A Right Strawy Post...

Martin Luther did not care for the Epistle of James, and once referred to it as a "right strawy epistle."  Well, when I saw gender fascist's "Cristan" Williams' latest attack on Ashley Love, those words came to mind.  Not exactly in the way that Luther meant them, but because Mr. Williams is up to his usual trick of positing straw arguments.  BTW, didn't he declare the transsexual separatist movement dead?  So, why is he still so obsessed with it?  


Anyway, Mr. Williams makes his usual ad hominem attacks, and then issues the following challenge to Ashley Love:

MY CHALLENGE TO ASHLEY LOVE:

1. Produce objective evidence proving that Virginia Prince used the word “transgender” in the 1960s or 70s.
2. Produce objective evidence proving that Virginia Prince used the term “transgenderist” before 1978.
3. Produce the objective evidence which led Love to conclude that the historical record has been faked.
4. Produce objective evidence proving that “transgender” wasn’t used in its modern usage back in 1974.
5. Produce objective evidence proving that the term “transgender” is only 20 years old instead of at least 42 years old.

I suspect that Ashley Love will again, quite properly, decline to engage Mr. Williams.  But, what the heck, I am more than willing to expose him for the fraud that he really is.  This is the same straw arguments he has  made before, and here again are some responses dealing with this drivel:

1.  An irrelevant, and dishonest question.  The issue is not a person, nor a word, but is a concept.   In the 1960's and 70's Prince was pushing his anti-homosexual and anti-transsexual views.  He wanted to protect his followers from their wives, who would he knew would be upset if they thought their husbands might be attracted to men, or worse, interested in changing sex.  
2. Prince's use of the term "transgenderist" was a major contributing factor in the rise of the silliness we now know as "transgender."  He began pushing the idea that men who had fantasies of being women could live "en femme" full time.
3. The so-called "historic" record seems to only exist for Mr. Williams.  His sources are almost all obscure publications that are not readily available.  That, in and of itself, does not provide objective proof.  But then again, Mr. Williams has not really provided anything that could remotely be called "objective" or "proof."  He has provided links to PDFs of what he claims are scans of documents.  The problem is, there does not seem to be any independent objective confirmation of the originals.  Now, this leads to Mr. Williams engaging in a classic dishonest tactic in debating....effectively demanding that his opponents "prove a negative."  He never really proves his claims, but instead relies on demanding that his opponents prove that they do not exist.  That, of course, is both impossible, and dishonest. 
4. In this one, we actually see him demand that someone prove a negative.  Again, highly dishonest.  He has never proven that it was used in that manner.  Of course, this completely obscures the fact that his point is completely irrelevant.  It is possible, though not remotely proven, that there might have been some who used the term in some manner that resembles the current use.  So what?  That is not remotely a relevant issue to the debate, which is actually about a movement that began to really take hold in the 1990's, and which has, quite honestly, resulted in exactly what Ashley Love has asserted.
5. Language rarely springs into use suddenly.  Whether or not someone used a word in an isolated context 42 years ago has nothing to do with how it is used today.  42 years ago, the accepted view was that homosexuality was totally a choice.  Even longer in the past, the phrase "woman trapped in a man's body" was used to describe homosexuals.  But no one would insist that either of these are remotely accurate today.  Again, the issue is not about when a word was coined, or how it was used 42 years ago, but is instead about people being forced to accept a label that they are presently uncomfortable with and being forced to agree with concepts that they presently find objectionable.

Once again, Mr. Williams shows that he is dishonest, and has no respect for the rights of others.