Millions do. Women regularly get tattoos, massive piercings and cosmetic surgery, for example.
Ms Rowling: insightful critic of gender policy or myopic [insult]
- Thread starter TheVat
- Start date
Слава Богу, что у нас в России этого никогда не было. Россияне вообще не склонны к извращениям, если вы не заметили.
Eunuch - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Миллионы людей страдают психическими отклонениями, и демонстрируют это.
Like all those women who get gender-affirming surgery? (boob jobs, rhinoplasty, collagen injections.) Who modify their bodies with piercings and tattoos? Looks like a great many people have mental disorders according to you. Must be hard to be the only sane woman out there.
У нас была такая актриса Фаина Раневская, женщина большой мудрости и с хорошим чувством юмора. Она об этом сказала так: "что толку штукатурить фасад, если канализация останется старая".
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
The 18th-century Russian Skoptzy (скопцы) sect was an example of a castration cult, where its members regarded castration as a way of renouncing the sins of the flesh.
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
The Skoptsy referred to themselves as the "White Doves" (write a song about THAT, Stevie Nicks!). Their aim was to perfect the individual by eradicating original sin, which they believed had come into the world by the first coitus between Adam and Eve. They believed that human genitals were the true mark of Cain, and that the true message of Jesus Christ included the practice of castration, that Jesus himself had been a castrate, and that his example had been followed by the apostles and the early Christian saints.
They believed that human genitals were a mark of original sin, and that after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had the halves of the forbidden fruit grafted onto their bodies, forming testicles and breasts. Thus, the removal of these sexual organs restored the Skoptsy to the pristine state before the original sin...
There were two kinds of castration: the "lesser seal" and the "greater seal". For men, the "lesser seal" meant the removal of the testicles only, while the "greater seal" involved either removal of the penis or emasculation (removal of both penis and testicles). Men who underwent the "greater seal" used a cow-horn when urinating. The castrations and emasculations were originally performed with a red-hot iron, called the 'fiery baptism'. However, the skoptsy later transitioned to using knives or razors, with the iron serving only to stop the blood flow. They also twisted the scrotum, destroying the seminal vesicles and stopping the flow of semen.
In women, the Skoptsy removed the nipples or the whole breasts. Occasionally, they simply scarred the breasts. They also often removed the labia minora and clitoris. They did not use anesthetics.
Very interesting.Has no-one made all that into a film?
I see there were supposed to still be some 100,000 adherents in the 20th century.
Did you come across that information from reading about it in books like Dostoevsky ?
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
Yes, they are mentioned in The Bros. Karamazov. I clipped some bits from the Wikipedia article, Skoptsy, since I was fairly sure Olga had not bothered to read the earlier link I posted on eunuchs which also mentioned them. (based on her "we never had this in Russia" comment)
Так это же сектанты, они везде были, но в России таких было немного. Несколько десятков человек на всю страну. Максимум был в средние века, их было по разным оценкам до 7 тыс. человек. И то, их запрещали и жёстко наказывали.
В 20 веке их было несколько десятков на всю огромную страну. И то, они были под запретом.
billvon:
Are you concerned that JKR is denying men the right to menstruate? (I'm serious, here. This isn't intended as mockery.)
JKR believes that certain "transgender activists" are trying to erase the idea of biological sex. You and I already discussed this to some extent earlier in this thread, if I recall correctly. If the activists succeed in their project, then the term "woman" will presumably henceforth be used to mean "a person who identifies as a woman". The activists will need a new term to refer to the particular subset of people who identify as women and who also happen to menstruate. Right now, the best they've come up with, apparently, is "people who menstruate", which is insufficient, of course, because it includes all the men who menstruate.
No, strike that. I was forgetting. The activists won't ever need to distinguish the subset of people who identify as women and who also menstruate, because once they get their way there will literally be no distinction between a woman who menstruates and one who does not. Therefore, no basis for distinction any more. Sex has truly been erased.
It seems to Rowling - and, I must say, to me - that this seems rather like a case of trying to co-opt an established term to suit a tiny minority of people, while simultaneously disadvantaging the majority.
The thing is, as Rowling points out, the "people who menstruate" managed to gain ownership of the term "woman" quite a while ago, now.
What do you think, billvon? Should the trans activists get their way? What word do you suggest should be used for "people who menstruate", once the activists have had their way and "woman" is no longer an accurate descriptor of that particular group?
While they're at it, I suppose that we'll have to start referring to "people with penises", too, because "men" will presumably also be unavailable to refer to that group in society (the majority, remember), for similar reasons.
As I understand it, a person can change their gender (a social construct), but not their biology. Not in this particular respect, at the current time. Am I wrong? (Didn't you and I discuss this previously, too?)
If a person who menstruates loves another person who menstruates, in a sexual way, how shall we describe that? The words "homosexual" and "heterosexual" will not be available once the terms "woman" and "man" have been altered according to the trans activists wishes. Or, at least, those words won't tell us anything biologically meaningful any more.
How should we label the situation in which a woman with a penis loves a man who menstruates?
Isn't it the trans activists who are making that claim? As JKR says, they are the ones who apparently want to erase sex and retain only gender.
Is it a civil right for every person to be entitled to play in either the women's or men's league of any sport they choose?
Is it a civil right of a trans woman to be put in a women's prison when they commit a violent crime (e.g. the rape of a person who menstruates)?
Are these the kinds of civil rights you're referring to?
Do you think that if you pretend that women and trans women are identical, that will solve all the particular issues that trans women face because they are trans women? Isn't it really just an attempt to sweep things under the rug so you don't have to pay special attention any more? And if, as a result of this pretence, you end up making life harder for non-trans women, then you won't have to pay special attention to them, either, I suppose.
Her point there, I believe, was that people whose biological sex is female are typically the ones who menstruate. Traditionally, such people have been referred to as "women".
Are you concerned that JKR is denying men the right to menstruate? (I'm serious, here. This isn't intended as mockery.)
JKR believes that certain "transgender activists" are trying to erase the idea of biological sex. You and I already discussed this to some extent earlier in this thread, if I recall correctly. If the activists succeed in their project, then the term "woman" will presumably henceforth be used to mean "a person who identifies as a woman". The activists will need a new term to refer to the particular subset of people who identify as women and who also happen to menstruate. Right now, the best they've come up with, apparently, is "people who menstruate", which is insufficient, of course, because it includes all the men who menstruate.
No, strike that. I was forgetting. The activists won't ever need to distinguish the subset of people who identify as women and who also menstruate, because once they get their way there will literally be no distinction between a woman who menstruates and one who does not. Therefore, no basis for distinction any more. Sex has truly been erased.
It seems to Rowling - and, I must say, to me - that this seems rather like a case of trying to co-opt an established term to suit a tiny minority of people, while simultaneously disadvantaging the majority.
The thing is, as Rowling points out, the "people who menstruate" managed to gain ownership of the term "woman" quite a while ago, now.
What do you think, billvon? Should the trans activists get their way? What word do you suggest should be used for "people who menstruate", once the activists have had their way and "woman" is no longer an accurate descriptor of that particular group?
While they're at it, I suppose that we'll have to start referring to "people with penises", too, because "men" will presumably also be unavailable to refer to that group in society (the majority, remember), for similar reasons.
Is sex alterable, billvon? Can a person change their sex?
As I understand it, a person can change their gender (a social construct), but not their biology. Not in this particular respect, at the current time. Am I wrong? (Didn't you and I discuss this previously, too?)
If a person who menstruates loves another person who menstruates, in a sexual way, how shall we describe that? The words "homosexual" and "heterosexual" will not be available once the terms "woman" and "man" have been altered according to the trans activists wishes. Or, at least, those words won't tell us anything biologically meaningful any more.
How should we label the situation in which a woman with a penis loves a man who menstruates?
What were her five reasons?
Has JKR made that claim?
Isn't it the trans activists who are making that claim? As JKR says, they are the ones who apparently want to erase sex and retain only gender.
Like what?
Is it a civil right for every person to use whichever public bathroom they want?
Is it a civil right for every person to be entitled to play in either the women's or men's league of any sport they choose?
Is it a civil right of a trans woman to be put in a women's prison when they commit a violent crime (e.g. the rape of a person who menstruates)?
Are these the kinds of civil rights you're referring to?
I have to tell you, billvon, that discrimination on the basis of sex is already widespread. For instance, there are women-only gyms. I guess the people who run those places must be androphobic. But I'm sure that problem will be solved once all women who have penises are entitled to join, by law.
Why do you want to erase the distinction between women and trans women, men and trans men, billvon? I mean, the reality is that there are differences between these four groups. Why must you pretend that there are only two groups of indistiguishable people in that list?
Do you think that if you pretend that women and trans women are identical, that will solve all the particular issues that trans women face because they are trans women? Isn't it really just an attempt to sweep things under the rug so you don't have to pay special attention any more? And if, as a result of this pretence, you end up making life harder for non-trans women, then you won't have to pay special attention to them, either, I suppose.
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foghorn
Valued Senior Member
Tiassa has quoted a chunk of a book review.
It says in the quoted review...(see Tiassa post #429)
My bold above and below
Tiassa then goes on to say the following:
So, if “Sex isn't either/or.”
Then men and women can do the same things. Women produce sperm and eggs and men do the same. But, there’s no difference so I can’t say “women and men” they are people that can do both of those things.
“Sex isn’t either /or.”
Hence my thought that Tiassa’s dad both provided the sperm and the egg, and gave birth.
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Technically, the antinaturalism perspective is supposed to stay confined to its own territory and not be infringing upon biology (and "human sciences" in general) or trying to alter the latter's traditional interpretations.
But certainly there are scientists (and philosophers of biology) influenced directly or indirectly by literary intellectuals, via their own personal selections of moral schemes and political policies. Ergo potentially introducing cognitive biases with respect to interpretation of data or even setup of studies/experiments. (And yes, the "old guard or school" that Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, etc stem from might have had similar presuppositions of their own nudging them, that the new or rival generation points out when quarreling with them.)
Since sociology straddles both the soft sciences and the humanities categories, it can be taken that the antinaturalism ripple in it originates from the humanities side.
- EXCERPTS (from those two sources): Antinaturalism is a term in sociological analysis that denotes opposition to the adoption of a natural-science model for studying human social action. This approach argues that applying principles, methods, and laws derived from the natural sciences to the social sciences is inappropriate due to the distinct nature of human societies and actions.
Naturalism in Sociology: Refers to two distinct ideas. The first is the application of natural-science models to sociology, aiming to discover universal laws of social behavior similar to those in physics or biology. The second refers to research methods focusing on studying social actions in their naturally occurring settings, emphasizing a descriptive and often qualitative approach.
Antinaturalism: Opposes the first sense of naturalism, arguing that human behavior is too complex, context-dependent, and influenced by meaning, culture, and consciousness to be fully understood through natural-science methods.
[...] Antinaturalism, or anti-naturalism, is the opposition to essentialist invocations of nature or natural order. It is associated with antispeciesism, anti-racism, feminism, and transhumanism.
Antinaturalist philosophy is closely linked to the French animal rights movement and materialist feminism. It is also supported by xenofeminists, who advocate for a form of feminism holding that if nature is unjust, it should be changed. Notable advocates include David Olivier and Yves Bonnardel.
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Look, I know razzing↑ the guy about what he said, once upon a time—
—seems too easy↑, but it really does remain the most credible thing he's ever said, here. He's also one of the easiest applications of Sartre↑, we could never actually ask for:
Never believe the supremacists are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The supremacists have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
And part of the reason people behave like that is that it helps forestall a discussion they don't think they can support, which, in turn, is embarrassing, and, like Sartre said, "They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side."
The thing is, some people do take this sort of behavior seriously and credibly, and for them, such play cannot be supremacist or misogynist or transphobic, and the people who behave that way can't be stupid, lying bigots, trolls, or pricks, but some of these clowns are years into their bad-faith performances, kind of like Rowling, herself, and the thing about the noise they make is that it distracts and delays, and is intended to discourage, other discussion.
†
For instance: I get that you↗ have not explicitly indicated you find her views transphobic, but the question remains: If not transphobic, then what is it? That is, if Rowling's views are not transphobic, then why has she spent years behaving the way, and saying the things, she does?
Or the difference between the articles that quote her words and the article she wrote, herself↑, and if we might look beyond the articles↗ to Rowling's own words↱, then perhaps we ought to consider the fact↗ of a portion of Rowling's own words that Rowling chose to remove from circulation, leaving us to go dig for other sources that might have made a record, including lawsuits, news articles, opinion blogs, and social media.
The fact that she deleted her own posts doesn't mean they never happened, and, as it is, suggests even she thinks they carry exposure to liability. What is this thing where someone like Rowling takes an explicitly transphobic position but somehow remains aloof from the transphobia? What is this safe space she requires?
(Note in real time: I had stalled on the three paragraphs above, trying to figure how to translate the shape of what is absent, but then you went and said it for me↑: "But are these transphobic?")
†
What was it, all of the weekend↗ when I observed, here we are and evidence including her own social media posts↑ doesn't matter to the Rowling hardliners, evidence of her words and behavior over time↗ doesn't matter to them, and quoting Jon Stewart↗ apparently isn't good enough for them.
To reiterate from last week:
Please understand, ca. 2018, in re a liked tweet she meant to screenshot, it was research because she had developed "an interest in gender identity and transgender matters". And those are her words, "an interest in gender identity and transgender matters". And for everyone paying attention at the time, those words meant something, because they take a side. It stands out when people assert neutrality by adopting partisan phrasing; sometimes, it's noise, but there are also occasions when it's unclear whether something was coincidence or evidence of the phenomenon it coincides with. In the moment, it's easy to pass over; in hindsight, it's hard to ignore .... What we have in Rowling's own words, ca. 2023, is refusal and provocation: Actually looking to the source tweet↱ shows us something more than the Entertainment Weekly report told us: Rowling chose to pick that fight; she chose to post a photograph of some words and respond.
But, sure, are exclusion and refusal according to superstition really a phobia? Gay people went through this, Dave, like, thirty years ago, and twenty years ago, and ten years ago. Also, for instance, there are reasons we don't use gynophobia, but if people would prefer that to misogyny, sure, we can try; the would-be disorder isn't a formal diagnosis, so the word gynophobia is, technically speaking, available. And we tend to not use negrophobia so as not to confuse the negrophobes about why anyone else is allowed to say Negro.
Dave, Ms. Rowling's rejection of transgender women is so irrational that it excludes some cisgender women for being insufficiently ladylike. And she's not alone. Some athletic standards now regulate and seek to disqualify cisgender women; then there's the chess thing↑ which seems plainly vindictive. But is any of it really a phobia?
Given how much of it is driven by superstition, by fear of things that just aren't true, sure, transphobia works.
So, it's like the part our unserious neighbor would hope to fog over with noise: The anti-trans argument presumes a binary pretense not scientifically accurate.
Again↑: When science↗ and enlightenment↗ inform↗ differently↗ than preferred superstitions.
The underlying binarism of sex and gender in the anti-trans argument is a matter of tradition and belief, not science. And that's the discussion our neighbor↑ would seek to discredit, forestall, and disconcert.
Remember, this anti-trans pretense is at heart a segregationist human rights argument dependent on segregationist presupposition. And if the standard is to just say it with a smile↗, y'know, all polite-like↗, one must smile bigly in order to pretend discriminatory stratification, exclusion, and diminution of fellow human beings for the sake of superstition is in any way, y'know, polite.
____________________
Notes:
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Anti-Semite and Jew. 1944. New York: Schocken Books, 1995.
See Also:
@jk_rowling. "No." Twitter. 17 October 2023. X.com. 28 May 2025. status/1714279937279160596
Wang, Jessica. "J.K. Rowling says she would 'happily' do prison time for controversial transgender views". Entertainment Weekly. 19 October 2023. EW.com. 28 May 2025. https://ew.com/books/j-k-rowling-would-do-prison-time-for-transgender-views/
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Lordy. I lived in Toronto for 59 years, my mother was a librarian (at St. Joe's though) and I worked in a local library retrieving books from the stacks.
Did you know Robarts is intended to be shaped like a peacock (or is it a swan)?
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
This is a helpful concept in considering several issues here. As in, where do we drop strictly biological definitions in considering groups that form based on cultural structures. This is tricky stuff. James, in his exchange with BillV, for example, seems to raise the question of when making a distinction is actually discrimination. Biologically, e.g., we can distinguish between cis-women and trans-women, so how far can one go with that before it invites discrimination? When is vive la difference okay?
Can we relax into the idea that some people have lady parts and are able to produce the large gametes in a womb, while some have "lady brains" but produce the small gametes from balls - i.e. enjoy the diverse landscape and various intermediate or blended states while not discriminating or excluding?
Maybe the peril, as it was with homosexuality, is the notion that everything is more kosher if there's a biological foundation for it. As in, why would homosexuality need to be innate in order to be accepted? Seeking recourse to biology tends to carry the implied stigma of "well, they can't help being that way."
That seems to be where many people are with trans now. ”Well, if that former guy has an epigenetically crafted pink brain, then I guess it's, erm, okay for them to rearrange their hormones, get some nips and tucks, etc." I feel the ghost that haunts these conversations is that many believe there are just some aspects of human identity that must be ruled by chromosomes or by God or perhaps God tossing dice with chromosomes. The subtext sometimes seems to be: "we can have free will and choose to be austere minimalists or packrats or Republicans or Democrats or Nihilists or neatniks or slobs or devout or irreverent... but when it comes to gender, we bow to the DNA."
And that overlaps with what I failed to clarify in the connection between the two. That even though a pristine antinaturalist might be confident that culture, morality, and the human condition are transcendent to or emergently independent of the constraints and injustices of Nature... Those in other circles that are influenced by the ideas/policies that fall out of antinaturalism may still be motivated to seek scientific credibility for _X_. Due to having a career in biology, psychology, or whatever -- or just that science or methodological naturalism is still what their worldview revolves substantially around, and thereby feeling they have to justify almost anything in that context. Or even that _X_ could always use more ammunition for defense, from another corner of knowledge.
_
Of course. And traditionally, women are XX and men are XY. Traditionally, women take their husband's last name when they marry. Traditionally, the woman takes a submissive role in a marriage and the man leads. It's just tradition, often going back a LONG time.
The problem arises when someone (like Rowling) announces that people who do not follow such traditions are nuts, or mocks them for daring to keep their own name (for example.)
Imagine if back in 1992 someone had posted, for example, "looks like Joanne Rowling just got married to Jorge Arantes. But she doesn't even seem to know what her own last name is now! She thinks it's "Rowling" for some reason. It's really not that hard. It's pronounced "Aranty" or "Arantees" or something like that. Let's hope she figures it out!"
Would you support that poster's opinion, since they are just pointing out tradition?
Nope.
Are you concerned that JKR is claiming that women who have reached menopause are no longer women?
You seem to be arguing that sex is the same as gender, but then you mention the opposite:
They can change both their phenotype and their gender.
They can change their sexual phenotype, yes. They cannot change their sexual genotype (yet.) This is an issue as well, since there are tens of thousands of women in the US alone who are XY (genetically male) - many of whom do not even know it. They are still women if they so identify.
I don't. I merely want to them to have the same rights.
Again let's go back to race, which we have (mostly) figured out. Blacks are different than whites. They get skin cancer less often. They are prescribed different medications since their biochemistry is subtly different. They look very different.
But they should have exactly the same RIGHTS as white people. Even if there are differences between whites and blacks.
Thus, excluding them from white bathrooms was wrong. Excluding them from white sports teams was wrong. Excluding them from white drinking fountains was wrong. Even if they are different from the white people in those places.
Hopefully you agree.
The idea that giving more rights to one group takes rights away from another has long ago been proven false.
One matter of terminology that hasn't really come up very much in this discussion is the difference between "transgender" and "intersex".
The term "transgender" refers to people whose gender identity (how they personally experience and define their gender) is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. Being transgender is about identity and self-perception.
The term "intersex", on the other hand, refers to people who are born with biological sex characteristics—such as chromosomes, hormones, or anatomy—that don't fit typical definitions of male or female. Intersex variations can be present from birth and might not always be visibly apparent.
The point of difference here is that intersex is a biological condition, whereas transgender is all about how a person chooses to identify themselves in terms of gender.
When it comes to transitioning - i.e. having surgery and/or taking drugs to alter one's phenotypical characteristics (as billvon put it) - some intersex people choose to identify as transgender after they transition, but many do not.
Extremist "trans activists" spend almost of all their time talking about gender (i.e. cultural and social self-identification) and virtually no time talking about biology (sex, genotypes, phenotypes etc.). The reason is that admitting that there are biological differences between individual human beings necessarily means acknowledging that a transgender person who transitions does not thereby become indistinguishable from other people who identify as the same gender as the one the transgender person transitioned to. But this is something that the activists absolutely do not want to acknowledge. It is this that Rowling refers to as the "attempt to erase sex".
The biological fact of the matter is that a person who transitions from one gender to another through surgery and/or drugs does not thereby erase all connection to their pre-transition life history, or even to the post-transition reality of their own biological sex characteristics.
The activists insist that "trans women are women" and such. But the biological reality is that a person who has transitioned from male to female does not lose all markers - or even physical or mental characteristics - of their sex at birth (and at puberty).
It might well be the case that, in the distant future, genetic engineering or similar scientific advanced might enable true gender fluidity, giving human beings the freedom to actually have all the biological characteristics of a sex other than the one they had at birth. But this is not the current reality we live in.
The realities of biology can't be erased at the present time, no matter how much the activists wish or pretend it to be so.
I don't think it does anybody any good to try to impose on everybody an obligation to pretend that biological differences are invisible, that there is no such thing as sex (including intersex) and that a person's gender is the only thing that can ever be relevant in any consideration of such matters as legal rights.
This pretence is, at bottom, a wilful ignorance of the facts of the matter. It is also an attempt to grab political power, essentially by trying to bully the kinds of people who insist on such pesky inconveniences as taking facts into account in decision making.
Certainly, we could draw many comparisons with how the scientific facts on other matters are wilfully ignored by a disturbingly large proportion of the US population, in the service of achieving selfish short-term political goals.
The term "transgender" refers to people whose gender identity (how they personally experience and define their gender) is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. Being transgender is about identity and self-perception.
The term "intersex", on the other hand, refers to people who are born with biological sex characteristics—such as chromosomes, hormones, or anatomy—that don't fit typical definitions of male or female. Intersex variations can be present from birth and might not always be visibly apparent.
The point of difference here is that intersex is a biological condition, whereas transgender is all about how a person chooses to identify themselves in terms of gender.
When it comes to transitioning - i.e. having surgery and/or taking drugs to alter one's phenotypical characteristics (as billvon put it) - some intersex people choose to identify as transgender after they transition, but many do not.
Extremist "trans activists" spend almost of all their time talking about gender (i.e. cultural and social self-identification) and virtually no time talking about biology (sex, genotypes, phenotypes etc.). The reason is that admitting that there are biological differences between individual human beings necessarily means acknowledging that a transgender person who transitions does not thereby become indistinguishable from other people who identify as the same gender as the one the transgender person transitioned to. But this is something that the activists absolutely do not want to acknowledge. It is this that Rowling refers to as the "attempt to erase sex".
The biological fact of the matter is that a person who transitions from one gender to another through surgery and/or drugs does not thereby erase all connection to their pre-transition life history, or even to the post-transition reality of their own biological sex characteristics.
The activists insist that "trans women are women" and such. But the biological reality is that a person who has transitioned from male to female does not lose all markers - or even physical or mental characteristics - of their sex at birth (and at puberty).
It might well be the case that, in the distant future, genetic engineering or similar scientific advanced might enable true gender fluidity, giving human beings the freedom to actually have all the biological characteristics of a sex other than the one they had at birth. But this is not the current reality we live in.
The realities of biology can't be erased at the present time, no matter how much the activists wish or pretend it to be so.
I don't think it does anybody any good to try to impose on everybody an obligation to pretend that biological differences are invisible, that there is no such thing as sex (including intersex) and that a person's gender is the only thing that can ever be relevant in any consideration of such matters as legal rights.
This pretence is, at bottom, a wilful ignorance of the facts of the matter. It is also an attempt to grab political power, essentially by trying to bully the kinds of people who insist on such pesky inconveniences as taking facts into account in decision making.
Certainly, we could draw many comparisons with how the scientific facts on other matters are wilfully ignored by a disturbingly large proportion of the US population, in the service of achieving selfish short-term political goals.