I understand you are concerned but you could apply that logic to any thread and then there would not be any …
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You are, of course, at liberty not to comment any further then!
I generally think debate about difficult topics is a useful and healthy part of life.
Sounds like a good idea in the odd case! There are some threads that a basic level of knowledge is all that is needed, and we can all partake, there are some which, frankly, I haven’t got the slightest clue about, so I read with interest and learn as the conversation goes on but leave the discussion to those who know what they’re talking about. 
All I can say is: Precisely! You guys keep producing evidence that proves my point!
So here we have 2 more examples: the Rowling ‘row’ and the Moore spine-chilling ‘witch-hunt’.
What do these - even in the sensationalised accounts quoted - actually amount to?
Rowling:
A bookshop in Australia [really - one bookshop in an entire country?] announced it would not be stocking new Rowling books [just keep selling Harry Potter!], following in the footsteps of several bookshops around the world [well, actually 3 bookshops - and that was not about transphobia anyway!]… Newsweek reported a new TikTok trend [that nobody else seems to have noticed - must all have been looking on Facebook I guess].
Moore:
A strongly worded letter to the editor [was sent by staff protesting] a pattern of publishing transphobic content. [The letter does not mention Moore, and is mainly about discrimination in the workplace, which led to 3 trans people actually losing their jobs.]
In what way does any of this touch on cancel culture or hate speech? Come on guys - really! Four bookshops around the world stop selling some Rowling books; some newspaper staff write ‘a strongly worded letter to the editor’ about workplace discrimination. Are these really ‘spine-chilling witch-hunts’. Or are they in fact evidence supporting what I said at the start of this little diversion into cancel culture: typical ‘culture war’ tactics: take a couple of isolated incidents, distort them, blow them up into big issues, make up a label like ‘cancel culture’ and dominate the ‘news agenda’ with it.
This should be a good watch -
I’d also like to see how a discussion on gender dysphoria works out on here. 
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So would I to be fair, although the mention already that it’s a
is rather a concern already, but it would be good to hear people’s experiences, we’re a significant number of people on here so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some of us had first hand experience, either ourselves or through people we know, and can really add to peoples knowledge and understanding of a marginalised very small section of society who really need the support of the rest of us.
@Geof_Cox, “what of the main point … [you] made: the crucial distinction between free speech and hate speech ?”
As regards Rowling, you asked for examples of people overreacting and characterising views as hate speech; you got them; you didn’t think there had been anything more than “a discussion around” Rowland’s views; I provided you with a link to the Guardian referring to a row - and you’re still not having it!
You can lead an old Socialist warhorse to water but you can’t make him drink!
I hate the idea that you only have the right to discuss any subject if it directly affects you - ie white people can’t discuss racism because they never suffer from it, similarly unless you’re ‘trans’ you can’t possibly have anything relevant to say because ‘you don’t know what it’s like’.
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You have to click through the links in The Guardian article to see just how exaggerated the description of the affair as a ‘row’ is. ‘A mild disagreement among a few people’ would be a more accurate description.
Or maybe I’m just too battle-scarred a socialist warhorse to get upset by the likes of a couple of bookshops stopping to sell a book or two, or strongly worded letters to editors!
But wait - isn’t it the right-wingers that are supposed to be rough-tough-old-warhorses? and aren’t the snowflakes all supposed to all be on the left?
Could it really, in reality, be the other way round?
I think that’s what made me think of Dr Zelenko and why I posted that link…
I’m historically pro-Palestine and Gaza (just anti all war and violence and oppression really) and I started to see little clips of Dr Zelenko months back probably out of context and I thought I might not be interested but he’s now appeared on many round tables and talking with many doctors and scientists and recently I watched him talking to Jewish elders…he cares very much not just about the children of Israel but all children worldwide and all of humanity…
I hear opinions that somehow it’s “anti-semetic” to compare what happened in Nazi germany to outspoken critics now and then I’ve listened to an elderly Jewish lady on a covid 19 vaccination round table who lost most of her family in the Holocaust and ended up as a 6 year old in New York and I just think when did we stop listening to each other and start believing that governments and big pharma are only acting in our best interests…???
Yes when does free speech become hate speech and who exactly is making those decisions…???
I think the snowflakes - those who want to shut down debate rather than engage in it - are on both sides, and largely composed of people who lack the ability to engage in debate. Though there are some who are far more cynical than that.
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I don’t like being legally compelled to call someone what they are not. The chromosomes never lie.
Also, if gender is a societal construct, why do trans persons take hormones to change them physically?
You could, if you were identifying as an NKVD officer at the time, make an old socialist kneel in front of a trench and introduce him/her to Comarade Nagant.
Yes, we are agreeing on that point, the chromosomes never lie. So let’s start testing everyone in the world and I’m willing to bet plenty of big burly men will suddenly discover that they’re not quite who they thought they were 
Chromosomal abnormalities that would put people on the intersex spectrum are FAR more common than most people realise. The old number that’s been discussed to the end of the earth was the same percent as there are redheads in the world. While intersex and trans aren’t one and the same there is a significant overlap when it comes to the chromosomal aspects of the intersex umbrella. Perhaps if trans people were actually tested and it was discovered that right down to their chromosomes they were not a binary sex they might start to get a bit more respect and support from the world at large, although in reality I suspect bigots would just find some other reason to hate them for being ‘a man in a dress’ or such. The point is that we are still at the earliest stages of understanding what makes us who we are.
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Fascinating stuff Kirstea. You obviously know much more about the biology of this than I do, but what you say fits well with what I do know from the philosophy of science side - or for that matter the philosophy of art…
Placed, so, beyond the compass of change,
Perceived in a final atmosphere;
For a moment final, in the way
The thinking of art seems final when
The thinking of god is smoky dew.
We divide the world up into neat concepts - ‘men’, ‘women’ - but these are only concepts, not reality (not ‘things in themselves’). Reality is a whole lot more messy - everything shades into everything else - the closer you look, the fuzzier the image.
Kirstea, have you got any references for all of this? I know a lot of theorising has gone on about sexuality, but - unfortunately - a lot of it is informed by ideology rather than science, and most of it seems to be experimental.
For example, the claim that being intersex is just as common as being a redhead (one often advanced with laudable motives - until you realise it’s based on a flawed definition of “intersex”) is rebutted here: Intersex Is Not as Common as Red Hair - by Colin Wright (essentially, 88% of the 1.7% figure claimed as “intersex” is an condition called Nonclassical or Late-Onset Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, which you can find out about here: Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia: Types, Symptoms, and More).
Yes, that’s why I said
To indicate that that particular statistic has been the hot topic of debate over 30 odd years. I had assumed that was enough to suggest it wasn’t set in stone.
I’m sure I could find references yes since it isn’t information I have just come up with, but to be honest I have no idea as of today what they are as I haven’t noted down the papers and studies I’ve read over the years as it’s not my area of specialism and practicing law you end up collecting more than enough’things that might prove useful’ as it is 
. I am not a geneticist, nor despite appearances perhaps even very interested in this subject. I just do my best to learn and understand and support marginalised and attacked communities in our society and so do research, but since as I say this isn’t a particular focus of mine I can’t really produce half a dozen good references for you immediately I’m afraid. I just attempted in my comment to not claim certainties about anything since, as I keep saying, we are still at the earliest stages of our understanding in this area. I do know a couple of lawyers who may so I could shoot them an email actually and see whether they can point me to the best sources.
Colin Wright and his magazine Quillette though need to be treated with some circumspection - they are part of the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ - an informal network of journalists and youtubers, some of whom like Wright have science qualifications, but few of whom are actually scientists or academics. They are not taken seriously outside the US.
“ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
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