Decision to hold women-in-cyber events in abortion-banning states sparks outcry Global nonprofit Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS), despite months of controversy over the cities named to host its 2024 and 2025 conferences, says it will move forward as planned with the events in Nashville, Tennessee, and Dallas, Texas, respectively. As the name suggests, WiCyS (pronounced "We Sis") is quite focused on putting …
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The recent Turning Point USA conference for young women had many speakers telling those present that their role is to have babies and stay at home. Leave jobs to the men.
Even Empeor Elon the First is talking about a collapse of civilisation because women are not having enough babies.
That is the right in the USA. I'm sure that some of the loonies will be wanting to make it illegal for women to vote while they are of childbearing age very soon.
Then will come the red dresses and ...
and to think that we used to look up to the USA as a place where things progressed not regressed.
The problem here is allowing people in positions of power to believe "freedom of religion" means freedom of religion only if it is a Christian religion. And that the not so clearly written second amendment cannot possibly ever have any exceptions, while the very clearly written amendment that comes BEFORE it seems to have plenty of exceptions when it comes to allowing access to books dealing with something that makes them uncomfortable like race or homosexuality.
The two amendments aren't comparable. If the first started with the phrase "book clubs being necessary" then they might be. The mention of "militia" in the second should at the VERY LEAST support age limits for access to arms - i.e. you have to be old enough to be eligible to join a militia should your state initiate one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx23c84obwQ
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"
You don't need to be in a militia to own a gun. The requirement is that in order to have the well regulated militia when it is needed (to defeat the British) the people must be armed.
You seem to have lost the first half of that sentence you are quoting, which seems a shame, it isn't too long to quote in its entirety (we wouldn't anyone to accuse 2A discussions of cherry picking, would we /s)
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
> The requirement is that in ... the people must be armed.
You believe that the people are *required* to be armed? Where do think this is, Switzerland?[1]
> (to defeat the British)
Nope, they were looking beyond that fracas (as were the British by then, other things to do Old Bean).
[1] Yes, I know it is only the militiamen, 18-34 and fit to *be* militiamen...; curiously, that sounds closer to what the US 2A intended, but IANAL, not USAzian etc etc.
It actually means the government may not mandate a religion. It does not mean anyone can demand no exposure to religion. It was put into place to prevent the US government from establishing a Church of the USA. This was put in due to colonists being forced to be members of the Church of England whether they wanted to be or not, and that membership included mandatory tithing.
They self-selected to leave because Britain was too tolerant
If only we could get them to do the same and voluntarily leave America! There are plenty of intolerant countries in the middle east - they should move to Saudi Arabia and try to turn it from fundamentalist Islam to fundamentalist Christian. They can bring their ARs for the inevitable disagreements.
Some Quakers chose to leave the UK(*), I'm not aware of the UK authorities rounding up nonconformists and putting them on to ships bound for Amercia.
Many Quakers remained in the UK and caused the laws to be changed, ultimately leading to the greater religious tolerance we enjoy today.
(*) I'm not sure of my history, but back then there were fractions within the Quakers as some who left disagreed with the direction English Quakerism was taking and so voted with their feet.
True to some degree, but we see similar 'backwards' positions and legislations throughout the world including Europe, sometimes more, sometimes less problematic. Even in Germany (Federal Republic of), sexual acts between persons of the male sex were criminalized by law, enabling the persecution of homosexuals, until 1994 (sic, not 1949). Today, several European states are on a clear backwards movement regarding women's and LGBTQ+ rights (as well as other things). In some, like Italy, the ruling parties are fascist or proto-fascist. I don't even want to start looking at some former soviet-union states including but not limited to Russia. None of this bodes well for the future.
Then you'd be wrong: women's right to vote was passed in the U.K. in 1918 but only for women of means over 30; general voting rights would need to wait in the U.K. until 1928.
In the meantime, full women's voting rights was passed in the U.S. in 1920.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_United_Kingdom
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_United_States
So I'm sorry, but your statement is more generally arrogant than actual fact.
> many speakers telling those present that their role is to have babies and stay at home.
That is rather short-sighted. Why not telling women they should have babies and let their fathers stay home and care for them?
Also, there has been this new invention, the day-care center. This totally new and revolutionary invention takes care of babies while both the mother and the father go to work.
I do not assume that these speakers also give a solution for the fact that wages have not been holding up with inflation since the 1980s so a parent staying home is a recipe for starvation and homelessness.
The problem with letting women go out to work is they might get paid and have some sort of financial independence. The old solution was to ban women from owning property - only reasonable as they are property themselves. Any income generated by her work went to her father (who must be a man) until she is sold to her husband (who must be a man). Any woman without a male custodian clearly murdered them to claim an inheritance so should obviously be burned for witchcraft (only way a woman could kill a superior man is through a pact with the devil).
[I regret that the world has regressed far enough that Poe's law requires me to put in an explicit sarcasm tag.]
And this is something people forget about in the abortion debate. Companies offering to pay for abortions including travel if needed are doing so as it is FAR cheaper than paying for maternity leave or finding a new wage slave to replace you. Do not be fooled into thinking these companies are helping women.
> Why not telling women they should have babies and let their fathers stay home and care for them?
Wouldn't work - imagine Boris Johnson trying to mind all his babies! Too many!
I think there should be a tax on all men to compensate for escaping the torture of having babies.
In a country where abortion is not available, the tax should at least cover daycare and healthcare for babies and education for all minors.
I can't believe even 5 people would downvote you for this comment - the stuff about the Turning Point USA event for young women is 100% true.
Whole thing is nuts. Of course, just telling them to stay home isn't gonna work. It's like taking the internet away - some things are just /too/ good/essential/whatever. The only way to "go back" on this one is by force/legal (see: overturning of Roe vs Wade)
Not sure lumping LGBTQ laws in with abortion access is sensible. One affects ~50% of the population… the other is a tiny (valid and I have no beef) minority.
It’s just a different league of fuckery; conflating the two helps confuse people who haven’t thought about it that it’s a minority of women who are affected by Roe vs Wade.
Is the story that this woman’s conference isn’t standing up for every other minority? I don’t really expect them to… frankly, I don’t expect them to split their funding across every individual in society and advocate for them all…
50% ain’t a minority though
Cue downvotes, but there you go, that’s my comment
I have enough money to buy one child a train ticket out of Nazi-land but I shouldn’t do it because there are thousands of children who need to get out, to be fair I should give them all one penny/cent/whatever.
I was complaining about the article; there’s already enough to object on in this instance we don’t need to object to everything all at once, makes it hard to win an argument. So, actually in favour of paying attention to minority concerns but suggestion this approach is unhelpful. Continue assuming I’m an idiot though, by all means
I sort of see the point you're trying to make, but to me the victims of these laws aren't just those who are directly affected. I would never visit one of these states—I'm not LGBTQ+, but what about my friends or colleagues? The idea that someone I know (or even someone I don't) could be punished for this is horrific, and I wouldn't want to be somewhere where that might happen. Conversely you could argue that the abortion laws don't affect 50% of the population, but only the much smaller proportion that might actually seek an abortion, but again that's not the point—these laws take away every woman's rights, whether they're directly affected or not.
I agree, it's not the fact that only a few people are affected, it's the fact that once they get away with with telling one group of people what they're allowed to do, it's never enough and they'll come for something else. Contraception, onanism, anitbiotics, vaccines, books, food, shops closed on Sunday, clothing rules,.....? What's the next idea that they'll get from something they read in a book written hundreds of years ago by people who thought the world was flat? At some point it might impact me.
“these laws take away every woman's rights, whether they're directly affected or not.”
Yes, this is my point
This thread nicely indicates that by talking about other issues, we can’t discuss this one properly, and how it’s relevant to the conference. From the rest of your post it seems apparent that you didn’t actually see that this was my point. My failure to communicate, but this is emotive stuff so I understand. As I say, lots of valid things to object to, but I don’t think we should expect the cost/benefit analysis for boycotting a state to have been in any way affected by the LGBTQ laws if the abortion laws weren’t enough. So interesting question for me is why that wasn’t enough, rather than discussing how they also didn’t boycott because there are 500 smaller reasons
Until they are born they are part of the mother… Hence it is the mother’s and the mother’s alone decision when and how the foetus is removed fro her body, anything else is others (mainly men) wishing to exert control over women.
Uncomfortable? Yes, but wholly consistent with various religious texts the pro punishment brigade like to quote.
From my recent reading of UK abortion law a baby is only deemed separate to the mother once it has survived for more than 2 hours post birth.
And yet a genetic analysis of a fetus disagrees with that. From conception, the child is a separate, genetically unique person. Further, the 9 months prior to birth is part of the normal life cycle of a human being. None of us alive today skipped that part and even tesr tube babies were still the product of an egg fertilization even if the fun part was left out. Therefore, it's a separate person from conception on regardless of what any laws may state. Claiming otherwise is just an attempt to make murder palatable, and condemns an innocent person who commited no crime to death without trial or appeal. There are a few legitimate medical reasons to have a abortion, but most abortions are done for convenience.
And nope, it's not a man control woman control issue, it's speaking up for those who can't speak for themselves. Not to menton, there are just as many women on the anti-abortion side as there are men, and probably more pro-abortion men due to men not wanting to pay child support. If it was a man control woman issue, no woman would be anti-abortion.
Yes understand all that; cut the placenta and how long will the baby survive? Hence the legal determination, which is used to determine viability.
Also get all the stuff anti abortionists get overly excited about; yet they totally fail to see banning abortion totally fails to resolve the problem (unwanted pregnancy) and only serves to punish women… If the pro punishment brigade are so sure of themselves they should be lobbying government and funding child support etc. for these mothers…
"Yes understand all that; cut the placenta and how long will the baby survive? "
Doesn't matter. It's still part of the human life cycle, and it's still a genetically separate person. Face it, you're just trying to justify killing a child because it's not convenient. Dehumanizing a person to make killing that person palatable was used very successfully in the 1930s and 1940s, and apparently that thinking is alive and well today. Only back then they didn't call them "foetus", they called them "Jew."
So far as "punishing women" goes, I've never had sympathy for people with self-inflicted problems. She chose to push the start button on the baby maker, she shouldn't be surprised if it starts. In this day and age we all know what it takes to get pregnant and what it takes to prevent it. If I choose to cut wood on a table saw without a guard on, I shouldn't be surprised if one day I lose a finger. Don't read that as putting it all on the woman either, because women have legal recourse to go after the men that knocked them up.
If a woman is raped, let her file charges and have an abortion. Incest or underage, those are crimes, no problem with an abortion. Child isn't viable or the mother will die, bring on the abortion doc. Outside those instances, should not be legal. And, if she decides she never wants kids, let her get permanently fixed and don't let her sue the doc if she changes her mind later.
"If it was a man control woman issue, no woman would be anti-abortion."
Religion has a lot to do with that.
On a similar but slightly less emotive issue, not all women were in favour of womens suffrage. Why was that? Did they believe that women were not capable of voting sensibly? Or was it also paternal religion claiming that men were "better" than women and so those religious women believed what they were told rather than accepting their brains are not significantly different or less capable than those of men?
"these laws take away every woman's rights, whether they're directly affected or not."
Does that not mean running a conference in such a place is a good idea then? Or should everyone shun Tennessee and the like-minded States to the detriment of the women who have to live there?
Godwin never intended to stop people using halfway intelligent structural comparisons with Nazism to make something clear, without anyone calling anyone else a nazi. Not that I would fully follow the Nazism comparison in this case, but invoking Godwin's law here is an abuse of it.
I didn't downvote you.
Len Deighton's novel "Winter" is about a UMC professional German family between the wars. One theme is the way that these normal, caring, hard-working people just get sucked into the "normality" of life under the National Socialists without considering themselves, or being considered by their similarly-affected neighbours, as monsters. They didn't care much for politics, they didn't hate anyone, they just got on with their lives and...... no spoilers.
It's a great book, a sort of prequel to some of his other books, but can be read standalone.
So in the years since Godwin's observation, the people whining about people complaining about nazi comments have utterly failed to accomplish anything but providing more social cover for more literal Nazis, neo-nazi madlib hybrids, and pseudo-nazi facist clones. Not calling out people acting like them or advocating their positions led to the rise of a new generation of them, spreading all over the globe.
So flip around the problem and ask yourself the question: What has whining about Godwin accomplished? Nothing, because the basic premise is and always was flawed. Godwin spoke to this many times over the years since. Empty comparisons to Nazis don't accomplish much, but not calling them out, or making it some BS social taboo to bring them up.
What you are advocating is like complaining that someone is talking about being thirsty won't solve anything. A solution isn't for them to shut up, it's for someone to hand the thirsty bastard some water.
Godwin should have advocated for people that find themselves of the receiving end of a Nazi comparison to take a second to think about that before they crank up the flame setting on their keyboard. Instead we further normalized whinging and whining about it even when the comparison holds. Now we have squads of limp dick neo-nazi keyboard warriors with nothing better to do than sit in discussion posting things just like you did to provide a smoke screen for their operations. The Nazi accelerationists have a stupid plan that won't succeed in their end game goals, but enabling their activities will lead to more crimes and misery that the rest of the world will have to put up with before the DA's stop dragging their feet and push the inevitable criminal prosecutions that are coming.
But in the mean time, if people don't want to be unfavorably compared to Nazi's, they are free to not/stop acting like them. Otherwise feel free to call out why the comparison is unfair, as it seems some people have become genuinely confused about what a nazi was and is. You might help some poor Russian generals realize that no version of the Nazi flag had blue and gold bars on it.
LGBTQ+ issues are not subject of this debate because of some generic 'minority' thing. They're subject of the debate because they're closely related to women's issues. The hurdles in the game of life that LGBTQ+ people face are similar to the ones women face, and they stem from the same societal problems, its structural straight white cis male dominance (cf. https://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ and https://whatever.scalzi.com/2022/05/18/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-ten-years-on/) and the manifestation of masculinity.
Fact.....
Her experience was that she felt scared and threatened by a man's comments in the pub, left early and got a cab home.
His experience was that he had a great night out with a bit of banter with a girl who was well up for it but disappeared before he had chance to ask her out.
So the problem isn't mentally disturbed white males playing dress-up and invading women's spaces making women feel unsafe?
Or the complete erasure of women by those desperately trying to be 'inclusive'?
Defining a lesbian as a 'non-man' who is attracted to other 'non-men' really makes women feel included.
"So the problem isn't mentally disturbed white males playing dress-up and invading women's spaces making women feel unsafe?"- No, it is not. (Or can you present facts and numbers that would clearly show they are?) And what has it to to with the article?
"the complete erasure of women" - What?
"Defining a lesbian as a 'non-man' who is attracted to other 'non-men'" - What?
"really makes women feel included" - Because that's what your activism is set out to achieve?
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/johns-hopkins-pulls-lesbian-definition-uproar-use-non-men-instead-wome-rcna89307
"Screenshots of the glossary before it was taken down showed that the university defined the word "lesbian" as a "non-man attracted to non-men." It added that while past definitions have referred to lesbians as women who are sexually attracted to other women, the "updated definition" is intended to include nonbinary people who may identify with the label."
Yet they keep the word 'man' in the definition of gay.
This is the systematic erasure of women from society in the name of inclusion.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/washington-korean-spa-ordered-drop-185657107.html
Some of the women there may not want to see someone elses frank-n-beans. Some may even feel unsafe.
So there was one incident somewhere where that definition you've cited was used by someone, and it was pulled after a debate ensued. So effing what? (Still, there *are* valid reasons to use it, which are of factual nature, just as there are valid reasons against it, which are of linguistic nature.)
And yes, *one* other incident. How is that proof that it would be a widespread problem be more significant than the multitude of issues trans people face in this world?
Again, "really makes women feel included" - because that's what your activism is set out to achieve?
> Defining a lesbian as a 'non-man' who is attracted to other 'non-men'" - What?
This is the madness of the trans and gender neutral language garbage which J K Rowling was referring to in her comment “ ‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud? ” referring to this headline:
on ” Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate”
Obviously the nutters didn’t like being called out so.threw sh*t…
"So the problem isn't mentally disturbed white males playing dress-up and invading women's spaces making women feel unsafe?"
Tell me you know nothing of transgenderism without telling me...
No one is mentally disturbed. Multiple studies, the world over, show that the transgendered have physical brain structure more similar to the gender with which they identify than to their visible body structure would lead you to conclude. See the work of Murat Altinay, Antanio Guillamon, Sarah Burke or Julie Bakker etc.
Human sexuality and identity is not the simplistic binary that fools like to make out. There is a host of genetic, developmental, environmental and hormonal factors that combine to make us what we are.
So, in summary, you are spouting nonsense.
I have no doubt there are transgender people who are like that but there are also people who do not fall into that category. Autogynephilia, 'transtrenders', undiagnosed autism, tomboys, femme gay, social contagion, 'current thing' etc. Being trans has become the latest 'cure all' fad.
Autism doesn't mean someone is unable to make decisions about their life; on the contrary, those decisions are likely to be more thoroughly considered. I'm a bit tired of being told that, as an autistic person, I'm basically too stupid to make my own life choices. The main problem autistic people face isn't autism, it's other people.
As for the rest, AGP & social contagion don't exist outside the imaginations of some very disturbing people, tomboys aren't dying out, and while I dare say some "transtrenders" exist I doubt many people are willingly choosing to put themselves in the firing line given the amount of unpleasantness nowadays.
Right, so pretty clear what bucket of the flavor-aid you've been drinking from.
Pretty sure that complaining about tomboys attending a women in tech conference, or ANY tech conference is going land with a thud. Gotta ad another slap for floating the idea that undiagnosed autism is an explanation for why people are choosing to identify in any particular gender/sexual preference. Literally zero evidence of that, despite the noise from the conservative outrage machine.
Sell the idea that women can only "feel safe" or "advocate for themselves" somewhere else. There isn't a need for the impacted people, cis or otherwise, to fight each other when the issues at hand are common struggles in the world of tech.
You may want to re-read, I never said tomboys should be stopped from attending.
For decades we've been told that men and women are equal, women can do just as good of a job as men, stereotypes are bad, not all girls like pink, not all boys like blue etc. The whole 'gender neutral toy' thing, giving girls dolls and boys guns perpetuates negative gender stereotypes.
Now if a girl shows any hints of rejecting the old gender norms like not wanting long hair and princess dresses they are trans. A boy plays with barbies, they are trans.
https://www.babygaga.com/15-signs-your-child-might-be-transgender/
Going by the babygaga list a good portion of German men are closet trans as they pee sitting down.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/20/the-splashback-scandal-should-all-men-sit-down-to-urinate
As for autism, why is there such a correlation between trans and autism? Especially among girls?
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/largest-study-to-date-confirms-overlap-between-autism-and-gender-diversity/
> As for autism, why is there such a correlation between trans and autism?
Dunno. And neither do the authors quoted in your citation (as is clearly indicated at the end, quite correctly).
But that doesn't mean that you get to fill that void with your pet theory (unless you've also done all work to show why you are correct, which you would back up by including the relevant citations, of course).
> Going by the babygaga list a good portion of German men are closet trans as they pee sitting down.
I wasn't entirely convinced by that article, but as they don't actually mention standing to pee (despite the section headline suggesting that is what they'll talk about) AND even they say not to judge on the basis of a only a single indicator, we can dismiss your radical take on this as one as well.
Cav - psychopaths have distinctive brain characteristics. So do taxi-drivers (at least in places where they have to have the Knowledge). Detecting differences in brain structures tells you nothing about whether the difference should be called a mental disturbance - that's a social judgement.
The best thing the largely male led QWERTY lobby can do is to get behind women (ie. Those born female/with womb etc.). Make life better for 50+ percent of the population and everyone else benefits. The trouble is, the QWERTY brigade think they are more important than women.
Aside: why largely male led? Because in the 70~80s it was all about Gays (ie. Men), now it’s all about Trans women(ie. Men).
"LGBTQ+ issues ....straight white cis male dominance "
So, does the "+" mean non-white? Or are we adding in yet more issues over and above what is discussed in the article?
I must admit to getting confused over just what this is all about. I thought it was about womens rights but it seems to have morphed into a weird mish-mash of anyone not "straight white cis male" is being persecuted by everyone who is "straight white cis male". I wonder how this plays out in places where "straight white cis male" are one of the minorities?
"seems to have morphed into a weird mish-mash of anyone not 'straight white cis male' is being persecuted by everyone who is 'straight white cis male'" – it's no one elses fault if, by your own decision, things 'seem' different to you than they are. For a start, you should try to understand the difference between being 'persecuted' and being less privileged. The difference is especially significant because it relates to both the receiving end and the distributing end.
One affects ~50% of the population
More than 50% I would have thought. I've never understood why access to abortion is considered a "womens problem" , surely in this day and age where both mother and father are responsible for bringing a child into the world and supporting it for 20 years , its a problem for everyone .
Yes - I recognise that the actual pregnancy and birth is a huge additional burden on the female , and maybe she should get casting vote because of that , but that aside its an issue for both potential parents. In theory - I acknowledge that in practive the father will just up and F**k off more often than the mother.
TLDR:
It takes two to tango.
It's a women's problem because our (male-dominated) culture has decided it was so. If men were being threatened with jail or execution for fathering unwanted pregnancies, it would quickly be "everyone's problem" and laws banning birth control and abortion wouldn't exist.
This is, as the other poster pointed out, already everyone's problem. That said you are correct that the impact is still disproportionate, and that their are radically different standards being applied. But these laws already are having a profound impact on plenty of men's lives too.
Plenty of men have skin in the game on these issues beyond the toxic sterotype of deadbeat fathers and abusers. Plenty of men worked in the clinics that have been shut down, risking their lives to provide services. Kindly don't erase them from the discussion. The part of the population that genuinely supports these measures isn't that large any more, but sadly is massively over-represented in the halls of power.
Don't frag your allies, vote with them to frag your enemies instead.
The issue that there are far, far more LGBTQ people than people think.
Having dated a Bisexual girl in my youth, it's a real eye-opener. There are so , so many "closet" non-conformers, it is in credible
Take a look around your busy office and I can almost guarantee there are people that are not the who you think they are once behind closed doors
That won't be safe for much longer. With all those gadgets phoning home all the time, it would be easy to develop an almost complete picture of what goes on behind your closed doors.
That is the state of surveillance that the likes of Google and Meta have deployed over the last 5-10 years. It will only get worse.
Note: Our bedroom is a tech free zone. The only alarm clock is 100% mechanical.
Social labels and roles are built for purpose.
Outside that purposeful compromise to perspective they are nothing.
Behavior can be either habitual or strategical. It does not have much to do with personal identity.
I think there is quite a deal of unconscious conflation blurring the common perspective.
Join no groups.
Visit all you please.
That's how you get along without being absorbed and thus retain identity.
People can choose not to conform to BOTH communities, and just go to work and do their job. With so much Bi-erasure and exclusion on both sides of the fence, there are plenty of people that aren't hiding who they are and also aren't tacking a pride flag to the wall because they aren't interested in the social circle and branded identity forced on them in the L and G dominated parts of queer community.
Why are they still fighting for the social space to be accepted as people who may date whatever they please without dressing or advertising a certain way. Why after all this time is the constant discussion about if they are queer enough? To fem?, to straight-laced and cis presenting?
The closet was a terrible thing, a place and time that broke people and ruined lives, that killed people. Pushing people that don't sufficiently take one side or another and advertise that choice to the world erases much of the work that people fought, bled and died for over the course of my life. People also need the space to figure this stuff out, and their choices aren't set in stone. So unless they are dating you, the fact that they aren't advertising it to you dosen't mean they are in the closet. Literally every other person that is important to them may know about them, that's not closeted. That is basic privacy and human dignity, and it's an essential human right.
You probably know this already, but there's terrific evidence to support your intuition on the matter.
Peer-reviewed studies have demonstrated that including less-compelling individual arguments--however compelling they may still be--dilutes the persuasive effect as a whole. Listeners cognitively average the individual arguments, rather than summing them.
One great example of this comes in the (US-only) pharmaceutical advertisements that must include lists of side effects. When "toe fungus" is included along with "heart attack and stroke," the tendency is to dismiss the side effects, because of the "averaging effect."
NPR had a great broadcast on this recently in its Hiddenbrain series. Well worth hearing.
Your argument is fine except that you assume anti-queer laws apply only to a "tiny minority". It's a minority, but queer people of all stripes comprise something around 10% of the population. That implies that about 5% of the population intersects with both issues being raised, and 10% of the intended, non-attending audience.
I bet the conference will mention the brand ‘Six Sigma™’ somewhere, but this isn't even 1 sigma.
They should just call it the TERFs in Tech Conference, or ... oh wait that's an unfortunate abbreviation
comprise something around 10% of the population.
After a couple of decades of gay marriage where I live, the figure has been remarkably stable at ~1.5% of mixed marriages.
There is no reason to think that gay people would be significantly more or less likely to marry. On the other hand if you are advocating for changes that benefit a small group, you have strong incentives to overstate how many there are.
Mentioning Tennessee criminalizing abortions is a relevant argument as to why WiCyS in Tennessee may not be the greatest idea.
However commenting on banning drag shows & preventing puberty blockers, irreversible gender reassignment surgery in children is not anti women in the slightest*.
* One of my degrees & some of my research work was in biological sciences (with a strong emphasis on human biology) so when I say woman I mean biological woman (yes I'm aware of rare chromosomal
/ hormonal conditions that can introduce a bit of ambiguity, however very few self identified trans people are actually suffering from those conditions ).
Most of my female friends are "lefties" (I'm in the UK & a socialist so unsurprising, in USA those women would probably be called pinko commies or similar), however the majority of them are strongly opposed to "trans women" (i.e. males identifying as females) using female spaces - especially where nudity involved (e.g. sports changing rooms). Ironic that so many of these socialist / Marxist women get called Nazis, generally by men (generally also abused as "TERF", when they are just feminists fighting to retain hard won women's rights).
What is with trans speakers at the event? (I know a few of the people who would be attending, who would fall into that category) Would they be arrested, because their talk in front of the audience could be considered a drag show?
How safe will they be on the streets going to the conference venue and back to their hotels?
What about attendees who have had an abortion? Will they be safe, if somebody doxes them, while they are attending the conference?
Depends if they had the abortion at the show or not.
And will there be minors in attendance for the drag show? And why have a drag show at a cyber security conference? All the women I know in tech would find it highly patronising.
We've been told all along by the TQ+ that they are not transitioning minors so what is the uproar all about? Protecting children from permanent life altering changes is a good thing. Kids can't drink, smoke, get a tattoo and a whole other laundry list of things because they are too young and cannot properly consent. Yet we are led to believe that they KNOW (usually after being convinced by a 3rd party) that bodily mutilation and a lifetime of dependence on medical intervention will solve whatever problem they are having?
We don't treat anorexia with 'weight affirming care', telling the patient that yes they are a big fatty and to keep starving themselves. We understand that there is an underlying psychological issue causing it and we treat that.
And will there be minors in attendance for the drag show? And why have a drag show at a cyber security conference?
Learn to read and actually comprehend.
Big_D wasn't saying there would be a drag show, but asking would having a trans speaker somehow make Tennesses authorities and/or locals consider the event to be a drag show.
You ignorance is astounding, but not unexpected.
The transgendered brain is real, as indicated by many studies. Transgendered women are women, just in female bodies.
Everything from genetics, epigenetics, environment, birth order to uterine hormonal environment etc affects human sexual development, both in the morphology of the body and the structure of the brain.
See the work of Murat Altinay, or Antanio Guillamon, or Sarah Burke or Julie Bakker and many others.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/24/meet-the-neuroscientist-shattering-the-myth-of-the-gendered-brain-gina-rippon
The guardian says so therefore it must be true.
A quick review of some of these names you listed makes me think they are nothing more than modern day phrenologists.
The brain is a very important organ of the body.
It is not separate from body.
So what you say doesn't seem to make sense when considering that.
There is much about the brain that is misunderstood.
But let's not confuse neurological differences with the masks of strategy people use to defend from the social world and to scrape from it.
What we do to survive and scrape the world for resources was never an identity in the first place it's a strategy born of desperation to survive an overly competitive world.
Just a strategy.
Some strategies are conscious some are unconscious, but identity has nothing to do with others and everything to do with your relationship with yourself.
Protecting children from permanent life altering changes is a good thing. Kids can't drink, smoke, get a tattoo and a whole other laundry list of things because they are too young and cannot properly consent. Yet we are led to believe that they KNOW (usually after being convinced by a 3rd party) that bodily mutilation and a lifetime of dependence on medical intervention will solve whatever problem they are having?
Isn't the (a?) purpose of the use of puberty blockers to remove the need for permanent surgical interventions until such time as it becomes apparent that it *is* necessary (by extension providing all the time needed to examine all the other sides to the issues)?
On that basis, you are in favour of puberty blockers and that is why you ignored them and leapt straight for surgery - or bodily mutilation as you put it?
Puberty blockers are a form of mutilation as they don't delay puberty, they stop it. There are rare medical conditions that need such intervention but in those cases ignoring it is more dangerous. 'Pausing' a normal puberty won't then allow you to have a normal but late puberty.
Remember we used to use such drugs to chemically castrate those convicted of certain crimes.
"some of my research work was in biological sciences" Obviously not recently or in any depth.
The transgendered are not simply "self identifying". The transgendered brain is real, as indicated by many studies. Transgendered women are women, just in female bodies.
The " bit of ambiguity" is nonsense. Everything from genetics, epigenetics, environment, birth order to uterine hormonal environment etc affects human sexual development, both in the morphology of the body and the structure of the brain.
See the work of Murat Altinay, or Antanio Guillamon, or Sarah Burke or Julie Bakker and many others.
None of the laws mentioned affect LGB people, and none of them are "anti-TQ+". Preventing - not delaying - puberty means that the child will never be a physical or psychological adult. Wrong-sex hormones have terrible side-effects only a few years after starting a young person on them. Children as young as 13 are having double mastectomies (https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/breaking-second-lawsuit-filed-in). Minors do not have the ability to consent to these life-changing, permanent physical interventions, commenced in many cases without proper psychological exploration of co-morbidities such as autism, ADHD, depression. Many of them have been the victims of sexual abuse. These laws are not "anti" anything - they are pro-child welfare.
@Headley_grange
I hope you've misunderstood my comment. See the post above mine (by Intractable Potsherd) for clarification. If that hasn't cleared anything up, then allow me to paraphrase. Giving children drugs that'll screw up their hormones forever or chopping their bits off without being _really_ sure that that is what is needed (spoiler: it probably isn't) is child abuse.
I also hope you realise that this problem is world-wide and not just in these weird places in the USA.
Well, at least according to the US Southern Baptists who have expelled a number of churches because their Pastor is a woman.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65915272
And so it goes on. The slide towards Total Puritainism continues. I predict that before the end of the decade laws will be signed making Women forced to stay at home, only be allowed out when with a male relative etc etc.
And no, this is not Afghanistan, this is USA in the twenty-twenties.
A Red cloaked dystopian state is coming for you. If you can get out... get out now because the AR-15 toting brownshirts can't be far behind.
I look forward to a report on how the conference(s) go. Do the organizers have plans in place if they lose their (financial) shirts?
FYI...the cost of function space in hotels depends, in large part, on how many room-nights get booked and picked up. If you can't get people to show up and pay for hotel rooms, the areas in which you hold the convention get to be *very* expensive.
It's a beautiful world we live in
A sweet romantic place
Beautiful people everywhere
The way they show they care
Makes me want to say
It's a beautiful world
It's a beautiful world
It's a beautiful world
For you
For you
For you
It's not for me
It's a beautiful world, For you
It's a beautiful world, For you
It's a beautiful world, For you
It's a beautiful world, But not for me
RIP Danny La Rue, Dame Edna Everage, Dr. Evadne Hinge and Dame Hilda Bracket.
Sad that you are no longer here but at least you can not see as misguided parts of the world turn against you and your kind[1]
Perhaps PBS could show a retrospective of their work.
[1] that is, good Saturday evening entertainment and people who knew how to do their make up well. They were all good enough for the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium[2] but not good enough for Tennessee! Pah!
[2] As if the RVP isn't public enough, the Palladium is only 273 metres from Saint Georges, Hanover Square (that is less than 900 feet)! Shocking, how could they have allowed it, etc etc.
I don't remember any of them putting on explicitly sexualised shows, twerking at kids, flashing their moobs and/or crotch or pretending to perform sexual acts on members of the audience. Plenty of inuendo and double-entendres though.
I'm pretty sure Barry Humphries was straight and didn't he incur the wrath of the alphabet people not too long ago?
"I don't remember any of them putting on explicitly sexualised shows, twerking at kids, flashing their moobs and/or crotch or pretending to perform sexual acts on members of the audience"
So ban those acts: you don't have to be in drag to do any of them
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