Jane Austen’s career was badly managed, in part by her brother, at a time when there was just the bare sliver of social change allowing “respectable” women to write (thank Frances Burney in large part for that). She published anonymously, as “a lady” and “the author of Sense and Sensibility” etc., in part because…

Rules evolve as science and knowledge evolve. It’s not about excluding her it’s about reconciling gender (non-binary) with sports which are divided into men’s and women’s categories and as long as you have those two categories in sports to figure out how and where to draw that line and how intersex athletes like…

Yes, she’s a woman. Biologically though it’s a little more complex because she’s intersex and has XY chromosomes.

Thats the thought experiment. And then you say, well thats not fair, we want women to be able to compete in sports, and then we say, OK, well WHY are women not as good at sports as men? Oh, its because mens bodies tell them to produce more testosterone and build more muscle mass.

“Slight” advantage? She produces 3x as much testosteron as the average woman. I’d say that’s a bit more then a slight advantage.

This stupid thing is said *every* time here and it’s still wrong. Phelps is competing against literally everyone. Semenya is competing against a subset limited to women, while possessing a significant advantage of having male testosterone.

In regards to your Phelps example, let’s say swimming had two divisions; one for people with short arms and one for people with long arms. Phelps and his freakishly long arms qualify for the long arm division. Do you think it would be fair for him to compete in the short arm division?

And with Joshua Harris, “homeschooled and indoctrinated” is a bit of an understatement. His dad was one of the pioneers of the evangelical homeschooling movement in America going back to the 70s.

If I still was judged by my beliefs at 21, I would not be happy.

You don’t undo a lifetime of indoctrination in one day and it’s not just because you’re making money off it. It’s not just beliefs and a church he had to disentangle from, it was probably the majority of his close friendships and even family. From the sounds of it, it ended his marriage. And yeah, it was also his…

I agree with you. If this guy is sincere in his move away from the views of his past, then I say welcome. While I am not nor I have I ever been religious, I live in a deeply religious area of the country. It requires a tremendous amount of strength for people in the grip of that community to reject it it and get out…

I dunno, people do change that late in life, and change dramatically. It’s why we have the term “midlife crisis”, and it’s seen so much in pop-culture.

This change is a good thing. I think we should support and encourage it so more are more likely to do so, instead of being so cynical about it.

He was 21 and grew up homeschooled and indoctrinated. I’m with percysowner re: progressives needing to not be assholes when people see the light. It’s counterproductive. 

Being raised super evangelical (and being super gay), his book and others like it made my life a living hell. That said, I can’t really muster any anger for him now. I know what that childhood is like, and I can imagine that being home schooled and writing that book at 21 was probably the product of some very…

I think it would behoove us to remember our liberalism here, and realize that while the guy wrote the book, it was millions of adults who foisted it on their kids because it said what they wanted to hear. It takes a village to make a movement, and speaking as someone who grew up the burned-over rural red America in…

Yeah, it’s a crime the pain he caused, but he was a 21 year old indoctrinated into a belief system, writing about something he probably had almost no experience with.

Yes, it would have been nice if he had realized this before he wrote his book, however the book was a reflection of part of that culture and someone would have written something similar.

A 21-year-old dude writes and publishes a blueprint for ‘courtship’ and dating. What could a possibly go wrong?

You seem nice.