They didn’t even make a joke. They just called trans woman a man. It was hate speech, pure and simple.
I am very afraid for the future of twitter now. Hate speech is going to run rampant on that platform now.
It’s not a crime nor hate speech to acknowledge someone’s biological sex. That’s what we do in sports and when we select partners for example. Most, if not all heterosexual men would not consider a “trans woman” to be an actual woman. Our way of selecting partners is proof of that. To punish a natural, and biologically based viewpoint that most of humanity hold and follow is tyrannical and unsustainable.
Sex is an emergent property of multiple genetic networks. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that it is not bi-modal, but it is far from simple.
https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a
The fact that we don't go around performing genetic testing on people before we interact with them also raises questions about whether sex itself matters, or whether there must be different definitions for sexed categories dependent on policy purpose. (e.g. based on genitals when the concern is sexual violence; based on fertility for the purposes of reproductive medicine; based on gender performance; based on hormone levels, etc.)
I will immediately change my mind and recant my views — here and now! — if someone provides:
- A specific definition of what “gender” is, if not a synonym for “sex”
- Non-tautological definitions of “man” and “woman” that are consistent with your definition of “gender”
The fact that some women don't want to stay home and some men do doesn't mean it's a social construct. Many biologically-rooted differences between men and women are expressed in the population as overlapping but not coextensive normal distributions. E.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-006-0351-1
Same for a lot of what trans activists want to pass as facts.
Tolerance and fighting discrimination is important but bullying people into a set of beliefs is doomed to fail, except on Twitter until today ;)
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re looking for, but this seems like a non-attainable standard to me. Language is _so_ fuzzy. Do many nouns have ‘non-tautological’ definitions? Like, could you define ‘house’ or ‘boat’ ‘non-tautologically’?
The entire concept of "treating me as a {man,woman} and also agree to my particular ideas about sex and gender or otherwise you're a hateful bigot!" is quite remarkable. It's like "you must agree with my preferred theory about the origins of homosexuality or else you're homophobic!"
See https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/84795/ (copy available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZHkN2EYkl0v1oxhbd-5mnp9Fn1V...) for a discussion of the different concepts and the resulting confusion from a so-called gender critical perspective.
The distinction between sex and gender leads to interesting problems of performing gender and what it means for gender (and sex) to be socially constructed. And if both are socially constructed can the divide be upheld without requiring counter-intuitive definitions?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#SexGenDi...
The haziness of the term "woman" seems to be a popular target for mockery among conservatives. And phrased as an ontological question ("what is a woman?") it is unsurprisingly baffling to many people who haven't kept up with feminism and who are not personally affected by the outcome of this philosophical debate. Equally unsurprising then for these people to consider "The Left" to be out of touch.
Expressing exasperation at our collective failure to wrap our brains around these concepts is an understandable reaction from someone well-read, but it does nothing to change minds.
Actually I guess that's consistent, if you think men are lesser beings who deserve to be killed, then it makes sense you would also think that the worst possible thing you can do to a woman is call them a man.
"Trans rights are human rights!"
Okay, great! And then on the next wall, in the same colour so presumably by the same people:
"Kill all men!"
This perfectly encapsulates the problem. So-called 'hate speech' is in the eye of the beholder and incredibly, just incredibly subjective.
There’s a lot of hate in the history books, 99% of it predating the internet.
Are those that engage in hate online more or less likely to act on it than those who engage in person? Are these interactions compelling them to use their voice off-line?