Ulty

Great stuff. This should be required reading for anyone who struggles to understand gender identity issues (which is just about everyone) and anyone who thinks that defining what is a man or a woman is super simple. This twitter thread is a scientific breakdown of the biological component of sex, showing that sex is indeed complicated, and not binary. Without even getting into the social structures of gender at all.

I had mine at a relatively young age (32) and have always been a pretty fast healer, but 72 hours was not nearly enough healing time. I was able to return to my desk job of course, but for at least a week, every step I walked gave me that little stomach ache that you get when you get kicked in the balls. I wore a jock strap to keep things from being unnecessarily jostled for at least a couple weeks, until the stitches fully healed. However, I will say that sitting on the couch with an ice pack (or a bag of frozen peas) on your balls is an underrated pleasure. I might actually recommend the occasional lounge sesh with ice on your nuts even if you haven't had a recent vasectomy.

Not just a contractual issue, but also likely policy violations and legal issues. I don't know UNL's specific policies, but I would bet they have something about prohibiting romantic relationships where there is a power disparity, such as professor/student, supervisor/employee, or coach/athlete. Also because of that power disparity, it could become a Title IX issue if there was ever a question of consent, harassment, or quid pro quo.

This is moreso an exclusion/inclusion issue. I know jack $h!t about camera technology and lighting, but there are quite a few examples of technological conveniences that do not work as well for people of color as they do for white people. For example, those automatic faucets and soap dispensers in many public restrooms: many of them do not work well with darker skin. This technology was probably not intentionally designed to be racist, but it is a distinct possibility that the programmers or engineers or whoever makes these things were not thinking about how their censors would recognize skin tones different than their own. Check out this article: "Bigotry Encoded: Racial Bias in Technology". A few interesting paragraphs: Now in the case of the Google Pixel ad...of course we all look like crap in crappy lighting, and if you have darker skin you "blend in" to a darker environment when a photo is taken. That doesn't mean that the sun or our light bulbs are racist. However, if they are trying to enhance technology so that photographing people of color can be clearer and easier, why is that a bad thing? What does this say about people who have a negative reaction to this kind of accessibility? edit: Enhance, I believe your point is about the tricky advertising, using lighter skinned models in the sunshine versus darker skinned folks in bad lighting. If their tech is as good as they say, that would be a great thing, but show an actual comparison. Is that what you are saying?

Not much to explain...usually when people are complaining about cancel culture, they are often just mad that someone might have to face social consequences for being an a$shole, instead of actually reflecting upon their behavior. Pleeeeease don't use this to start arguing about cancel culture. The last couple pages of this thread have been a pretty good dialogue about the use of the n-word.

Let's make it simple, guys. Don't say the n-word. Full stop. Just don't. If you feel like you must reference it for some reason, there is no need to say the actual word. Just say "the n-word." I used to listen to the odd Joe Rogan snippet on Youtube, and one of the most fascinating guests that I ever heard was a black man named Darryl Davis who had infiltrated and befriended a KKK group. I don't really think Joe Rogan is racist, but he has a wide variety of characters on his show and has an amazing tolerance for allowing guests to say ignorant $h!t on his show as well (in addition to very intelligent, progressive, and fascinating guests as well). And he says stupid $h!t himself. I don't know the full context of when and how he used the n-word in the past, but I can guarantee you that it was unnecessary for him to use it, and regardless of his intent, the use of that word is harmful. I'm more interested in what he does moving forward, if this whole thing can be used as an educational launching pad for further understanding the dynamics of the word, language itself, and race relations. But more likely, a lot of @ssholes will probably just complain about cancel culture and not even try to learn anything.

Ya know...it's a really cool feeling, liberating actually, when you stop giving a $h!t about what other people do or how other people identify. If someone is disgusted or confused because they see a transgender person, that's their own f*&king problem. If you (not you specifically JJ, but y'all in general) don't worry about what is in someone's pants or in their bedroom if it doesn't impact you, then you might find life more pleasant. Even if you can't understand or accept the messy complications of gender dynamics, it's not harming anyone just to leave them alone. And most transgender folks and others in the LGBTQ+ community are reasonable people and just want to live their lives (sure some can be unreasonable, but that goes in all communities). So you can still be an uncaring prick but yet be cool at the same time, right? It's when people (I'll go ahead and say Republicans, mostly) go out of their way to marginalize or demean these folks and try to regulate/legislate the sexual activities and bodies of others that it becomes a problem. That's where the fight is.

Huh. These are actually some very fascinating articles. If someone were to read these articles with a preconceived notion of outrage and disgust, they will likely walk away from these articles with even more outrage and disgust. However, starting from a place of open-mindedness and intellectual curiosity, a reader will come away with a better understanding of these concepts and more knowledge (and likely even more questions). These are all very valid and reasonable questions and comments about age dynamics and norms in our society. Drinking age, retirement age, and other age-related statuses are determined by lawmakers and companies, often using statistical data, sometimes possibly arbitrary. This would be an interesting discussion, maybe someone here can do some research to enlighten us about how these age thresholds were determined, and there can be a separate thread about it. But of course none of this is at all germane to the topic of gender identity.

I'm not sure if this is even a serious question, but I'll play along. Age and gender identity are completely different things. Apples and oranges. Age is a number based on a date which you are born. It is a concrete data point. We all progress in age in a linear fashion every single day (unless you are Benjamin Button). Having said that, ageism is a very real thing, and people often make assumptions about someone else's age based on stereotypes that may or may not be true. There are legal protections against age discrimination for this reason. But, you can't factually say you are a different age than you actually are. Now, even if you believe that sex is an either/or scenario (even biological sex is not a black and white issue, there are several different chromosome combinations), sex is different than gender. That is the first thing that people often have trouble grasping. Sex assigned at birth is a physical/biological thing. Gender (including who you personally identify, and how you express that identity) is a social construct, often based on traditional norms and expectations. What science are you talking about? Biology? As I mentioned above, biologically there are a variety of chromosomal combinations, not just XX and XY, and some people are born with hormones and internal plumbing that does not match their external hardware. The biology is not as simple as you think it is. Additionally, there is a whole field of social science that explores the concepts of gender dynamics and sexuality. Our understanding of it is continually evolving. So yeah, the science does support the notion of a spectrum of gender identities. Nope. There are a lot of species that have been known to change their sex. There are a lot of species that engage in homosexual activities. Nature is pretty wild. Who has been telling you these things?

This is where a lot of people are, but not everyone is as honest about it as you. But the truth is, a lot of this information is new, and uncomfortable, and quickly evolving. We all make mistakes when it comes to gendering and pronouns, and even having the capacity to understand. I work in a DEI field, and it is hard for me to keep up, so it is going to naturally be difficult for folks who live and work in other walks of life. I took a Safe Zone training in 2018 (a training program to encourage inclusivity and awareness of LGBTQ+ issues), and then took it again last month, and a lot of the concepts, terms, and language have already changed. I try to be very intentional with my language but in a conversation with our school's LGBTQ Coordinator a couple weeks ago I said "guys" in reference to a group of people. I called myself on it, and we both laughed because it was an unintentional mistake. She admitted that she still uses the wrong language at times too, and it is her job. It happens. We just need to be willing to learn and grow as humans, and realize that we all make mistakes and nobody is perfect. Excellent post.

Sexuality, gender identity, sexual orienation, romantic attraction, and gender expression all exist on a spectrum, and none of them are as simple as male/female. A lot of these things are difficult to grasp for those of us (which to say almost all of us) who grew up understanding these concepts as a simple dichotomy. But the world is more nuanced and complicated than that. It takes a willingness to try to understand society and your fellow human to really open up to these ideas.

Do you remember what Jimmy the Greek said? Racism is built upon applying crude stereotypes toward an entire population. You're throwing around stereotypes about black athletes so casually, then using your stereotype to draw some gross conclusions about both whites and blacks.

Wow! This is old school Jimmy the Greek type of racism. Jesus.

Hold up, this calls for a few questions... Who told him this? Who conducts this grading? How does the point system work? Where can we find this data? Please explain this. This is inflammatory stuff that needs some critical thinking, and evidence, to go along with it. I couldn't find a listing of NCAA track & field coaches, so I looked up the individual Big Ten schools (hardly a representative sample of the entire college landscape, I know). Of the 13 men's programs (couldn't find a men's team for Northwestern), some of which had the women's and men's team under the same head coach, I found two black men, one black woman, one white woman, and nine white men. I'm sure (I hope) the assistant pools are more diverse, and a broader look at more schools at various divisions may give different data...but are white coaches really being discriminated against?

A 6-6 record is where the program needs to be?

They showed this same footage (although parts of it in a slightly different order) in the second post-credits clip after NWH.

I did, but it was a month after it came out, during a daytime matinee, so there wasn't much of a crowd. I always thought it was weird to clap at a movie, but the excitement and energy from the hardcore fans this weekend was honestly kind of cool. Especially since I haven't been in a theater for nearly 2 years.

I saw it over the weekend: our theater must have been filled with a lot of hardcore fans, there were no less than four times that the crowd applauded and cheered during the movie. I've never been to any movie where that has happened before. I am frequently amazed and impressed by Marvel's ability to cleverly write and produce movies with so many characters woven in to the story and so much stuff going on, without having it feel like a bloated disaster (like the other Spider-Man 3, for example). I don't know how they keep pulling it off.

So if Nebraska plays against Adrian's KSU team in a bowl game next year, which team commits the most errors in the last two minutes of the game? Kidding aside, remember when Russell Wilson was kind of okay at NC State but then had an amazing transfer year at Wisconsin? I can see AM doing something similar if he has a good supporting cast around him at KSU.

That is still better than our win percentage this year...

If you are referring to our conversation a while back about the old man who was subject to cancel culture or some such thing, I never accused you of lying, but I did ask a lot of questions to implore some critical thinking about the subject, because there were a lot of things that did not make sense to me. That is how conversations work. I believe knapplc is asking similar questions to try to understand these incidents you are referring to. I am interested as well. I work on a college campus and routinely see potential challenges to issues that we would typically consider matters of free speech or academic freedom. It happens to on the liberal side and conservative side alike. However, there are students, faculty members, general counsels, and civil rights investigators who give a very critical eye to all of these incidents when they occur. It is very common for people to have a misunderstanding of what is actually happening and what is and isn’t allowed to happen at a public university. What knapplc is asking for are details so we can apply some critical thought. Feel free to engage!

Like this guy?