On Hacker News and Charlie Kirk | Hacker News Reader

On Hacker News and Charlie Kirk

7 pointskeepamovin28 comments

Charlie Kirk thought conversation was the only way we were going to heal America. He believed we had to learn to talk to each other without vitriol, without poison, without anger. We had to be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean. And to talk to each other across divides. These are exactly the kind of things good discussion here exemplifies.

Because these are Hacker News’ ideals as well. The moderators fight for this kind of discussion. This is the place on the internet that most represents the kind of ideal discourse that Charlie Kirk practiced day in and day out.

This is what HN aspires to be. Given this truth it’s surprising that despite the volume of discussion about Kirk since his killing, there’s been so little here of that kind of discussion: without hatred, without vitriol, without anger. This is also true here of many topics that challenge us to embody those ideals.

I think this realization should prompt reflections on the kind of behavior really here, and hopefully reflecting nudges it back towards collectively creating the kind of discourse that will heal not just America, because HN is truly global, but the world - by talking to each other in the Charlie Kirk way, across divides, without hostility.

View on HN

Charlie Kirk advocated that Joe Biden be executed:

https://x.com/donwinslow/status/1967348515895693404

This refers to a legal process and due punishment for treason. Understandable if Kirk believes Biden committed treason.

Transcript: “should be put in prison and or given the death penalty for his crimes against America.”

> Charlie Kirk thought conversation was the only way we were going to heal America. He believed we had to learn to talk to each other without vitriol, without poison, without anger. We had to be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean. And to talk to each other across divides. These are exactly the kind of things good discussion here exemplifies.

And just so we're clear on what some of those surely great conversations were, to say what he meant, without him being mean, to talk across divides, here's some of the guy's ideals:

"If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?"

"Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more."

"Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge." – Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement

"We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately."

"The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white."

"The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different."

"America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America."

"Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America."

"There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists."

Choice quotes from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk...

Can't lionize a guy for promoting what he believed in without saying what he believed in.

And since we need a disclaimer in all these threads: I don't care about the guy before or after his death, I don't agree with him at all, and I think his views were pretty bad, pretty bad.

Okay, you disagree with him. I get that. But why are you telling us? Are you venting? Are you responding to an experience you had in another thread?

Right now it feels like you've dropped us in the middle of an argument without any context regarding 1) who you're talking to 2) what you're responding to.

You've quoted the OP, but your response seems directed to something else. I don't think the OP lionized anyone, or at the very least, they didn't discourage discussing Charlie Kirk's views. I'm not sure what prompted this response.

Are you saying you don't agree with civil discourse? That you don't believe we should learn to talk to each other without vitriol, poison, and anger? That we shouldn't be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean?

A lot of content there, I want to look at it.

> Can't lionize a guy for promoting what he believed in without saying what he believed in.

On the contrary, he spoke very plainly and clearly. Reading in or projecting beliefs is the activity of those who would lie about him to try to justify harm.

Thank you for sharing the quotes. I haven’t vetted them, but I trust you. I provide context one by one:

1. "If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?"

   Refers to how DEI elevates people by skin tone or ethnic claim who would otherwise not have sufficient merit for those roles. Commonly misinterpreted as implying skin or ethnicity correlates with lack of merit, but in truth the view fairly seeks a merit-only approach.

   This criticism of DEI doesn’t pretend that two equally meritorious applicants—one a Black female, one a white male—have an equal chance of success in a context where either of them is the minority (e.g. a white guy in a Black finance house, and vice versa). There’s a role for merit-based DEI that addresses the situation: if the only reason you don’t get it is because of your skin color, you should get it. Most people believe this is fair. Racism from every race is real, but practically it may not work to force a non-ethnic Asian into an Asian workplace even with perfect language, because racial stories from the culture will impede optimal collaboration.

2. "Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more."

   Statistically, Black people in the U.S. are more likely involved in violent and property crimes against all other races. It’s a fact-based representation. It is not to disparage Black people but to reflect a current fact to do with crime. It is not to suggest that crime is caused by race, but rather correlated with cultural-socioeconomics which themselves are correlated with race.

3. "Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge." – Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement.

   Refers to Charlie celebrating Swift’s engagement to “the Pfizer spokesman,” hopeful the experience of marriage will be a positive transformative experience for her, and encouraging her to embrace the traditional marital values he believes work.

   Full transcript (via Wisprnote): "But maybe one of the reasons why Taylor Swift has been so just kind of annoyingly liberal over the last couple of years is that she's not yet married and she doesn't have children. I say this non-sarcastically. I say this as a husband and a father: having children changes you, getting married changes you. And I hope that America's biggest pop star, marrying the pharmaceutical spokesperson, ends up conservatizing them. Taylor Swift might de-radicalize herself, she might come back down to reality. I want them to have lots of children—it teaches you something about yourself. Deep down, I think Taylor Swift was actually raised as a conservative who has gotten kind of caught up in this metropolitan liberal stuff, and she doesn’t quite have an attachment to the conservative backbone she was raised in. But this might reattach her in the best possible way. And I'm not saying this sarcastically; I've seen it happen time and time again. When people start to get married and have children, it changes your politics, it clarifies your worldview. And for Taylor Swift, who obviously is very popular and incredibly supported, she might go from a cat lady to a JD Vance supporter. I think we should celebrate that. Taylor Swift, having two or three children—she should have more children than she has houses. That is my challenge, Taylor Swift, and I'm not being sarcastic. I think if she ends up having children, she'll stop this kind of liberal, endorsing-Joe-Biden nonsense. We want Taylor Swift on Team America. We want you to leave the island of the Wokies, and we would welcome you with open arms. One of the reasons so many people on the right have been skeptical or at least a little negative on Taylor Swift is that, up until this point, she’s not a great role model for young women to wait all the way until you’re 35 and just put your career first. We just talked about this with Katie Miller. However, there’s a great chance to change that—a great chance for Taylor Swift now to get married and have a ton of children. You can certainly afford it, Taylor. And you’ve been all through America and the ups and downs. If you feel that violent shaking in your home, that is the earthquake of the pop culture. If you hear that high-pitched scream, those are the young ladies on your block screaming. And honestly, Pfizer pays well, baby. Pfizer pays the bills. That is quite a ring, Mr. Kelsey—I’m impressed. I got to be honest, we don’t know exactly how much Pfizer paid you to peddle that product, but boy, you brought in the Benjamins, sir. That is some impressive carrots right there—that right there has its own zip code. I’m impressed. All kidding and sarcasm aside, this is something I hope will make Taylor Swift more conservative, engage in reality more, and get outside of the abstract clouds. Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge. And most importantly, I can’t wait to go to a Taylor Kelsey cuff—I can’t say it without laughing. You’ve got to change your name; if not, you don’t really mean it. Congratulations, Taylor.”

Or video Source if you prefer: https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1960413943391756288/vi...

4. "We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately."

   Refers to the medical practice of encouraging solving personal psychological problems with a medical/social solution, and pathologizing normal youthful confusion and experimentation into something that needs to be controlled and fixed, often in irreversible ways, before the age of consent.

5. "The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white."

   Refers to sanctuary policy of unchecked immigration and selectively enforced immigration law in Democrat states and cities, backed by party leadership rhetoric supporting this. The thesis is that unchecked immigration is destructive on multiple fronts: it erodes democracy by farming votes, creates costly benefits that don’t produce productive contributors, erodes rule of law, enhances conflict between existing communities and newcomers, and unvetted channels lead to abuse, trafficking, and the entry of violent criminals.

6. "The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different."

   Refers to the math of increasing one ethnic demographic population necessarily shrinking the proportion of all others.

7. "America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America."

   Refers to issues arising from different values, challenges integrating across religious/ethnic lines, and the long-term consequences of that.

8. "Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America."

   Refers to how Islam has been abused as a sword by various revolutionary or terrorist groups, and draws analogy between those groups and the American left. The analogy is apt: much of the narrative structure and discourse used by Marxist revolutionaries and terrorist recruiters finds parallels in the American left.

9. "There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists."

   Refers to some finer points of constitutional and religious law and history, which I’m not an expert on. But broadly, it reflects the idea that America’s constitution was founded on, designed with, and inextricably linked to Christian values—among other possible connections.

---

Good luck to you!

It's amazing to me that you put this much effort into a calm, thoughtful rebuttal that honours the HN guidelines, and got downvotes and no responses for it. My experience has been that people who post lists of quotes like that are not interested in a discussion or in considering the possibility that they have been misled.

In the future I recommend verifying quotes and looking up full context as well rather than simply trying to consider the words as given.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

I understood this to apply to people under discussion, not just other users.

I appreciate your inspiration! It’s a hard time for many, making effort towards good helps. :)

> He believed we had to learn to talk to each other without vitriol, without poison, without anger.

I like that kind of sarcasm

Haha, do you mean your sarcasm here? Share with me the times you remember Charlie Kirk talking to another person with vitriol, poison or anger?

Sure, calling others a abomination to God is full of joy and kindness.

https://x.com/RightWingWatch/status/1701259614077989121

Strange that people like him often quote tzhe OLd Testament (you know, the part where god committed multiple genocides) and rarely the New Testament.

He even quotes it to contradict the message of the new one, the one that is the reason why Christanity exists in the first place.

https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1800678317030564306

It's also interesting to see the reactions to Kirk's murder. Of course they try for the death penalty for the murderer but God said:

>Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

> Sure, calling others a abomination to God is full of joy and kindness.

Joy, of course not, but that isn't required for something to not be vitriolic or angry. Kindness — for sufficiently devout Christians, like Kirk by all accounts appeared to be? Yes, they absolutely, sincerely believe this is the kind thing to do, as sincerely as they believe everything else. I've spoken to some. I have some in my extended family.

Kirk had a prior disagreement with Lia Thomas specifically, which was specifically because of the compassion he felt for Riley Gaines having to compete against her. Under the circumstances, he delivers the speech rather calmly.

Per the other clip, Kirk sincerely believes that the way to express kindness is to tell people the truth. For someone who sincerely believes in God, and in an afterlife, and that people will be judged in the afterlife for their "sins", and that the standard of judgment includes this sort of thing, of course this would be an expression of kindness. In the devout Christian mindset, this is the main way to steer people onto "the narrow way" and empower them to get into Heaven.

Yes, the New Testament talks about accepting Jesus being the only thing you need. But the generic, mainstream Christian understanding — as far as I can tell, anyway — is that accepting Jesus either entails, or naturally results in, repenting of sin, atoning for it, trying to avoid it in the future, etc.

None of this is inconsistent and none of it exposes a desire for cruelty. It exposes a desire for things that perhaps are cruel in your (and my) mindset, but not in his. Almost by definition, the transgender condition is one of gender dysphoria: one in which mind and body disagree. Evidently, Kirk believed as a matter of faith that it is the mind which should be made to conform to the evidence of the body, rather than the other way around.

But Kirk also clearly distinguished his faith from his politics on many occasions, and made clear on many occasions that he is fine, legally speaking, with adults altering the body. He also worked with (e.g. Chloe Cole) and befriended (e.g. Buck Angel) trans people.

> Strange that people like him often quote the Old Testament (you know, the part where God committed multiple genocides) and rarely the New Testament.

"People like him" quote the four Gospel books all the time. They especially plaster John 3:16 everywhere. Even the most psychotic caricature of a fulminating preacher you can imagine, forewarning of the Apocalypse, is citing the New Testament (since Revelation is canonically the last book thereof).

> He even quotes it to contradict the message of the new one

First off, neither Testament can be said to have a single message, so to speak of "the message" is incoherent. But to the extent that the New Testament is ever said to have a message, it's about redemption through faith. Kirk clearly espoused that belief all the time; he said that he (and other TPUSA staff) would "pray for" people whose actions he disapproved of. He never yelled at them, never put hatred in his voice. All evidence suggests he sincerely believed everyone could be redeemed, if only in the afterlife.

The tweet completely misrepresents the point of the exchange shown in the clip. As Kirk points out in the clip, the "love thy neighbour" bit appears twice in Leviticus, which is part of the Old Testament, and Ms. Rachel also references Deuteronomy 6:3-5:

> Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

(via https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%206...)

So this is not about "the message of the new one" at all. The key point of Kirk's response is that "love thy neighbour" does not, in his view, mean to accept and endorse the sin of others; it means to support them while trying to steer them away from sin. Christianity extended the existing canon of contemporary religious belief; it did not obsolete that canon. The Bible describes a Jesus who told people to be compassionate and kind, but who did not tell people "by the way, my Father completely changed His mind about what is or is not acceptable conduct for humanity; never mind the Decalogue any more". (In fact, the Decalogue is reaffirmed in Matthew and in Romans.)

> It's also interesting to see the reactions to Kirk's murder. Of course they try for the death penalty for the murderer but God said:

As already established, per the Bible, God also prescribed stoning for offenses much less severe than political assassination. Capital punishment need not come from a place of vengeance. Modern methods of execution are far more humane.

Capital punishment has occurred per statute within the last decade in 16 states and is legal in 11 more, per Wikipedia. Per recent polling, a majority of Americans, including nearly half of Democrats, support capital punishment (https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/02/most-america...). The support seems to be based more in a sense of justice or fairness, rather than deterrence.

Love is the answer. Please try to release and let more love flow for people, even this guy. It's not mental, it's from the heart. I hope you can find a way to make peace with who this guy was and have no hatred for him.

Let's talk about what you said.

Kirk didn't need anyone's permission to found his movement and be controversial, he didn't waste himself worrying what many called him. He was a rebel and rebels don't care what society says. And it doesn't get any easier to deal with the insults and mislabels of others - you don't solve it by changing society, forcing them to speak correctly - you solve it by embodying not giving a shit what they think and being you anyway. In one sense, Kirk and trans people are united in their rebelliousness towards the mainstream.

I think you would have had a good conversation with him. One of the things I saw him do was point out that when you quote from the Bible, take care because you can always find another verse that contradicts. Which is the point he's advocating for in your second link (@patriottakes).

Maybe one of the points of the Bible itself being so self-contradictory was - we can't outsource our morality. Not even to God, entirely. We have to figure it out for ourselves to some extent.

And I think that by standing up for, talking about, and debating his beliefs, in a respectful way, that’s what he was doing, and encouraging.

Your first link deserves its full context. The first video is edited together cuts from from TPUSA Faith in September 2023 where Kirk introduces Riley Gaines (the full unedited video is: https://www.youtube.com/live/KMuBe8wE3K8?si=80ACNykxMdBx8XZV...). The full transcript is included below.

I invited you to watch that full introduction, and try to feel who he is, and answer the question, what is your heart-based read of Kirk as a person? Also, from that read do you feel he's someone who hates you? Who hates trans people?

It’s clear from context him calling William Thomas an abomination against God is a provocative, rebellious counter, from his cherished Bible, against what he sees as the coercive forced participation of a Mao-like cultural movement intent on rule, and corrupting America, “the trans Mafia”. He talks of watching the trans movement grow, and he is okay with several phases of it: “tolerate trans people” “okay”, “accept”, “okay” - but when it gets to celebrate and participate, he balks. Why would someone insist on violating his boundaries against what he wants to do? You can relate.

  Thank you, everybody. Please take a seat. Thank you. What a great turnout tonight—welcome to the fall, everybody.

  This is excellent. We have a very special guest tonight, so I’m not going to spend too much time introducing. But first, I just want to say it is so encouraging and heartwarming to see this event grow and grow and grow. We’ve taken this all across the country. We’ve done this in Virginia, we’ve done Freedom Night in America in Albuquerque. We now have an amazing community of local pastors that we meet with before these events, where we are growing the movement to talk about the church taking a stand for biblical values, taking a stand against tyranny.

  I have a couple of verses I want to share, but I’m going to just get right to the thing that’s on my heart. And I think we can all agree—and Luke, I hope I’m not talking out of turn—if they try to lock us down again, we are not going to comply with the government. We’re not going to do the masks, we’re not going to shut down the churches, we are not going to comply. Period.

  Okay, I got that off my chest. Am I good to say that, Luke? Say it again: Dream City Church will not comply. If they try to shut down this church—right. And if this is not your church home, then this probably should become your church home, because how many churches in the valley would say that boldly and clearly? I love the Barnetts. You guys are led so well here.

  So there’s this movement. I’ve been doing this for 11 years, speaking on college campuses. I’ve given over 2,000 speeches in the last 11 years—literally in every corner of the country. About five or six years ago, you started to see this movement that at first seemed on the fringe. It wasn’t anything necessarily new. 

  Many of you remember growing up, this idea of men cross-dressing—I used to call it transvestite. It was kind of on the fringes; it wasn’t really something we talked about a lot. But as Ernest Hemingway famously wrote, things happen gradually and then suddenly. It’s like we woke up in a different country.

  One of the themes that we talk about here a lot is that you are living through a cultural revolution—the same that Mao did in China—where they’re trying to actually re-found the country. They look at themselves as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Jay, and George Washington. They’re trying to re-found the country into something new, something weird, something not ordinary, something different. And it’s hard to always notice that when you’re living through it, right? Sometimes you don’t notice it because it’s so confusing. I’m sure some of you sometimes look at your TV and say: what country am I living in?

 Not— I mean, 600 years in federal prison for a former president—all of that. But the one issue I think that is so against our senses, so against the natural law, and dare I say, a throbbing middle finger to God, is the transgender thing happening in America right now. [Applause]

  Some of you—and I was guilty of this for years—I used to believe in this “live and let live” thing. I had strong beliefs of what God’s design was, but I said, hey, if it’s not bothering me, then I’m not going to talk much about it. And I’m sure some of you probably said something similar. But it was never about that. It was not about “live and let live.” It was: live and let us rule.

  What first went from, “Well, we have to tolerate, okay.” Then, “You must accept, okay.” Then, “You must celebrate” I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that. And then, “You must participate.” And if you can’t participate, your kids must participate.

  This used to be just kind of on the fringes. And those of us that do this for a living, we started to speak out more and more—especially three or four years ago. But I was told by the people in charge: “Oh, this is not—it’s just a little thing here, a little thing there.” And then, next thing you know, a story that shocked the world—those of us that pay attention—was all of a sudden when we saw a biological man win an NCAA championship in female athletics and swimming.

  The people that told us this was on the fringes, this was isolated—you see an institution destroyed in front of our very eyes. The very same people, by the way, that always are lecturing us about the “war on women,” #MeToo, were perfectly fine with a deranged, neurotic man becoming an NCAA champion.

  But it didn’t stop there. We started to see this in schools and curriculum, pronoun usage. And I do not exaggerate to say this is now the new state-run religion of the United States federal government. Where they have two LGBTQ “alphabet mafia” flags at the White House. Where they have trans people taking off their clothes—not an exaggeration—on the White House lawn. Where the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, comes out and says that biological men can give birth and lactate if they take the right drugs. In fact, the Biden regime says they’re “birthing people,” they are not women.

  In fact, if you ever want to just see somebody short-circuit, we have to thank the legendary Matt Walsh—who I will get here one night, I will get that done, we will. I will. And I’m not one to cheaply give out comments, but he’s done hero’s work. He’s really special. Where he just asked the simple question that just breaks the matrix of the trans lobby: “What is a woman?”

  Well, tonight we have a woman speaking to us. And it’s actually the first woman ever at Freedom Night in America. That’s not intentional—it just so happened this way. This young lady had a national championship robbed from her. She’s been lied about. She has been held hostage by left-wing activists at Turning Point USA campus events. And she’s now one of the most important cultural warriors and figures on the landscape right now, arguing for really simple stuff—stuff that people would have rolled their eyes at ten years ago and said, “Okay, why are you saying this, it’s normal.” Now, it’s considered radical.

  We are in a church, and so it’s important to remember Deuteronomy 22:5: A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. You hear that, William Thomas? You’re an abomination to God.

  So, God created in His own image—in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. Distinctions keep us free. Men and women are not the same, and that’s a beautiful thing. Tonight, we have one of the most powerful young women in America, fighting the transgender mafia.

  Join me in welcoming Riley Gaines, everybody.

Sites like this also don't seem very loving

https://www.professorwatchlist.org/

Or his comment about Biden should get the death penalty

https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-joe-b...

Peace and love to you, croes

I don't hate him, I just don't respect him and I find it sad that people fell for his words that spread hate and violence.

Would you call

>a Mao-like cultural movement intent on rule, and corrupting America, “the trans Mafia”.

friendly worsds?

And all the context can't sugarcoat this

>A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. You hear that, William Thomas? You’re an abomination to God.

So not only does he call all woman wearing a man’s garment an abomination, he also misses the point. From Lia Catherine Thomas' point of view she isn't a man wearing women's cloth but a women wearing women's cloth.

What brings us to the main point the right always doesn't get: What is a woman? If body and mind have the same gender it's easy but what if body and mind have a different gender? Seems to me the concept that the mind doesn't need to align with the body seems impossible to them.

> What first went from, “Well, we have to tolerate, okay.” Then, “You must accept, okay.” Then, “You must celebrate” I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that. And then, “You must participate.” And if you can’t participate, your kids must participate.

That part is also quite interesting. Reminds of the latest iutcry about Snoop Dogs comments about a same-sex couple in Lightyear. Somehow people have the urge to explain same-sex intercourse whenever a same-sex couple is shown. I don't know where that come from. Do they think they need to explain hetero intercourse when a hetero couple is shown? Maybe they should thinl more of the love you mentioned in the beginning and which is a large part of New Testament, the foundation of Christanity, which I can't see in Kirk's speeches.

But I can see that he called trans women in sport an idelogy of pure evil

https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1819017846850306299

And that is only based on rumors and Imane Khelif's looks. And somehow he and others ignore that she has lost 9 fights what should be impossible according to Kirk's and other's claims.

We also know what the result is of preparing such a culture war battleground

https://people.com/department-of-justice-quietly-deletes-stu...

At least we could before they removed it.

We also see that hate speech all of a sudden is a thing while free speech isn't anymore.

Kirk was the more eloquent addition to Trump, different words, same idiology.

Let it go, croes. There’s so much more

> I don't hate him, I just don't respect him and I find it sad that people fell for his words that spread hate and violence.

Nobody fell for anything. People who agreed with Kirk's takes on transgender people already agreed with those takes. Devout Christians like Kirk who say things like Kirk did genuinely believe that they are expressing kindness rather than hatred by doing so. Don't take my word for it; ask some for yourself.

The only words that "spread violence" are those which meet the SCOTUS test of "incitement to imminent lawless action". When a sitting President addresses a room of government officials, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur... logic may apply. When a political activist addresses a crowd at a rally, it clearly does not.

> We also know what the result is of preparing such a culture war battleground

You are the one seeking evidence to make your political outgroup look bad, and hinting at conspiracy to hide such evidence. That is culture warring. Others here are trying to talk you down from that.

> Devout Christians like Kirk who say things like Kirk did genuinely believe that they are expressing kindness rather than hatred by doing so.

They are allowed to believe that saying their souls will be eternally damned is a kindness just as the subjects are allowed to believe that it is unkind. It is disrespectful to continue to say given that context. Christianity's version of the Abrahamic God will look poorly on Kirk and his ilk and His Judgement will have them burn eternally in Hell for their espoused beliefs and the pain and suffering they help cause. They should repent and seek to learn the error of their ways.

Please stop replying to me. In previous exchanges you have repeatedly tried to tell me what I actually believe, contra my own explicit statements. I don't tolerate that. I also am not a believer, so I do not care what you think God thinks.

I do not deny in any way Kirk's opponents the right to perceive their interactions as they like, just as Kirk had the right to perceive them as he did. It's completely irrelevant to my point, and comes across as argumentative for the sake of being argumentative.

> In previous exchanges you have repeatedly tried to tell me what I actually believe

I have not. I have described your statements and I have done so accurately. If you think I am wrong, you are more than welcome to refute my descriptions.

> I do not deny in any way Kirk's opponents the right to perceive their interactions as they like

I did not claim that you denied this, I was explaining my perspective. It is disrespectful for one to justify their belief that these people will suffer eternally in the afterlife when the subjects say that it is an unkind thing to believe.

> It's completely irrelevant to my point

It is not irrelevant to your point. Your point is that Kirk and those who think like him genuinely believe that they are being kind. My point is that they should be able to see that they are not being kind. That is obviously relevant to your point.

> argumentative for the sake of being argumentative

I believe that it is worth my time to correct your statements, nothing more.

> Please stop replying to me.

It seems that you do not like what I say so you request that I censor myself. That will not happen. I will do my best to remain civil but if I see something I would like to reply to, then I will reply to it. You are free to ignore what I write in response to your comments.

> What brings us to the main point the right always doesn't get: What is a woman? If body and mind have the same gender it's easy but what if body and mind have a different gender? Seems to me the concept that the mind doesn't need to align with the body seems impossible to them.

It's not just the right who are skeptical of this idea. Like what does "body and mind have a different gender" even mean when you look at the detail of it?

> And that is only based on rumors and Imane Khelif's looks.

This is inaccurate. A lab report showing that Khelif has an XY karotype, and extracts from Khelif's medical file describing a male-only disorder of sex development (5-ARD), were leaked to journalists.

Kirk talked about this from a conservative perspective but it's more a women's rights and competitive fairness issue than anything else.

Thanks for the info, didn't know that.

But doesn't change the fact that Kirk's post, done August 2024, was done based on rumors and looks not evidence.

No problem. Regarding Kirk's tweet, at that point (early August) it was already well established that the IBA had disqualified Khelif (and another boxer, Lin) from their women's tournaments for ineligibility due to failing a sex test. They hadn't released specifics due to medical confidentiality but it wasn't a rumour and even though Khelif appears male it wasn't about looks.

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