...which only makes the whole carnival of bullshit all the more infuriating.
All of my life, making sense was always the wisest and most powerful rhetorical choice at my disposal. Now, suddenly, a major portion of the left no longer gives a fuck about facts and actively denies them, substituting rage-smokescreens and punitive measures for rational engagement like the good little secular religious zealots they are.
It is maddening. I think maybe I should take a break from the internet, but I find myself thinking way too often about how absurd the sex denialism bit is in particular. It makes creationism and QANON look reasonable. In the case of the former, we've only understood evolution and the age of the Earth recently; these things weren't always apparent to people. In the case of the latter (which is obviously an insane cult)... well, Jeffrey Epstein was real, and a lot of the wacky claims are at least somewhat unfalsifiable. It kind of makes sense how people get sucked in.
OTOH, the binary and immutable nature of sex has been self-evident to all human societies, hell it is self-evident to all mammals, since the beginning of time. It is so fundamental to our reality that it never needed to be argued. And suddenly huge swathes of people I know are so easily convinced that "well maybe it's complicated" "the binary is socially constructed" "what about all the human hermaphrodites??" etc. Just the flimsiest arguments (or arguments which don't at all say what these people think they say), having nothing whatsoever to do with the gender identity discussion anyway. So many people I know suddenly parroting takes that are so unmoored from reality... it's genuinely disconcerting.
"I think maybe I should take a break from the internet"
I completely understand this psychological shuck-and-jive.
For over 20 years, I regularly wrote for running and fitness mags and was a senior writer for one of them (a masthead title, not a real job, buy whatever). Running being a sport with intrinsic guardrails -- if the times and distances are right and you were ahead, you prevail, etc. Any bullshitters -- course-cutters, ass-grabbers caught on camera at large road events -- were quickly derided to the sidelines.
You have probably heard of Caster Semenya, who is for sports purposes a dude whose testicles happen to be a few inches away from where they're usually found. She won gold medals in the Olympic 800 in 2012 and 2016, but in 2019 the sport's international governing body finally found the nerve to exclude her and other X,Y-DSD "women" (who in 2016 also took silver and bronze in the same event).
Last fall I finally got fed up with Wokish people, many of them younger and newcomers to both running and writing but plenty of them folks I'd known and respected for years, getting on the predictable train. I started blogging about it, someone ratted me out (I wasn't hiding it) and now I am a persona non grata in the industry. This is not a sob story -- I never made more than a fraction of my income in the endurance niche, and the SJWs can have the megs and websites they're beshitting to the fullest extent possible.
What infuriates me most -- right now, anyway; this is like rage Whack-a-Mole -- is the disregard for even a pretense at journalistic integrity.
You don't have to know anything about running to see that the author interviews a whole army of trans women, but the entire opposing argument is given as "Many supporters of these bills say they want to protect opportunities for girls and women in sports, including things like access to scholarships at colleges and provide fairness to female competitors" -- without any input, none, from that camp. And so girls' and women's sports are being purposefully degraded; it's part of zapping all power structures, and any gendered milieu like athletics qualifies. Also, trans girls can in fact compete if they like -- on the right fucking teams.
This one continues to normalize the term "white supremacy" -- the Wokish decided running had a white supremacy problem based on Ahmaud Arbery being murdered by two white non-runner shitkickers in an appalling but completely non-white-runners-driven crime.
I tirelessly shred this crap week after week, and while I expect nothing to change despite knowing most Americans agree with what I say -- and I point out a lot of lies as blatant as the ones Jesse chronicles, which is morally unambiguous and shouldn't depend on opinions -- I feel a certain relief establishing a record of it all. At some point -- I am counting on this -- people will realize they've been had by fascist wolves in the sheep's wool of oppression, and the tactics will stop working.
In terms of fleeing the Web, I face a paradox in that I got off Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to preserve what's left of my equanimity, but I rely on crap ejaculated onto those electronic jizzpads for much of my work.
I am female and was a somewhat serious competitive swimmer when younger. Have also dabbled in distance running though it's been a few years. I can only speak for endurance sports, but it is like... incredibly obvious that women cannot compete with men in any division, whether elite or amateur (post-puberty). I'm sure contact sports have their own set of reasons why it's incredibly obvious that sports need to be sex-segregated.
I haven't read RW in a few years so didn't realize they'd gone full-on sex denialism. And linking running culture to Arbery's death... jfc these people are demented. I could go off on a whole other rant about this but that sort of reminds me about the trope about parks / the outdoors being a "white" thing. So that basically people who are miserable enough that they don't want to go outdoors even though they can can shame other people who do (yeah I'm reading a lot into it); meanwhile, every time I visit a park or state park or national park or swimming hole I see an incredibly diverse group of people. Almost as if all humans and human societies have the capacity to value athletics and nature? And if certain communities aren't able to access it we should help them do so, because they'd probably value it too? Anyway, I digress...
My fiance' tells me to just be patient, that sports will eventually peak the population. (Women raped in prison will never get press coverage). I assumed this was true too, to some extent, so it is actually a little disappointing to see so many people credulously nodding their heads as all the goal-posts and language are shifted radically from the dogma of even a few years ago. I have expressed my thoughts on this previously to male colleagues, and they sort of just act surprised that I "care." I can see the wheels turning in their head, realizing that telling women to "just be nice" is wrong, but also thinking I should really "just be nice." Still, I am glad the conversation is being shifted into the public sphere more.
"Why would you want to go into the backcountry, if in your mind itтАЩs associated with lynching?тАЭ
Why indeed? And think of all the fuckin' bears!
This is literal insanity being unspooled conversationally. I'll steal a phrase from Jesse -- it's like they are mass-gaslighting society into accepting every overtly corrupt tenet.
One of my friends who fled the academic library scene, a lifelong uber-liberal when it comes to the standard issues of healthcare, education and things that actually matter, likes to taunt these people by reporting that whatever Native tribe is assigned a supposed claim to the land actually swiped it from a different tribe, and if he has to he'll pursue it anthropoligically all the way back to cave people dining on carrion. Hey, grab laughs when you can.
lol. To be clear I see no issue with discussing the fact that global warming is likely to impact poor countries first/worst, or even to acknowledge that historical environmentalists were likely racist (I'm sure many of them were, to varying degrees). But the need to make everything connected to white supremacy these days, such that the imperative is on all of us to rectify the inherent white supremacy of the neighborhood jogging trail or whatever is ridiculous. And I am 100% sure it's counterproductive too.
You run circles around these clowns.
...which only makes the whole carnival of bullshit all the more infuriating.
All of my life, making sense was always the wisest and most powerful rhetorical choice at my disposal. Now, suddenly, a major portion of the left no longer gives a fuck about facts and actively denies them, substituting rage-smokescreens and punitive measures for rational engagement like the good little secular religious zealots they are.
It is maddening. I think maybe I should take a break from the internet, but I find myself thinking way too often about how absurd the sex denialism bit is in particular. It makes creationism and QANON look reasonable. In the case of the former, we've only understood evolution and the age of the Earth recently; these things weren't always apparent to people. In the case of the latter (which is obviously an insane cult)... well, Jeffrey Epstein was real, and a lot of the wacky claims are at least somewhat unfalsifiable. It kind of makes sense how people get sucked in.
OTOH, the binary and immutable nature of sex has been self-evident to all human societies, hell it is self-evident to all mammals, since the beginning of time. It is so fundamental to our reality that it never needed to be argued. And suddenly huge swathes of people I know are so easily convinced that "well maybe it's complicated" "the binary is socially constructed" "what about all the human hermaphrodites??" etc. Just the flimsiest arguments (or arguments which don't at all say what these people think they say), having nothing whatsoever to do with the gender identity discussion anyway. So many people I know suddenly parroting takes that are so unmoored from reality... it's genuinely disconcerting.
"I think maybe I should take a break from the internet"
I completely understand this psychological shuck-and-jive.
For over 20 years, I regularly wrote for running and fitness mags and was a senior writer for one of them (a masthead title, not a real job, buy whatever). Running being a sport with intrinsic guardrails -- if the times and distances are right and you were ahead, you prevail, etc. Any bullshitters -- course-cutters, ass-grabbers caught on camera at large road events -- were quickly derided to the sidelines.
You have probably heard of Caster Semenya, who is for sports purposes a dude whose testicles happen to be a few inches away from where they're usually found. She won gold medals in the Olympic 800 in 2012 and 2016, but in 2019 the sport's international governing body finally found the nerve to exclude her and other X,Y-DSD "women" (who in 2016 also took silver and bronze in the same event).
Last fall I finally got fed up with Wokish people, many of them younger and newcomers to both running and writing but plenty of them folks I'd known and respected for years, getting on the predictable train. I started blogging about it, someone ratted me out (I wasn't hiding it) and now I am a persona non grata in the industry. This is not a sob story -- I never made more than a fraction of my income in the endurance niche, and the SJWs can have the megs and websites they're beshitting to the fullest extent possible.
What infuriates me most -- right now, anyway; this is like rage Whack-a-Mole -- is the disregard for even a pretense at journalistic integrity.
Just last week, this one showed up.
https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a35852603/transgender-women-in-sports/
You don't have to know anything about running to see that the author interviews a whole army of trans women, but the entire opposing argument is given as "Many supporters of these bills say they want to protect opportunities for girls and women in sports, including things like access to scholarships at colleges and provide fairness to female competitors" -- without any input, none, from that camp. And so girls' and women's sports are being purposefully degraded; it's part of zapping all power structures, and any gendered milieu like athletics qualifies. Also, trans girls can in fact compete if they like -- on the right fucking teams.
This one continues to normalize the term "white supremacy" -- the Wokish decided running had a white supremacy problem based on Ahmaud Arbery being murdered by two white non-runner shitkickers in an appalling but completely non-white-runners-driven crime.
https://www.podiumrunner.com/culture/women-creating-a-more-equal-future-in-running/
I tirelessly shred this crap week after week, and while I expect nothing to change despite knowing most Americans agree with what I say -- and I point out a lot of lies as blatant as the ones Jesse chronicles, which is morally unambiguous and shouldn't depend on opinions -- I feel a certain relief establishing a record of it all. At some point -- I am counting on this -- people will realize they've been had by fascist wolves in the sheep's wool of oppression, and the tactics will stop working.
In terms of fleeing the Web, I face a paradox in that I got off Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to preserve what's left of my equanimity, but I rely on crap ejaculated onto those electronic jizzpads for much of my work.
Whew! That was a vent waiting to occur, for sure.
I am female and was a somewhat serious competitive swimmer when younger. Have also dabbled in distance running though it's been a few years. I can only speak for endurance sports, but it is like... incredibly obvious that women cannot compete with men in any division, whether elite or amateur (post-puberty). I'm sure contact sports have their own set of reasons why it's incredibly obvious that sports need to be sex-segregated.
I haven't read RW in a few years so didn't realize they'd gone full-on sex denialism. And linking running culture to Arbery's death... jfc these people are demented. I could go off on a whole other rant about this but that sort of reminds me about the trope about parks / the outdoors being a "white" thing. So that basically people who are miserable enough that they don't want to go outdoors even though they can can shame other people who do (yeah I'm reading a lot into it); meanwhile, every time I visit a park or state park or national park or swimming hole I see an incredibly diverse group of people. Almost as if all humans and human societies have the capacity to value athletics and nature? And if certain communities aren't able to access it we should help them do so, because they'd probably value it too? Anyway, I digress...
My fiance' tells me to just be patient, that sports will eventually peak the population. (Women raped in prison will never get press coverage). I assumed this was true too, to some extent, so it is actually a little disappointing to see so many people credulously nodding their heads as all the goal-posts and language are shifted radically from the dogma of even a few years ago. I have expressed my thoughts on this previously to male colleagues, and they sort of just act surprised that I "care." I can see the wheels turning in their head, realizing that telling women to "just be nice" is wrong, but also thinking I should really "just be nice." Still, I am glad the conversation is being shifted into the public sphere more.
"the trope about parks / the outdoors being a "white" thing
You rang?
https://www.outsideonline.com/2420566/environmental-justice-2021-biden-executive-order
"Why would you want to go into the backcountry, if in your mind itтАЩs associated with lynching?тАЭ
Why indeed? And think of all the fuckin' bears!
This is literal insanity being unspooled conversationally. I'll steal a phrase from Jesse -- it's like they are mass-gaslighting society into accepting every overtly corrupt tenet.
One of my friends who fled the academic library scene, a lifelong uber-liberal when it comes to the standard issues of healthcare, education and things that actually matter, likes to taunt these people by reporting that whatever Native tribe is assigned a supposed claim to the land actually swiped it from a different tribe, and if he has to he'll pursue it anthropoligically all the way back to cave people dining on carrion. Hey, grab laughs when you can.
lol. To be clear I see no issue with discussing the fact that global warming is likely to impact poor countries first/worst, or even to acknowledge that historical environmentalists were likely racist (I'm sure many of them were, to varying degrees). But the need to make everything connected to white supremacy these days, such that the imperative is on all of us to rectify the inherent white supremacy of the neighborhood jogging trail or whatever is ridiculous. And I am 100% sure it's counterproductive too.