The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

What do you mean denying someone's place in society? Are there are bunch of conservatives denying jobs to trans people or something?

You are being too hyperbolic.

>Conservative government officials, media commentators and militias are regularly attacking transgender people with real-life consequences. It's not just legislative attacks and information campaigns, but harassment and violent attacks.

Please show me conservatives physically attacking or advocating for the physical attacks against trans people.

Harassment is more of a subjective thing. Some people think the Babylon Bee's satire is harassment. I don't think it is. I also don't see any genuine harassment. Please provide examples.

>It's a culture of hate, and there is no excuse for it, and it should be called out.

I have yet to see any hate. Please show me some examples.

Also I have no problem with trans women receiving awards where they didn't have advantages for being AMAB.

> None of this should matter, not for an engineering job, not for anything.

It does now, though, and it has for the majority of the lives of people under the age of 20-25. Cis women Levine's age HAVE experienced oppression. Erasing that is also bad. Trans rights (and queer rights in general) have progressed quickly enough that this change has happened within one lifetime, so things get a bit weird.

I've seen something similarly in gay spaces, actually, as a cis lesbian. Younger people seem to think that those of us who were old enough to live in an openly homophobic society should just...stop being affected by that. It doesn't work that way.

> The entire cultural war is completely pointless.

I mean, I agree, but I can't talk to other lesbians without trans women being the center of discussion so. Now we get trolling from everybody. It's exhausting.

Tell me again, which side is establishing “affirmative action”?

I don't, and I think this myth among so many in "news" media has done more to misinform people than any of the pundits who are honest about their biases. See also, Dan Rather and Brian Williams.

Having the same bias as Wikipedia isn't evidence of their impartiality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_livin...

https://www.hhs.gov/about/leadership/rachel-levine.html

ADM Levine was a Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine. Her previous posts included: Vice-Chair for Clinical Affairs for the Department of Pediatrics, and Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Eating Disorders at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

For example, consider how "good guy with a gun" incidents are covered by the media. Some would say they're inappropriately suppressed in mainstream news. Others would say they're inappropriately celebrated in niche news or entertainment. I'm not here to say which is right, but both could be considered disinformation. They're trying to shift the narrative toward an ideological position, regardless of actual truth or proportionality.

So no, I don't agree that something must be untrue to be called disinformation. Presenting it that way is itself kind of treading the line.

I'm not denying anything. In four short words I explicitly accepted my interlocutor's claim. Please don't misrepresent.

> You sound like an antivaxer.

Empty insults aren't helpful either, or allowed by guidelines. When they're obviously contrary to reality, they're actually laughable. I mean, really? This is the level of counterargument you have to offer?

> If something is true who cares if a lot of people talk about it and like the content?

Strawman. This isn't at all about who talks about or likes the content. It's about attempts to mislead people, even if no actual untruth is uttered. Even the law, which is usually pretty strict about requiring proof of wrongdoing, recognizes that omission and misrepresentation can be equivalent to actual untruth. My "good guy with a gun" example makes the same point elsewhere in this thread. When a person or group of people goes around Twitter citing the same weak study about myocarditis and vaccines a hundred times, they're trying to inflate its actual significance relative to dozens of stronger papers on all sides of that same issue. They're using it to instill fear, not to inform. When done for an ideological purpose, as it often clearly is, that's disinformation.

Please note that I'm not trying to prove or disprove any point about vaccines or myocarditis. Go have that poo-flinging contest somewhere else. Consistent with the topic of this submission, I'm trying to address the issue of an uptick in certain tactics that people on all sides use, which pollute public discourse and make all of our lives worse. It's really sad that every one of the responses has only illustrated more of the same problem.

Edit: Although apparently someone else was able to. Maybe imgur is giving a different image to mobile? I tried with both Firefox and chrome on Android.

And nope, I'm not a Twitter user. I was, until about 4 years ago. Not a Facebook user either. I was, until about a decade ago. I don't think either are particularly healthy places.

I think the last paragraph of the "What Popper actually Said" section is just as important to note:

> It makes sense, doesn't it? Free speech is all fine and dandy, but let's stretch that to the limit. A and B are promoting their ideologies. A-ism is based on reasoned arguments — they may not yield correct conclusions, or they may, but A is speaking in good faith. B-ism is based on calls to violence and insurrection. If both are afforded the right to speak freely, modelling things out, B will necessarily inflict violence, or threats of such, on A — but violence and violent threats have the effect of silencing others, which indirectly impedes their right to speak freely — you are not 'free' to speak if someone will hurt you for doing so! Thus, free will is replaced with coercion, and society suffers as a result.

A line in speech has to be drawn somewhere. There's a difference among "I hate $RACE", "I hate $RACIAL_SLUR", "Someone needs to deal with the $RACIAL_SLUR problem", and "I want to kill $RACIAL_SLUR".

The first two on their own are not violent, and they're not written to stoke violence, but a person that sees as a lot of that content who agrees with it may eventually decide to escalate to violence.

The latter two are easily considered calls to violence, which even most free speech advocates might not agree with. The most aggravating thing about the people that post that kind of content is the blindingly obvious bad faith claims that "Oh, I don't mean we should solve the problem by KILLING them!" or "Well, I'd never ACTUALLY kill someone".

It's extremely easy to say "Well until the murder happens, no crime has been committed" when you're not the target.

> This implies that rules set up by social media sites are sacred and shouldn't be questioned.

It simply does not imply that.

Will do. That sounds interesting. Thanks for engaging and Godspeed.

Obvious and simple solution here:

1. Allow people to say whatever offensive jokes they want.

2. Keep banning the actual problem: those who make the targeted threats.

The entire concept of "incitement" is ridiculous. We have agency. Nobody can force me to go threaten someone. Go after the ones who commit actual harm, not the ones who make jokes.

Her.

Regardless, you didn't answer my question: "If Babylon Bee makes a joke about trans people how is that removing trans voices from the platform?"

People voluntarily leaving is not removing voices.

I like to invite folks, rather than make assumptions about their preferences. The invitation is open to the community, of course!

That doesn't change the truth that gender and biological sex are both characteristics of the human experience - usually they line up, and sometimes they don't.

We used to think that being gay was a mental disease. We now recognize it as something that many animals have as a part of their population, including humans. 20 years ago, being gay was like, pretty much not accepted in public and the science was developing.

Trans identities are coming a bit later, but we're still learning and developing our models.

It's only after you dive into the science at a collegiate level or higher that you learn there's a small percentage, maybe 1-2% of people, for whom this binary understanding is not a good model.

I'm not saying it's bad to only have a high school understanding, just that it's an incomplete understanding.

I'd argue that most women, in fact probably 99% or more, fall into a fairly straightforward definition - two X chromosomes, raised to behave like whatever their society expects from women. (I think we can agree that "woman" might have different cultural/social expectations depending on where they were raised? E.g. in some parts of the world a niqab or hajib is expected, for instance.)

But there exists a small group of people who don't fit in with that definition. They might have been born with a penis but two XX chromosomes, they might have been born without functional ovaries or an abnormal set of genitalia.

They might have been born with XY chromosomes but never developed a penis.

These folks are intersex, and are often raised as women.

I would say, in these cases, that we might agree that they are women - their chromosomes might not always be XX, but all their features and body development and social upbringing in the world suggests that they are women.

Then we come to another group. A group whose bodies are functionally male but who feel a deep revulsion at being a man.

But before we dive in to that case, are you comfortable with the other two cases and have any disagreements about the 99% or intersex cases?

But there exist people whose sex doesn't work into that model.

Consider some 46 XX intersex people. In these cases, outside conditions (typically an endocrine imbalance in the mother) leads to the development of a penis, and the loss of a vagina. These children may be raised as boys. Similarly, some XY people are born with autosomal defects that prevent them from effectively processing testosterone into dihydrotestosterone. As a result, their bodies develop into what we would consider typically female. They are often raised as girls.

There are dozens of conditions similar to these.

"XX male syndrome" might be one example of specifically what you are looking for - people who are scientifically discussed as male despite having XX chromosomes, a typically female karotype. It can be caused by autosomal origins

Ultimately, we cannot remove the discussion of sociological science from biology, because we make choices for kids in these cases. And those choices differ depending on culture. The US preferentially gives intersex people male gender, while Saudi Arabia does the opposite, even for the same conditions. In this way, even biological sex has some social component.

This evolution of language has been very rapid in some circles, and slow in others, but everyone uses it to some degree.

For example, when people say, "Be a man!" Or "man up!", they aren't saying, "show your adult male body".

They are saying, "meet our standards for what a man in our culture is!" Mulan's famous song, "I'll make a man out of you" has nothing to do with chromosomes or penises. It has everything to do with the social side of the term "man".

So at the very least, the word man is ambiguous and could mean adult male or it could mean someone who is manly in behavior.

Biological sex is unrelated to the topic at hand, unless of course they were working on some genetics homework, or working on a eugenics project I suppose.

> Which are not applicable in this case, since the sex of the individial in question is inambiguous.

Is it - where do you draw the line? If it's production of gametes, what if she doesn't? If it's hormonal balance, she's now biologicaly female. If it's presence/absence of a penis/vagina, she could have either. If it's X/Y chromosomes, she could be XY, XXY, XX[0], or chimeric.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome

More importantly, in what way does her biological sex impact her public influence? I certainly hope her chromosomes or genetalia have little to no impact on her public life.

> A man is defined as an adult male.

From Trans Man in Webster: Definition of trans man

: a transgender man : a man who was identified as female at birth

Making it acceptable per webster to use singular man/woman for a trans individual.

> Yes, the intent of satire is to make fun of absurd situations.

That's The Onion. The Bee is propaganda wrapped up in "it's just a joke bro". The Onion punches both ways, the Bee doesn't.

Alicia Keys or Keri Hilson she ain't....

If she were an absentee First Lady and less proactive, I could totally see someone calling her "Sasquatch" (a big mythical ape-creature rarely captured on camera) as a criticism and I'd be ok with that.

Babylon Bee attacked a high-profile trans public servant in a way meant to (IMO) provide commentary on society's approach to trans issues and the implications for biological females? I'm ok with that too. I think some comedian, maybe Bill Burr or Andrew Schulz, had a similar bit: "Men are so awesome we're even better at being women than actual women. That's why a Man[Bruce Jenner] is Woman of the Year[Caitlyn Jenner], in his first year as a woman." or something to that effect.

That's just an insult.

It's a slur.

- Add an unnecessarily complex psuedo-intellectual layer to the discussion in order to catch normal people off guard and make them feel "uneducated" so that they can be "educated".

- Decouple the idea of normal from heterosexuality, which is, frankly, normal due to it being the most common state for of existence for people.

Overall it is a purposeful attack on the status quo. In summary, "cis" as a term is unnecessary.