There’s entire branches of research on this, but I think one of the easiest ways to approach it for starting out is to think of the word “womanly.”

having or denoting qualities and characteristics traditionally associated with or expected of women.

I would strike the word “traditionally” from that definition since we’re talking about a comparative and differential analysis and concentrate on the “qualities and characteristics” part. Although most people in the US today wouldn’t think of it this way, imagine the perception of a woman army officer commanding male troops in 1845. You can take the same approach when looking through history or across cultures. What roles, qualities, and characteristics are associated with “women” and how do they differ and evolve?

There’s some complexity when you get into the details - indigenous cultures change when they come into contact with, say, colonialism, and the people who studied them might themselves be observing through their own prejudices. History is replete with examples of British colonialists being unable to properly deal with things like the egalitarian democracies of the northern indigenous peoples or the matriarchal social structures. Picture the used car dealership where the salesman still insists on engaging with the man even though it’s the woman buying the car.

Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, and semiotics is the study of symbology. When we’re talking about these things, we’re talking about how the ideas and symbols associated with the idea-token “woman” differ.

The reason why this is important is that this is the crux of the transphobic argument. Their argument is cultural, not biological (although like I said, even their biology is sketchy).

I think a great study that includes cross cultural anthropological analysis of the role of women, as well as politics and economics, is David Graeber’s The Dawn of Everything.

Biologist here. The main problem with this argument is that Rowling is trying to win her argument through scientizing, and is not only doing it in an inept way, but in a way that’s completely ironic.

She’s invoking biology, but infortunately she’s adopting an approach that incorporates a high school level of biology. When we start teaching science, we start with highly simplified presentations of the major topics, then build both in breadth and depth from there. If you really want to get down the rabbit hole of sex determination (and multiple definitions of genetic and phenotypical “sex”), you really need to get into molecular biology, genetics, and developmental biology. She’s been advised of this multiple times by multiple experts, so at this point it’s willful ignorance.

The painfully ironic part is that she’s relying on an area where she has no expertise in order to make her point, while ignoring the fact that, as a world-known literary figure, she should know that the applicable part of the definition of “woman” is linguistic and semiotic - which is to say it’s cultural. The definition of “woman” was different in the 1940s South, among the 17th century pilgrims, the Algonquin tribes, cultures throughout sub-equatorial Africa, and so on.

Lemmy is small enough that “brigading” doesn’t feel entirely appropriate. Maybe “platooning?”

In any case, we know from other sites that downvotes increase the probability of getting more downvotes, and nasty comments increase the probability of getting more nasty comments. The same goes for upvotes and positive comments. It’s just social dynamics. Some subs on reddit existed almost exclusively to call out other subs, but I think that Lemmy’s user base is small and spread out enough that it’s not a major contributing factor in voting.

I think it’s mostly just people scrolling along, running across a hot take, and interpreting it according to the voting.

In any case, I would suspect that people would be more impacted by hurtful comments than downvotes.

Evolutionary biologist here. I’d argue that, in the same sense as we see homosexuality in animals, we see trans animals.

Some animals physically transition - there are fish that will change their physical gender based on the current gender mixture in their local environment. Some behaviorally transition, with males taking on female roles. Sometimes a whole species is trans - like the female hyena developing male appearing genitalia.

Sexual orientation in the animal kingdom is not strictly analogous to that among humans (which has a much stronger social construct), and the same is true of gender (that is, human gender is a social construct). Because the range of adaptations are so diverse and so widespread, I’m very sure of the fact that they have different causes from each other as well as from humans, but the same is true of animal sexuality.

All too often, taking the “evil” path in RPGs just locks content. Most of the NPCs end up against you and you lose side quests rather than getting additional ones to compensate.

I think the Elder Scrolls games did well with the Thieves’ Guild and Assassins. There was a fair amount of content that was unlocked, and depending on your playstyle (and how much you roleplay in single player RPGs) you could still do major quest lines.

It’s just that, after decades of playing computer RPGs, I will tend to default to an paladin type character until I get the lay of the land.

I fully agree with you on your response. My attempt at being brief (as a perusal of my post history will show I have a really hard time with), I sacrificed accuracy for brevity.

And just in case you’re hitting your weekend and bored, I am also able to have a full scale discussion on the semiotics of pick up trucks and the surrounding culture in general.

Several US states have requirements on a minimum bumper height and restrict things like how far tires can extend from the wheel well.

There is scientific consensus - to the point of being unanimous as far as I know - that these raised vehicles pose a significantly increased danger to pedestrians and to other vehicles. There is entirely a legal precedent to pass laws that say things like bumpers can be no more than six inches from the ground and that driver visibility must be cleared to within a foot of the front bumper.

In the US, these issues are largely handled at the state level, although there are some federal regulations in place. When I was a teenager in Jersey, they required annual inspections that included testing for operational lights, braking efficiency, emissions, and so on. In New Mexico, there were no inspections at all, and you simply had to pay for registration.

As these quasi-monster trucks become more prevalent, there’s an increasing need for legislation. Manufacturers are driven solely by consumer demand unless regulated, and politicians are more worried about upsetting Dodge Ram drivers than they are about public health and safety. I literally could not imagine a nationwide 55MPH law passing today (there were complications with doing it when they did do it, but it was successfully executed when it happened).

What we need is this generation’s Ralph Nader to go after the industry to get the public to support and demand political action.

Yes. These should be made illegal, or restricted from on-road use. As trucks increase in size and height, there are studies that they become more and more dangerous. They should be banned for safety reasons.

They did the same thing with filming factory farming. They made filming conditions illegal as it might hurt the industry.

It’s blatantly unconstitutional and like the article says, the republican legislatures will just keep trying to pass them with minor modifications until they get through. And it works between states too, just like with abortion legislation. If one state’s law is overturned, the next state will take that into account when they pass their version.

This is why I will never stop donating to groups like the ACLU, even if I disagree with them on Nazis being allowed to propagandize. I think that we can legislate against hate speech, as most developed countries do, without endangering democracy. But I agree with them on so many more things than that, so I want and need to help keep them in the fight.