#i have already blocked one person on that post for mentioning the asexuality episode when i asked ppl not to and it's only been like.

[crimeronan]

kitkat this is mean but i do at this point assume that anyone who gets mad about the aphobia episode of housemd, which is late in s8, is simply and straightforwardly racist, homophobic, intersexist, etc. like if that is the one (1) bad thing you think is worth talking about - a single, one-off episode that was admittedly terrible but nothing like the constant and unrelenting greatest bigotry hit parade that is the show as a whole - i simply don't think that is an opinion i will be listening to. THERE'S BIGGER PROBLEMS!!!!

my perspective on this is, i think, both a little kinder AND a lot meaner than yours -- i 100% think that the Vast Majority of people who never shut up about the asexuality episode have simply..... never watched house MD. like, i really think that's it. they just have not seen the show. the only thing they KNOW about the show is the asexuality episode.

in fact, i'd say that 80% of people who derail my ableism posts EXPLICITLY tag or comment some variation of, "i'd never watch this / i already knew the show was bad / this doesn't surprise me because of the asexuality episode."

so it's not like.... necessarily that they think asexuality is the Only Thing Anyone Can Ever Talk About. it's just that it's the only thing they ever HAVE seen anyone talk about. and they're parroting whatever they've heard.

without. knowing. anything. about. the show.

like. it's just that they legitimately, honest to God somehow think that the asexuality episode was DIFFERENT, and that asexuals were UNIQUELY maligned, because they Literally Have Not Watched The Source Material. and so they don't know how often it happened. to everyone. or how systemic it was. or how cruel the writers were on a constant basis.

i think that this is the truest read of all this discourse. at the very least, it's the only read that makes me Not Actively Homicidal, so it is the one i must cling to.

there are a LOT of viral posts about house MD that criticize the asexuality episode without criticizing anything else. and those DO make me raise my eyebrows, bc presumably the OPs have watched the whole show, and so i'm like. why do you seem to take issue with the asexuality stuff but Not any of the other stuff.

BUT. if i am being good faith and nice to people... i figure it's, like, Ffffine.... for asexual people to make their own posts about house MD. since i am making my own posts about ableism in house MD. talking about one thing is fine. even if it makes me raise my eyebrows. bc as you said, it's one ep late in season 8 that sucks but. is not, uh. it's not the core of the show.

it DOES vex me that discussion of the treatment of asexuality gets SOOOO MUCH MORE VIRAL TRACTION HERE than any discussion of ableism, but it doesn't surprise me, exactly... about 50ish percent of this website is ace (last i knew?), and a MUCH smaller percentage is chronically ill. and on top of that, sooo many chronically ill ppl exist in a weird space with criticism of house MD in the first place, because he's the Pain Blorbo who's a Sick Doctor, he's like the only ornery bitchy chronic illness representation a lot of people have experienced, and that often Means Things to ppl with chronic illness. and so sometimes they feel Weird And Uncomfortable acknowledging that the show is also, um. really really reaaaalllyyyyy mean and cruel.

and just generally. not great. to us.

so. the posts about ableism..... don't circulate. at least not outside of very specific chronic illness circles. bc you have to be Nuanced about the chronic illness stuff, there's a lot of Uncomfortable Feelings involved, and the asexuality stuff is MUCH more straightforwardly terrible ragebait, which is very easy to get mad about & reblog with tags about how you are mad.

With All Of That Said.

i DO think that if people read a post that's being critical of how house MD hurts disabled/chronically ill people, or they read a post about any of the other many many many Many evil bigoted episodes in the series, and their ONLY takeaway is to type, "well, i knew it was bad because i heard about the asexuality thing!"

....i DO think that is thoughtless and cruel. and i do think that people should stop doing that.

and i have locked numerous posts because of people doing that.

and if people start doing that in my notes again, i will be instablocking and possibly locking more posts. because. please.

you do NOT have to say, "i already knew it was bad because X," or, "did you know it was also bad about X??" when the post is not about X. i was not talking about X. i agree that X is bad, but i would like to talk about Y right now, and this kind of smug kneejerk "i consume media the right way <3 i know that it's bad when it's bad" response makes it.... impossible.

like. i am being Earnest As Fuck about ableism and my own life experiences and the horrific structural inequality/oppression/violence/etc in the medical system. it's written about a TV show, but it's not Actually About A TV Show. you know?? my thoughts about house MD are my thoughts about The Actual Real Life Medical System and Actual Real Life Doctors. I'm Trying To Say Something Important .

now is NOT the time for, "oh, yeah, and the asexuality episode was bad!"

NOOOO..... FOCUS ON THE WORDS I JUST SAID INSTEAD. BLEASE,

[foryoupeko]

(Depressing rant, I mention Twitter drama and DR3 hate)

Y’all lucky I found that fuyuhiko post I just reblogged bc lord I was spiraling.

Twitter been making it real tough being in the DR fandom. I was thinking about leaving TBH.

I already cant go in the Fuyuhiko tag on tumblr without finding someone who hates me for shipping incest (I’m talking about kuzu/peko, it’s not btw)

Every Peko stan I find hates me. The ones on Twitter thinks I endorse child grooming and the ones on Reddit thinks I’m homophobic

I expressed on Twitter that reading too many “Butch Lesbian Fuyuhiko is the only correct interpretation” gives me gender dysphoria. I’m a transmasc enby who was forced to go to an all girl school. So it’s tough reading about a character I relate to heavily is only likable as a girl. Somehow that turned a lot of kuzu/peko shippers on Twitter against me. I saw some of them make fun of me but I thought that was fair to a certain extent. I’m a biromantic asexual, not being gay enough for the LGBTQA community shouldn’t be new to me.

Last week was just really bad bc I said I didn’t like Chisa. I admitted it was for petty reasons and I only saw two episodes of despair arc. This was in 2017, it was too confusing to watch DR3 without SDR2 knowledge and the anime wasn’t newcomer friendly. Then a popular dr3 account made fun of me and their followers dog piled me. I went down a rabbit hole of trying to block everyone harrsssing me but then I kept finding people who were calling me retarded and slurs. Then I found ppl screenshotting my old tweets just to make fun of me and kuzu/peko.

It’s not fun watching people make fun of your race, sexuality, age, interests, all because I said “DR3 isn’t newcomer friendly”. None of them even disagreed with me, they just called me stupid for not thinking I needed to watch SDR2 before watching “The End of HPA”.

I’m just glad I have nice people like Cosmo, Twinkle, and Neuro who makes me feel like I’m not just a complete blight in this fandom

And reading that Fuyuhiko post made me realize that I don’t do anything in this fandom for validation. I really should accept i can’t please everyone and to doesn’t matter if the whole fandom hates me.

In closing, I’m not gonna acknowledge DR3 on this blog for a while. But I’m not leaving anytime soon. My opinion is never meant to hurt anyone. When I say “block me if you don’t like my content”, this is not saying I don’t respect your opinion. I’m saying “block me because I can’t take another person hate following me just to make fun of me”

[daisy--sorbet]

heyyy, hope you’re having a good night!! if you have the energy and feel okay answering, what’s up w taz graduation? i haven’t checked it out yet but i was thinking ab it. just asking bc you’re the first person i saw talk ab the show having serious issues, but also feel free to not answer this!! hope you have a good week!

i took a nice hot bath, had a strawberry kiwi capri-sun, and did a nice face mask and i’m feeling pretty good - so, y’know what anon? let’s talk about it. 

for anyone who likes taz grad who sees this post: it’ll be tagged with “taz grad hate” (although i feel hate is definitely a very strong word - it’s for the simplicity of tagging it) - so please block the tag if you don’t want to see this post (especially because i put a readmore on a post before and it didn’t show up on mobile and instead gave the full post). mobile tumblr has a tag blocking system, so please feel free to use it! i don’t mind haha

anyway, so this is... probably going to be a lost post, and i wanna go ahead and preface it: this absolutely isn’t any hate on the mcelroys themselves. i love the brothers and their dad a lot, and while i doubt any of them would ever see this (or have it sent to them, or shown to them, because im pretty sure they try to distance themselves from this sort of thing), i just want to make it clear that criticizing a product is different than bashing a person. which brings me to the point of if i do end up sounding as if im bashing someone - please call me out on it! it’s not my intention to target anyone.

with that said, let’s talk about this campaign.

so my problems are as thus: the railroading, the shipping (a fandom problem, but it’s present in the podcast), the NPCs, and some misc problems others have addressed better than i have.

which. i know. that’s basically the entire podcast. (i promise i’ll bring up some positive points to balance it all out). keep in mind i’ve only personally listened to... what, six episodes? and it was enough for me to drop it. some people dropped it first ep, some dropped it ep four, and others are still forcing themselves to listen.

the railroading

there was a time i could handle travis and his railroading [making sure the story goes exactly the way he has planned], because it was the very beginning of the podcast and that’s what you can kind of expect from a plot-heavy podcast. hell, i wouldn’t mind it if the interactions and goofs weren’t a huge part of why i listen to TAZ in particular (which, by the way, is why amnesty still stuck out to me - even if there was a direction griffin wanted to push them towards, the interactions between the players (or players and npcs) made up for any railroading). it’s kind of hard to not railroad a little when it’s story-heavy and you’re trying to built up a world that you’ve put a lot of thought into. however, a huge part of d&d is the spontaneity. 

it’s kind of why i think balance was so popular. while there was railroading towards the end, there was the presence of improv that made it all good. most mcelroy content is enjoyed because of the goofs. the magic brian moment is memorable. the jenkin’s fight still stands out because it was funny (albeit a result of some bad rolls). the boys teasing angus sticks out because the four would play well off of each other. even without that - griffin had talked about how he had to roll with things (the fact he had planned for a fight atop the train, but ditched the idea for what his family members came up with instead). even in amnesty, a couple moments that stick out to me still are ned with the jetpack taking out a pizza hut sign, and the scene with the water where jake was trapped inside. they aren’t as fun, but they still stand out as “things i didnt expect to really end the way they did.”

with grad, it’s just. one after another. the thundermen want to subpoena a xorn? cool, let’s run with that until actually the xorn gets fed rocks and goes home and who cares about the subpoena now. fitzroy wants to keep his cloak? lets talk about it for a while and you also get no rolls to even try to keep it. fitzroy goes to meet higglemas in his office? oh, why are you here fitzroy? im going to keep asking you until you answer fitzroy? you arent getting out of this scene until you answer me, fitzroy, so just tell me why you’re here already, alright, fitzroy? 

and even later in a episode i read a transcript of: hey argo, remember how you have this whole secret motivation? fuck you, im gonna talk about it here in your dream and reveal it to listeners and remove any tension you had building up, and you dont get a choice to talk about it because this all-knowing villain knows all about it :)

and even NOW in the latest episode, there’s a comment that “we should cap argo’s skills here” instead of just... making the checks higher. rogues are good at certain things and usually arent the best in battles. better hope argo never makes it to level 11, because who knows how people are gonna handle the fact that he gets a skill that’ll make it so certain skills can’t have a roll below 10 (reliable talent). 

(griffin, thankfully, calls travis out for that, but still - travis, why would you even imply that, considering you should be aware of how rogues work considering magnus multiclassed into rogue and you played one on tiny heist?)

and in the newest episode, their Big Bad chaos (which, god, i personally hate that name) straight-out says “dont do this” to the thundermen. travis tries to say, on twitter, “a character saying “dont do this” is different than me saying it” but i need to point out that it’s one thing if you’ve said “no” in character but worked with the PCs doing otherwise, but the railroading says differently.

the shipping

ill try to make this quick, because it’s nothing to do with the fandom (ship however you want, man) - but i really feel the need to draw attention to this.

fitzroy, as confirmed by griffin in a ttazz episode, is asexual. not aroace, but ace nonetheless. and i find it... troublesome that the idea of rainer and fitzroy having a relationship is still pushed nonetheless, despite the fact that fitzroy (to my knowledge) was never once shown to reciprocate any feelings. not to be that person, but i really hope that grad doesnt have any sort of romantic relationships in it (at least - not between NPCs and PCs unless they’re actually like... warranted?). 

i dont know, man. one of my closest friends is ace, and i know she wants a relationship, but i think it would reassure her a lot to see an ace character who isn’t pushed into one in case she ever changes her mind. someone once mentioned that they hope fi/tz/ra/in doesnt happen because theres relationships that have that “oh, you can just date” and it goes upwards there to “oh, you can have sex just to please them <3″  (which, to be honest, is kind of a gross mindset - if someone isnt interested, they arent interested).

also, uh, the TTAZZ where griffin states this, there’s kind of the mention tht the whole sexuality question was posed in relation to the episode “creative thinking” (the dream one i mentioned earlier) - which. uh. i don’t know if anyone caught this, but... rainer straight-up wrote fitzroy a letter in the dream like “are you going to accept my proposal? a girl doesn’t like to be left waiting” which. leaves me with some gross feelings because uh.

if... if the whole thing about fitzroys sexual orientation was addressed here, then why would you push your ship anyway? feels kinda iffy, man.

to which i want to say: fitzroy can date. he’s allowed to date. griffins allowed to do whatever he wants with his character. but when a lot of the flirting is met with nothing, i’m not gonna see the chemistry there. just because travis ships it doesn’t mean it’s canon.

the npcs

ah yes. lets talk about the npcs.

there’s... a lot. a lot a lot. i think travis trimmed down how many were present in a scene, but uh. there’s still a lot. and... uh... i kinda wish there wasn’t?

look, i know im going back to balance/amnesty, but just. hang in there for a moment. chill with me. vibe. 

balance didnt have too many NPCs present at all times in each mini-arc. gerblins had some big names like barry, klarg, gundren, killian, yeemick, and magic brian. rockport limited had angus, jess, graham the juicy wizard jenkins, and all of the tom bodetts mentioned. 

amnestys first arc had mama, barclay, jake, dani, pigeon, kirby, minerva, and that was about it for like. big names? and not all of them were present in each scene. 

in the first episode of grad alone: gary, hernandez, jimson, rolandus, zana, rhodes, buckminster eden, rainer, leon, tomas, hieronymous, higglemas, stuart, jackle, bartholomeus, mulligan, groundsy, germaine/victoria/rattles (the skeleton crew). and those are the ones i wrote down (minus groundsy, who i just. ignores. idk him).

like holy shit, my english prof got onto me for having too many characters in my first chapter and i didnt even have half the amount listed there! 

it’s just a huge cast. does this take place in a school? yes! theres bound to be a lot of students present - but you don’t have to name every single one of them, at least not in the first episode!

the miscellaneous

i don’t know if travis ever actually addressed it, but wheelchair users have actually like... said that rainer’s introduction bothered them, because she was like “please ask me abt my wheelchair :)” when travis saying she was in an ornate chair would have sufficed. 

uh. the colonization vibes people have discussed within the centaur arc. mentioned here, the replies here, and this post (and its replies) here as well.

the overall lack of d&d when the campaign was kind of advertised as a return to d&d if i remember correctly

also no one seems to be taking literally any criticism at all which like. ignoring the petty shit, sure, but people have stopped donating to taz and their listener-ship must have dropped some during this entire time - you’d think that maybe someone could say “we need to find out why people dont like the thing and fix the thing” consider this is. yknow. their livelihood.

anyway uhhh 

tl;dr: travis railroads way too much (even now), the shipping in-game has become pushy and gross (especially bc its shoving a relationship onto an asexual character), theres too many npcs that dont stand out well enough, and no ones taking any criticism about the major issues with grad. 

[swampgallows]

salt, etc.

way to take something i was praising for being cute and innocent and immediately sully it. like, really, i can’t have fuckin anything lmfao. like obviously i’m not gonna get miffed over orc p/rn or whatever the fuck every time i see it; i know it’s not for me and i dont take offense at it existing. but this isnt p-rn and it doesnt feature an adult; the child was the focus of the entire cinematic and she is still the focus in that screenshot. the context of the screenshot was that the normally enraged and violent orc could still play fair so as not to hurt the child. to make hearthstone a welcoming atmosphere for children and adults alike. the entire point of me being like “reasons to live” is that the orc is not hurting the child and she is not threatened by him, that they can get along. it’s extremely cute and innocent and i felt personally so very specifically protected by that imagery. NOT to mention it very legitimately helped to pull me out of a deep suicidal episode. that sounds like SUCH a fucking “tumblr fandom” thing to say but hey, it’s the truth! I wanted to fucking kill myself the day before and couldnt get out of bed and then i woke up to something so charming and uplifting that I actually got energy to get out of bed and to be productive.

i know im salty about this but i really dont care. what, you gonna tell me i’m being “too emotional” over explicit sex acts mentioned on a picture of a child???????

my blog is not child-safe by any means, nor could i even argue that it is worksafe, but it it most definitely intended to be a safe place for fellow csa survivors. and not that id expect anybody 500 notes deep to know me or my personal preferences but im [bi] asexual, i was raped as a kid, i was raped as a teen, and i was raped as an adult, anybody who’s read my blog for more than like ten minutes knows that i look to thrall and jaina as parental figures and my love for orcs is nonsexual. that doesn’t mean im gonna shit on people who love orcs sexually; i dont blame anyone for it existing. but if you were to send SPECIFICALLY me p*rn of thrall (KNOWING MY ADORATION OF HIM AS A PARENTAL FIGURE) in hopes that i would “enjoy” it, i would be extremely fucking disgusted. i dont care if people make porn of thrall or that they want to fuck him or whatever, i am not offended by that notion at all. i dont even care about seeing it on my dash. BUT I DONT NEED IT BROUGHT TO MY INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION. that’s also why i blocked that anon and disabled anons altogether when i made it explicitly clear that i dont want some fucking stranger filling my inbox with their sexual fantasies about wow characters, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE TWO ARE FATHER AND SON, and they SENT ME MORE ANONS ANYWAY!!!!!!!!!!!

there are literally thousands of other pictures of orcs with their big-ass muscle hands that they can reblog and vomit their stupid fisting bullshit on instead of the one picture in existence of an orc holding hands with a child. EARLIER TODAY i reblogged a post about garrosh’s big muscley hands dunking you like a basketball and breaking all your bones, like that post was very clearly asking for that kind of attention instead.

part of the reason im deterred from posting any art of he who is urnj is because im scared of what people will do to him. they’ll fetishize him or draw p()rn of him or kin ID as him or some shit if he got popular enough, and he’s just too personal of a character for me to throw to the public. people will do what they do and i know i cant stop that, but considering he was my coping mechanism while i was being raped as a child and is extremely fucking personal to me as a symbol of safety and comfort and protection and strength (as orcs are too, but nowhere near to this degree) id rather keep him in my head than risk him being ruined (AGAIN). my ex gf pulled him too far out of me and he ended up being something i didnt recognize, something that might have wounded him and his identity personally, and it will take a lot of healing for me to see him the way he used to be. if that’s even possible. it’s another reason why im not sure if it’s safe to go back to him yet, or if it ever will be again. he’s been attacked so many times. every man who learned about him felt threatened by him, and the women perverted him, sexually and metaphorically, forcing him into a role he never had. 

i dont have a therapist so my blog will have to do lmao and i couldnt talk to a professional about this shit anyway. ive tried, and they told me to kill him. im scared he’s already dead. 

i do not know where i am in life any more and i do not know if i am capable of advancing. 

[plussizepanda]

A saga in three parts: or why cishet men are literally the worst. As many of you know, while I am ~partnered~ or whatever you want to call it, we are both open to seeing other people, and when this man came along and started a flirtationship, I was open to it and reciprocated. (Although I should have trusted my first instinct against ever dating someone who approaches me using a lurker account based on a second rate Simpsons character that died in one episode, but I digress.) Honestly, sometimes my naïveté regarding men shines through brighter than Rihanna's Swarovski titties, and this was definitely one of those moments. We were vibing over chat. He knew his shit when it came to music. I never saw a pic before we met, because, hey, I'm asexual, and that generally doesn't really matter to me, if I vibe I vibe. I was having a meeting downtown, and he mentioned he was gonna be in the area. I was half joking when I said "you should take me for dinner" and kind of shocked when he said sure. I met up with him by his landmark car. I won't tell you what it was in case you live here, as I don't really care to fuck with him that badly. I'm only writing this because writing helps me process trauma. He takes me to a smoke lounge, and we blaze which is great cause I hadn't smoked all day and my pain was an 11 on the 10 scale. Maybe that's why I felt so at ease around him - when someone can make your pain go away you appreciate them. Then we go for wings, and I tell him not to make fun of the way I eat. We talk through the whole meal. He's sweet - corrects himself when he accidentally uses gendered language, listens attentively, and doesn't make fun of the way I eat wings. We decide afterwords to go for a walk, and then ice cream, and then a drive. We post up and smoke again, and talk for another couple hours. I'm impressed at this point - not that he's spending on me or that he has a cool car, but because he's genuinely interesting and smart and funny and talkative. The date is something out of a romantic comedy. But yknow, something always has to go wrong in the movies. The next day we're both busy with other things, but continued to text during the day when we could. I was seeing my person, and was excited to share this with him cause I knew he would be happy for me, which he was! He was super excited and even helped me pick an outfit for our next date which was to be the following night. The date day came and we were chatting about the night to come. We were going to a show, and decided to meet at the venue. He again, decided of his own volition to flex, and paid to upgrade me to a seated ticket so we could have a place to sit. The show was amazing, he let my friends sit in the seats with us, and didn't make fun of how emotional and loud I was. Burlesque does that to me. When we left he was charming as I schmoozed with other dancers and introduced myself. He was polite to my friends. He was a gentleman and put his arm around me when I was cold. After the show we went to chill and smoke and talk. I got very philosophical, as I do, and spent a lot of time explaining my trauma. I don't know how he managed to do it, but I swear he used my stories as a guidebook to his own treatment of me. We pulled outside of my apartment and talked for another few minutes, but we both had to work, so I said that I wouldn't keep him too late. That was a laugh because of what happened next. He asked for a kiss. Now a normal person on a good date when they're vibing and feeling shit and happy, would be happy to share a smooch. But I'm not normal, and it takes me time to allow that level of intimacy in my life. Well, he took great offence to this and decided at that moment that he was no longer feeling me. Funny how that works, eh? I tried to explain why I couldn't do it, and that I knew how it was because guys reject me like this all the time (to which his response was "I'm coming to you as an individual not as a representative of men" but I mean.... he did everything the same as like 98% of the men I've ever dated so...). But I was getting flustered and having a panic attack.... I wanted to calm down before I left the car but he kept just pushing the topic and making me more anxious. Finally he said something so incredibly fucked up that it made me snap into full black out panic mode, but managed to leave the car: "then let me see your breasts". Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope. I got out exclaiming how fucked up it was. I was shaking. I was shaking so hard it hurt. My heart was racing as I ran upstairs to my apartment. I don't remember chaining my door but I must have. I felt unsafe. I felt violated. I shook and shook and tried to reach my person. He finally texted me back and managed to talk me down enough that I could get to sleep. I did, after all, have to work in the morning. Waking up was painful. Getting ready was painful. I didn't feel comfortable in my skin. My skeleton wanted to leave my body. I opted for a casual outfit and light makeup because I felt like if I dressed nicely, something else bad might happen. I am still feeling like I can't dress the way I want to right now. Like somehow this was my fault for showing my body. On my way to work I had posted something to my Instagram about how boundaries are meant to be respected and that it was not fair that it had happened to me. That I should be expected to concede on my personal boundaries to make someone else happy. That's been my entire life so far, so tbh I'm pretty shocked that I managed to stand my ground on this one. But I did. And then the comments started. Eye roll emojis... references to trauma I had spoken of... references to my partner not being on his level.... he deleted them, of course, because why not gaslighting as well as trauma. I once again explained via text that what he did was incredibly fucked up, and he continued to say that he had treated me fairly - which I would have agreed with until the point he said show me your boobs, but apparently that was just a tactic to get me out of his car. I said I understood that he was out - it fucking sucked because I actually liked him and if he had the patience to maybe wait one more date I would have granted him that ever sought after kiss, but I have the feeling he wouldn't have stopped there. He lorded all the money he had spent on me over me. He had also done that the night before, approximately 30 minutes after we had discussed that I don't appreciate when people do things like that, because if you're going to do good, you do it out of the kindness of your heart. I left the remaining comments up on the post because accountability is important to me. He posted one more comment calling me a clown, and added to his insta story a single image of the clown emoji on a black background. I screencapped that one, but again, I'm not a character assassin so I'll refrain from including it in this. I'm only writing to help manage this trauma. I'm blocked now. I've also blocked him on insta. I have all his texts apparently, but it's best not to obsess over this any more. I've already wasted an entire day feeling bad. It hurts, but I'll get over it. I'm sure in a year I won't even remember his name. And he'll still be bitter like a Springfield lemon.

[mattandsaraproductions]

Philosophy saves the science: some non-stupid comments on that Bill Nye episode

OK, so I know there’s been backlash against Bill Nye for the sexuality episode, and it’s both false (because bigots are lying about that episode twenty-odd years ago) and stupid (as conservatives are) and we want to support science and bow ties. Who doesn’t love science and bow ties?

But! That doesn’t mean there aren’t some problems with the presentation. Because I’m a philosopher, and I can always find implications and assumptions you didn’t notice were there. So: Bill Nye presents us with an abacus, and four different rows: sex, gender, orientation, expression. Across the top we have “M” on the left, and “F” on the right.

Now, to start with, it’s unclear whether the balls on the abacus are meant to represent individuals, or a spectrum. His helper guy shifts one of the balls when Bill mentions asexuality. But we’ve got “M” and “F” up in the corners, so this is just the Kinsey scale, and asexuality simply does not fit on that model. Likewise you can’t give a point on a continuum whose poles are M and F where someone who’s agender would be situated. Do we mark someone who’s bigender twice (you can’t put one data point on there twice though), or in the middle? – if the latter, does that mean they’re half man/half woman? No, because they may refuse that identification as horribly reductive and wrong. But it’s utterly unclear from the way everything is being framed.

Then there’s the fact that Bill is talking about sex (the bottom line on the abacus with poles M and F) while discussing chromosomes. Because he’s right – biologically, there aren’t two sexes. There’s an array of genetic arrangements. However, sex is no more “pure” a scientific category than gender is. After all, we sex-type babies at birth, but we don’t require a genetic test first. So even setting gender aside, we still group people into a binary, based on visual cues, that does not necessarily match a person’s genetic sex as determined by chromosomes. Furthermore, that (social rather than chromosomal) “M or F” sense of sex is a binary, rather than a spectrum. We might talk about chromosomal sex as on a spectrum, as I think Bill intends – only i) it’s not obvious to me that, say, XXY is in-between XX and XY (i.e. that anything else is relevantly “in-between,” except that we fallaciously think of this as a binary already; ii) given that, we need an argument for making XX and XY the poles, and iii) given that we do not sex-identify infants by chromosome, we need a reason as to why XX counts as female and XY as male. That is, we haven't been given a reason to link the two that isn’t spuriously depending on the binary. Hell, the International Olympic Committee makes (or at least did a few years back) women take hormone-blocking drugs if they have testosterone that’s “too high.” And these aren’t all going to be women whose chromosomes aren’t XX. It’s just a biological quirk, and one that the IOC takes issue with in determining who can compete under their restrictive categorization of sex.

And if each ball doesn’t represent an individual after all, but merely the variety of people who exist, then I’m left wondering what this abacus is doing setting up a continuum between M and F. Look, everybody talks about sex and gender and orientation as a continuum or a spectrum. But that’s handwavy, because defining it by those poles does not work. It’s a holdover from the assumption that sex, gender, orientation, and expression were all parts of the same thing, and all a binary. Those assumptions haven’t completely gone away, they’ve just found new life in talk of a spectrum, without defining what that’s supposed to be (absent covert reference/grounding to the binary). I’d submit that talking about this stuff like an electron cloud would be so much better than calling it a spectrum or continuum, but that’s a whole other post. 

So Bill: If you design an experiment using this operationalization of the subject matter, you’re going to get some weird-ass results, because sex and gender and orientation and expression, this whole damn thing? It’s not out there in the world, waiting for us to find it. Nothing scientific ever really is. Our concepts are always part of how we do science, and never more so than when sciencing about sexuality.

And that, incidentally, is why you cannot do science without philosophy. Now go read philosophy of science (start with Helen Longino, then maybe Elisabeth Lloyd).