe in self-ID laws or in using the preferred pronouns of male rapists and murderers in order to be polite. Katie fully supports both.
For anyone who wants to dive into the appraisal lawsuit, the complaint filed by the plaintiffs is available for free here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64901934/connolly-v-lanham/ The initial appraisal was done in June 2021. The second appraisal was done in January 2022.
Below is a tangent not really related to the lawsuit or anything from the episode:
It drives me nuts that newspapers don't usually include court filings with the articles they run. They used a copy of it to write the story, why not share it? If this document wasn't on Courtlistener, someone wanting to read it would have had to spend $3 on PACER (the federal court website) for a copy. If you ever use PACER, please consider installing the RECAP browser extension available here: https://free.law/recap . It automatically adds documents you download from PACER to the Courtlistener website so others can access them for free.
Having recently read Noise by Kahneman, Sunstein, and, uh, the other guy, I wonder if noise audits have ever been done on house appraisals. Seems like a place where you would expect a large amount of noise, in addition to whatever possible bias might be present. I.e. maybe they're just BS in general? Any skeptical real estate experts out there?
Quite plainly this incident is an anecdote at best, and cherry picked at worst. It's shocking that an article can be written about it given that journalism is supposed to adhere to some sense of objectivity (in the scientific sense).
When Jesse says "it's complicated", he really means (and should say!) "there are many plausible confounding factors" that need to be investigated before a conclusion can be drawn.
I wish I could take credit for it but someone on the interwebs made a very astute observation about these "racist" appraisals:. None of the aggrieved ever file a formal complaint with their state's appraisal board. If they did so, a panel of appraisal experts would evaluate both appraisals side-by-side to determine incompetence, negligence, malfeasance etc.
Instead, the aggrieved first run to politically-motivated HUD apparatchiks, or even worse, civil courts.*
*note: it doesn't matter who occupied the White House. The bureaucrats out in the field have well-oiled machine running. Political.appointees come and go. Bureaucrats live like vampires.
If every aggrieved homeowner was first required to submit a complaint to the state board, it's possible these stories might magically disappear.
I've never heard of a specific "noise audit" in connection with a real estate appraisal, but appraisals will definitely mention nearby heavy traffic areas, airports, etc. that are noise sources.
To clarify: here I meant "noise" in the sense of "random error in judgment" as opposed to physical sound. In that sense a "noise audit" means a careful analysis of the amount, patterns, and sources of inaccuracy of a certain judgment.
In this case such an audit would analyze a large number of house appraisals (ideally with multiple simultaneous appraisals of the same house by different appraisers) to see how much variance there is in the numbers.
One of the points Kahneman et al make in their book is that in many important judgments people and institutions make (e. g. judges making sentencing decisions) there is a large amount of unwarranted variation that isn't biased -- not consistently slanted for or against some group -- but still leads to unfairness or inefficiency.
So that means that when you see a discrepancy between two judgments that seems unreasonable, it could well be due largely to noise -- random variation, or variation due to extraneous factors (e. g. time of day, whether the judge was tired, etc.) rather than (or in addition to) bias based on group membership. If you have a baseline estimate of how much noise tends to appear in a certain kind of situation, that helps tell you how likely it is for a particular discrepancy to truly be due to bias. Hence the value of a noise audit.
If I was a judge in this case, I would ask why a third appraisal wasn’t done to rule this exact scenario out. Home appraisal is about as inexact a science as could be imagined.
To add to this: any scientific approach must as its first step, even before looking at possible factors, check the *reproducibility* of the observations -- i.e. measure the noise.
You can have the most insightful factors and hypotheses in the world, but if your measurements are noisy, you will be able to conclude precisely nothing, unfortunately.
I used to be acquainted with Sam T. in person many years ago. He struck me as a really mild-mannered, nice guy. I believe our mutual acquaintances who've kept up with him still think of him that way. To me, his online persona looks like a sad case of Twitter Wars Brain taking over his IRL demeanor.
Kudos to Jesse for defending him, anyway.
Isn't this 'just' a case of someone's Twitter persona being different than their real life personality?
Jesse pronounced Edinburgh as Edinberg. I laughed.
(Fun fact: the original planner of Pittsburgh wanted it pronounced "boro" like Edinburgh. Didn't stick. Though they kept the h!)
Interestingly, no-one over here says “Edin-boro” - it’s more like “Edin-burh.” It’s yet another one of those U.K. place names where you pronounce the first syllable and then sort of skim over the rest. See also: Marylebone (MAR-li-bun), Grosvenor (GROVE-ner), etc.
How do you say "Worcester"? Here it's WUH-ster. And Wooster, OH is WOO-ster, I think. Gawd, I love words.
I can't figure out how to write how it's pronounced. Like wood-ster, without the "d?"
My pronunciation of Edinburgh is closer to your first than your second. Might be a north south thing.
Could easily be - a graaahhhss vs grAAAss thing?
Murika place name pronunciations are inexplicable. Greenwich, CT = GREN-itch. Greenwich, NY = GREEN-witch. Calais, VT = CAL-lus. And some were changed due to wars, eg, Berlin, NY = BURL-in, Moscow, ID = MOSS-ko.
I like the sound of Pits-boro. Oh, well, maybe someday...
Don't forget Versailles, Pa = Ver-sayels.
There are tons of Versailles -- IL, KY, OH, probably more. The ones I know of are all Ver-sayles.
Every time I've heard one come up, the person quickly says "that's really how it's pronounced"--I've done it too.
Someone decided that that the "u" in Staunton, VA would be silent. So it rhymes with Manchin.
I grew up in GLOSS-ter County, NJ.
How is Gloucester pronounced elsewhere?
How *else* would one pronounce Gloucester, other than maybe "GLUHSS-ter?"
I didn't know if it had multiple pronunciations like it's linguistic cousin Worcester.
I watch a lot Food Network/Cooking Channel shows where the running joke is how people pronounce Worcestershire sauce.
There's also a Pittsburg, Kansas. I believe it's pronounced "berg" like iceberg.
The heart of TERF agenda is maintaining the freedom to have women only designated space, vote with your pocketbook
I’m issuing a fatwa of my own: Jesse’s usual tagline of “it’s complicated” has now been replaced with “I’m tired, y’all.”
Jesse MUST say "it's complicated" on EVERY episode, or else the T-shirts I'm planning to make will be useless.