Archaeologists are now in the transgender firing line

No, I dont think its the tactics you have a problem with in this case. Because you say you have a problem with the tactics, but then follow that with a demand people be "called out" by politicians for their ideas. Presumably for political expediency? Brownie points with reactionaries? I don't know, and it doesn't make much sense to call attention to an 'issue' that is niche even for conservatives obsessed with what happens on college campuses. Seems like you want politicians to do the thing you don't like the activists doing, calling people out. To "cancel" these trouble makers daring to challenge the status quo so to speak. You are perpetuating the very thing you claim to dislike.

 

How dare you show balanced criticism. You should listen to wgb. He’ll teach you how to question conservatives and be a good libbie.

 

Not a liberal, but thanks though, you should both listen to me.

 

What do we know about their tactics? I tried to examine the data points supporting the original story. I saw a screenshot of a single tweet that looked like part of the thread that I could not locate on Twitter. I'm sure it actually existed but I suspect the Tweeter deleted or took their account private after the harassment. I didn't really get the benefit of her thoughts.

I saw a piece that was misdescribed. Reading the abstract, it sounded perfectly reasonable. And I saw quotes from two researchers, one of which had her own data suppressed, which generally disagreed with an approach that they didn't actually describe.

At least for me, when I address pieces like this, I like to dig into the links and try to examine what's really going on. I did not find that possible with the links in the OP. I suppose I could've found out more with independent research but I didn't want to spend that much time

 

I was more or less just going off what the OP wrote, and his own conclusion that it represented some failure to curbstomp "crazies" on behalf of the Democratic party. Its a piece in a conservative publication geared to propagandize what they think are "radical" academics, which almost certainly misrepresents and sensationalizes what the actual debate is. It makes me wonder how the debate against scientific racism and the idea of "primitive" culture would have been perceived in the 1930s-40s had their been a vast right-wing media apparatus. Woke-nutcase Melville Herskovits is at it again folks!

 

I agree. Without going back to look at everything again, the abstract of the second piece sounded in terms of police forensics and understanding how to read the evidence of the victim discovered much later in hopes of solving the crime. It seemed like it advocated a higher level of awareness of trans life for use in investigations, but otherwise was not much into the social engineering part of it, just trying to give the police greater cultural understanding to better interpret available evidence.

The first tweet in the thread did sound like a typical more fired up younger person, in a tone like what I would've used 40 years ago if Twitter existed then (thank God it did not).

Then there were the two quotes they didn't describe exactly what they were in opposition to. It seemed like a classic intra-academic debate of the type that occurs in almost every discipline in different degrees, that was elevated into a polemic fomentation by an obscure source.

What I especially took exception to was the claim as to who was been the aggressor overall. Regardless of what happens in this one small corner of otherwise obscure academia, it's plain that in society as a whole, those that favor transgender rights are the ones under attack

 

I'm not comparing it to eugenics. I'm saying the methods are literally rooted in what became the eugenics movement. That's also what the experts in the article I posted including the full discussion pointed out. They also pointed out that because of that, there's still some questionable science being used. That is an important point.

 

Isn't it the President's job to lead, particularly on issues of equality? Why shouldn't he use his power to advance equality, regardless of whether the country is "there" or not?

 

Related - it was never only about competition. They are suing to try to avoid serving trans kids free lunch they would other wise qualify for. Read the comments

 

Ken Paxton is among the worst human beings on the planet.

 

True, but he's one of 20 here. The issue is larger than him

 

While this may be yet another example of fringe professors doing dumb things, this has to be one of the more asinine positions I’ve seen anybody take. It is completely moronic.

 

Oh I know that.

 

It's not just professors. One of the primary characters in the story is a master degree student.

 

Yeah it is hard to try to filter when you see “look dumb person does dump thing”, or in this case substitute highly educated for dumb. But still.

 

What' the beef? Are the transgender people expecting archeologists to find trannies from the past?

 

If we are going to make informed opinions about the issue, it's best that we know where it is coming from. This one may be primarily from professors of anthropology/archaeology, but it's not entirely clear from the info we have. It is clear, however, that the call has not come exclusively from profs.