Just one example: are you familiar with the concept of people starting a conversation by specifying the pronoun they want used to refer to them?
I’m not. In the sense that I’ve literally never ever met one of these people. I read about them on the Internet every time I open rationalist-related media, but they may as well be made of dark matter. I never meet them in everyday life!
(Also, people keep critically misunderstanding Scott’s point. Scott isn’t saying the conservatives don’t live around him. The whole point is that they do live around him and he does pass them on the street and he does go to the same grocery stores and gas stations. He doesn’t knowingly interact with them because of his social bubble, but they are there, just like trans folk are definitely around Bezzi a lot (though I totes grant Bezzi’s point that there aren’t many visibly transitioning ones). That’s what the phrase “dark matter” is being used to indicate, both in Scott’s post and in mine.)
Of course that trans people will go to the same grocery store and gas station as me! But for some reason I have zero of them in my social circle, like Scott has zero creationists (and the base rate for creationists is way higher than the base rate for trans people). Are we implying that no, at least some of Scott’s friends must be closeted creationist?
This thread continues to fail to distinguish between “visibly trans” and “non-visibly trans” people, which is depressing since it’s, y’know, the point.
Bezzi: you’re trying to say that you don’t know and have never met any trans people, and you keep doubling down on “I know this because I haven’t encountered any of the visible markers of trans people,” and I, uh. Encourage you to put 17 and 23 together?
Most trans folk are still not transitioning.
Another way of saying this: slow down and ask yourself “what do I think I know, and why do I think I know it?” and recognize that the evidence you have is systematically skewed, and you need to start with some other prior.
(If nothing else, this thread is useful as a real-time, object-level example of the subject matter under discussion.)
Are the base rates for actual transition so low that you can have thousands of people in your extended social circle and still never hear of one?
I mean, being told by anyone “Hey, do you know that guy? Is a woman now.” would be enough. But it never happens! And this is the kind of rare gossip that I would expect most of my acquaintances to share, especially the least trans-friendly ones (like my grandma, who’s a devout Catholic and knows half the town by name).
Only online, in the sense of having it in your profile if you want it specified. Literally none of my trans friends do it IRL. Most of them wouldn’t be comfortable with it.
Edit: They may have done it once specifically to come out as having a different pronoun than people already in their lives were used to using for them, but not like, encountering someone new.
Edit 2: To delve a bit further, this is an extremely context dependent conversational norm. Like, it’s not based on the person you’re talking to, it’s based on the group you’re in, and if one person is doing it, generally a lot of people are. If you don’t have an LGBT organization in the area to visit a meetup of, and you aren’t in an online space with no obvious gender markers that requires the specification if you want it specified at all, I don’t expect it to come up (unless you are meeting someone with a non-obvious pronoun who really wants you, specifically, to use it, rather than just correcting if you got the wrong impression—this I would count as ‘unable to hide’ if they do so with most people and are trans).
Just one example: are you familiar with the concept of people starting a conversation by specifying the pronoun they want used to refer to them?
I’m not. In the sense that I’ve literally never ever met one of these people. I read about them on the Internet every time I open rationalist-related media, but they may as well be made of dark matter. I never meet them in everyday life!
(Also, people keep critically misunderstanding Scott’s point. Scott isn’t saying the conservatives don’t live around him. The whole point is that they do live around him and he does pass them on the street and he does go to the same grocery stores and gas stations. He doesn’t knowingly interact with them because of his social bubble, but they are there, just like trans folk are definitely around Bezzi a lot (though I totes grant Bezzi’s point that there aren’t many visibly transitioning ones). That’s what the phrase “dark matter” is being used to indicate, both in Scott’s post and in mine.)
Of course that trans people will go to the same grocery store and gas station as me! But for some reason I have zero of them in my social circle, like Scott has zero creationists (and the base rate for creationists is way higher than the base rate for trans people). Are we implying that no, at least some of Scott’s friends must be closeted creationist?
This thread continues to fail to distinguish between “visibly trans” and “non-visibly trans” people, which is depressing since it’s, y’know, the point.
Bezzi: you’re trying to say that you don’t know and have never met any trans people, and you keep doubling down on “I know this because I haven’t encountered any of the visible markers of trans people,” and I, uh. Encourage you to put 17 and 23 together?
Most trans folk are still not transitioning.
Another way of saying this: slow down and ask yourself “what do I think I know, and why do I think I know it?” and recognize that the evidence you have is systematically skewed, and you need to start with some other prior.
(If nothing else, this thread is useful as a real-time, object-level example of the subject matter under discussion.)
But man, it only takes one.
Are the base rates for actual transition so low that you can have thousands of people in your extended social circle and still never hear of one?
I mean, being told by anyone “Hey, do you know that guy? Is a woman now.” would be enough. But it never happens! And this is the kind of rare gossip that I would expect most of my acquaintances to share, especially the least trans-friendly ones (like my grandma, who’s a devout Catholic and knows half the town by name).
Yes.
Only online, in the sense of having it in your profile if you want it specified. Literally none of my trans friends do it IRL. Most of them wouldn’t be comfortable with it.
Edit: They may have done it once specifically to come out as having a different pronoun than people already in their lives were used to using for them, but not like, encountering someone new.
Edit 2: To delve a bit further, this is an extremely context dependent conversational norm. Like, it’s not based on the person you’re talking to, it’s based on the group you’re in, and if one person is doing it, generally a lot of people are. If you don’t have an LGBT organization in the area to visit a meetup of, and you aren’t in an online space with no obvious gender markers that requires the specification if you want it specified at all, I don’t expect it to come up (unless you are meeting someone with a non-obvious pronoun who really wants you, specifically, to use it, rather than just correcting if you got the wrong impression—this I would count as ‘unable to hide’ if they do so with most people and are trans).