It's entirely possible that transwomen commit sexual violence more frequently than other males. But the data you cite don't tell us anything about transwomen in general; they only tell us about transwomen in prison. It could be the case, for instance, that transwomen commit non-sex crimes at lower rates than other males but sex crimes at the same rates. It could also be that males in prison for sex crimes are more likely to claim a trans identity in the hopes of getting transferred to a woman's prison, either for nefarious reasons (access to women in prison) or self-protection (recognition of the higher risk that other male prisoners might commit violence against them). Both of those situations are consistent with the data you cite. It's just hard to know what fraction of transwomen commit sex crimes, because our estimates of their population are so uncertain.
That said, I share your concern about transwomen in women's prisons. My preferred solution is to construct separate wings of men's prisons for any males at higher risk of violence from other prisoners. Transwomen, feminine gay men, disabled men, and older men can all be housed in those wings. This solution balances women's safety with transwomen's safety and has the additional benefit of making other groups safer.
Any data could be explained in any number of ways. Seems _likely_ that people are caught for crimes at roughly the same rates whether they’re trans or not. If two countries have 50% of their transwomen prisoners serving time for sex offenses, compared to a much smaller rate for men, I think it’s most likely …meaningful.
Regardless: separate wings of men’s prisons sounds like a goodidea, although it does sound expensive, so it might be hard to find the political support.
I originally started typing out a response that went something like, "According to Blanchard, most transwomen in the Western world are AGP, and AGP transwomen appear to have higher than average IQs. IQ is negatively correlated with certain types of crime, so it could be that AGP transwomen are very unlikely to commit certain crimes but about as likely as other males (or only slightly less likely) to commit sexual crimes." But in the process of writing this argument, I figured it'd be worthwhile to investigate the relationship between different types of crime and IQ. I came across this study that demonstrates that sexual criminals on average have lower IQs than violent non-sexual criminals: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.469.6742&rep=rep1&type=pdf. So there's definitely something strange going on given that the imprisoned subset of a higher-than-average-intelligence group* are more likely to have committed crimes that are typically more likely to be committed by individuals of lower intelligence.
Regarding the expense of separate wings, I wonder how much it would actually cost. How many prisons already have multiple wings? How much would it cost to move the prisoners around so that the ones of highest risk of violence all get put in one wing together? I honestly don't know the answers to these questions.
Very interesting information, especially about the typical intelligence of various groups. I really don’t know what to think, but I appreciate you sharing this and it’s given me even more to puzzle over and think about.
I do think the problem of AGP, _plus_ really easy access to extreme porn (_plus_ easy access to people online who share your niche interests) in recent decades is one source of increasing numbers of people who identify as “transwomen.” In the 80s or 90s, doctors had decided transition wasn’t helpful and the mid-century trend among those demanding transition. had more or less burned itself out. The internet brought it back.
The escalation of all types of kink—weird old men dressing up as girls or even babies in diapers — is really hard to miss. The stories about guys with a pregnancy or breastfeeding or menstruation fetish, who try to “borrow” other people’s babies or who root through bins for used tampons, is hard to miss. A frequent obsession with very young partners is hard to miss. Does anyone want people with those niche interests around their kids? No, and it is unrelated to the people’s inner sense of “gender.”
I agree with Blanchard’s typology. A Blair White has a completely different life course and set of motivations than a Karen White. They almost couldn’t _be_ more different.
And now we’ve got this third category too, of young people using gender expression as their idiom of distress.
Could this be any messier?
Could it be any more obvious that _most_ people with gender dysphoria have more going on than a simple cosmetic “mismatch” between their body and the way they’d like to look? If it were a simple problem of outer appearance, we wouldn’t see so many psychiatric comorbidities in so many of these folks.
Easy answer to your IQ theory…. Transwomen are far more likely to wxpwrience childhood sexual abuse. Those who experience sexual child abuse are far more likely to commit sexual crimes.
While it is true that anyone can say anything alongside whatever statistics they want to present, what this commenter is pointing out is that you are presenting a conclusion that does not follow from your data.
You take pains to be reasonable, and since this a common mistake, I assume it to be a simple error.
I'm a fan of your writing, but it feels like here you are starting with the conclusion and back-filling the argument (which happens all the time too, from the highest courts to the lowliest YouTube comment.)
Except that I didn’t start with the conclusion at all.
If you’d asked me “what would you expect if you saw data sets from two large nations?”
I would have said “I expect ‘transwomen’ will offend at much the same rates as men or perhaps a little lower.”
My prediction is based on informal observations that a lot of transwomen seem to retain male patterns of speech, behavior, entitlement, bullying toward women, etc. So I’d predict their criminality retained male patterns too.
But if you asked whether I’d expect them to be _more_ likely to commit sexual crimes than men, I would have guessed “no.” Pretty confidently too.
That would have been my guess despite seeing some very weird posts with sexual undertones online. There’s a genre, for example, where some “transwomen” triumphantly post pics or videos of themselves in women’s bathrooms, which is very weird behavior but not criminal behavior.
So my impression was “there are some weirdos in any group of people, but those outliers shouldn’t form my view of the group.”
That’s usually a good thing to keep in mind right?
So if I’d had to guess, I would have said “Male bodied people retain the same patterns of criminality, and there are also some rather harmless weirdos posting bathroom selfies, but they are probably locked up for sexual offenses at very similar rates to men.”
But my guess was incorrect.
This was so surprising it seemed worth writing about, especially because any decent, kind, not-bigoted woman is supposed to assume only good intent from “transwomen” in their spaces.
Fair enough, and I completely accept your reasoning and good faith. I just think you need more or different evidence to say that you were shown to be "incorrect".
Yeah I can see your point. I can see where it might not look like a lot.
I guess part of it for me is the knowledge that it would be possible but extremely unlikely for 60/125 to just be “random variation” among a sample where the true base rate is the regular male sexual offending rate of about 10-20%.
What is the likelihood of picking 60/125 sexual offenders from a sample where the true base rate is about 15%? Less likely than you might think.
If you find an online calculator that does these calculations, most will tell you the probability is “0” or less than the number of decimal points they round to (six places or so).
But if you find a calculator that will do the math to the required number of decimal places, you will see that the likelihood of this happening is a number preceded by a decimal point and 13 zeros.
If you do it twice (UK and US data both) the likelihood of it happening twice is that number, that decimal point preceded by 13 zeros, squared. Just incalculably tiny.
Or, as the less sophisticated calculators will tell you, the likelihood is zero.
It is not going on a limb to say there indeed appears to be a different rate of sexual offending among transwomen.
It’s possible to say with some confidence that those numbers are meaningful. I don’t know what the meaning is, exactly, or why it should be true, but among the subset of criminally-inclined people (because those are the ones who cause society all the trouble) transwomen seem more likely to commit sexual crimes than men.
Even if TW offended “only” at the rates of men, there would definitely a problem with self-ID and granting access to women’s spaces where the fantasies of the small subset of unwell people can be lived out publicly and inflicted on the nonconsenting.
If the rate of sexual offending is even higher (and it appears to be a lot higher) this is a real problem. It’s wrong to ignore or minimize the concerns of women who fear “perverts in the bathroom.” There may be “perverts in the bathroom.”
I should add, this is not at all my primary interest in the topic. It would be much more convenient for me and my interests around the trans issue (which are mainly related to kids, adolescents and young adults with ROGD) if these few unwell people didn’t pose a problem for women.
I felt bad when I realized that there indeed seems to be something to the complaints of some women that “It’s a fetish.” I’d been ignoring or minimizing that concern, because it’s not been _my_ personal concern. I don’t personally have a great fear of this.
It’s not a fetish for all, obviously, but it’s a fetish for some (the Wii spa guy perhaps?), and the concerns of women and girls who don’t want to be subjected to that type of behavior in their private spaces should be taken seriously by all of us.
It’s especially hard in a social context where we’re all encouraged to agree “transwomen are women.” No, they aren’t. I can politely play along if someone is otherwise law-abiding and socially appropriate. But it seems like another level of abuse entirely to the women who have genuine concerns to insist that this small subset of men use self-ID to get what they want from unwilling women.
Women need to be able to describe things in ways that seem true to them. The guy in Wi Spa was not a woman. He’s just a predator, and women need to be free to say that. Women also need a means for keeping someone like that out of single-sex spaces. The solution is not to say “most people aren’t predators and so this isn’t a concern.” That’s not how we handle other concerns.
Are you familiar with Natalie Wynn (best known as the You Tuber "Contrapoints")?
She's a trans woman who did her transition publicly through her videos (and although it's an obvious theme, it's not the only theme). She's a sophisticated thinker with a philosophy background, and she's the best person I've seen who explains most of the cultural issues surrounding the issue.
I highly recommend her videos if for no other reason than the artistry and humor, but any time I see anything about related issues I ask myself "what would contrapoints say about this? I have a sense she would have a better response than mine.
Here, as you indicate, it's not random because the incidences of committing particular crimes, being arrested for them, going to jail for them etc, are non-random at each step and not very well counted anyway. That's why you can't take these stats alone and draw any general conclusions.
(My personal issue is not LGBT related other than being an ally, but I am interested in criminal law and related policy. )
I've been waiting for someone to write this article in a shareable form that doesn't come off as paranoid and hysterical so I can share it and hopefully help some of my "good progressive" friends to think more critically about this issue. Thank you!
A couple years ago, I was explaining to a good friend, some of the issues around gender ideology, including that transIDed males were being transferred to women's prisons; I was highlighting the fact that sexual predators aren't likely to have a problem "identifying as female" if it gives them access to victims. She turned white and said, "this sounds like my brother" who, I didn't know until this conversation, had been in and out of prison for sexual assault and who liked to wear dresses when he wasn't incarcerated. Have we really come to believe that those men--who likely had difficult childhoods and do indeed deserve "fair treatment"--should be allowed access to spaces that are designed to offer safety from assault for women and children? Have we forgotten the fetishes of flashing and intimidating those physically weaker than than the offender? How do we not see that by throwing the door open to any one who claims to be a woman normalizes men coming and going and puts women and children in danger? The reasonable transsexuals that I follow seem to totally understand this; anyone with a penis who is insistent on access to women's spaces is suspect in my opinion.
Honestly, if they did and were decent people, wouldn't they campaign for trans people to use the restroom consistent with their birth sex? I don't understand why progressives think "transwomen's" feelings not only surpass women's feelings, but also their physical safety. Other than the fact that men always win.
It did work until trans identities became more common. I want the spaces by sex but you know every post op or passing transwoman is going to complain about it: “what, so you want Blair White in the men’s room?”
My first instincts was to think that you are about to be cancelled for stating such an obvious point- which makes me really sad for the state of discourse. I truly don't understand how women are being treated so appallingly in the name of inclusivity. I'm not a feminist but this looks like old fashioned misogyny in high heels
It is misogyny. Plain and simple. We are currently living in a time where someone with a penis is demanding access to womens spaces and we are expected to just go along with it. It’s shameful and frightening.
You women thougt you had carved out safe spaces and places for youselves, but guess what? We men are now women too! We can enter, we can dominate, we can win the prizes at the competitions you foolishly thought were yours alone.
Also, I wish you (who know better) would stop using the Orwellian language of the cult.
There is no such thing as a "transwoman".
There are only men who wish they were women, and who go to extreme lengths of drugs and surgery to pass as women.
But they are not, and never can be, women.
"Transition" from one sex to another is a biological impossibility for mammals.
This is a plain fact of science. Mammalian sex is encoded at the cellular level. No amount of drugs or surgery can change it.
The cult has been extremely successful in forcing its Orwellian use of language on the rest of us. For example, "sex assigned at birth" is an absurdity. Sex is not "assigned" at birth, it is DETERMINED at birth, by a procedure (looking at the newborn's genitals) that has a 99.98% success rate.
So please, those of us who know the truth, let's stop going along with the cult's indoctrination and language.
I put it in quotation marks. My preferred term is trans-identified male, or trans-identified female but (1) I’m not sure everyone know what those terms mean and (2) I want to engage with people not alienate them. Blair White and other people I respect use that term for themselves. I don’t see the problem with the term “transwoman” other than it sometimes confuses people. I do see a problem with the mantra “transwomen are women” because it erases a lot of complexity.
"Blonde woman" means a woman who is blonde. "Transwoman", by the same etymology, means a woman who is trans. But there is no such thing as a woman who is trans. There are only men who want to be women, but are not.
So using the term "transwoman", with or without quotation marks, validates the lie. That is the whole point of the trans cultists insisting that everyone be "polite" to them, and repeat their lies back to them. If we do it, we have lost before we have begun.
Yeah but “fireman” doesn’t mean a man who is fire and “mailman” doesn’t mean a man who is mail. (And yes I know those are outdated terms but the point remains.)
The word “transwoman” (meaning “a male who has adopted that label, usually because they wish to appear more feminine”) doesn’t hurt me any. We just need to have a common understanding what those terms mean. I’ll never agree that “transwoman” is a type of woman.
Also: trans activists can “demand” politeness all they want, but it’s completely separate from what I choose to do. I’ll be polite to other people if I think it’s right, regardless of whether some twerp thinks they are “making me” do it.
I’m not too hung up on words if we can agree what they mean and they don’t contribute to confusion.
I too have objected to the absurdity of sex "assigned" at birth, but would propose sex "observed" at birth. Although where does that leave intersex individuals?
I will simply comment with my own experience here, because I think the liberal compulsion to reflexively label as “racism”, “transphobia” etc anything that doesn’t neatly fit the utopian views they hold is simplistic, unintelligent and just plain terrible for us as a society.
30 years ago, long before “being trans” was a la mode, I was good friends with a woman-in-the making who gradually transitioned through surgery to recreate the exterior of a woman as much as is possible for a middle-aged man, because “he was in the wrong body”. This man — because that’s how I always perceived him, even though in conversation I made great effort to use the feminine pronoun in order to not hurt anyone’s feelings — proved always and unfailingly to be nothing but male. S/he reacted violently to verbal arguments with strangers, became first a prostitute and then a madam, imprisoning women from another country by confiscating their passports and forcing them to prostitute themselves for him/her. There was none of the greater agreeableness of a typical woman, and much more of a tendency towards interruption, physical solutions to disagreements and even pride in all of the above.
That early experience, along with my ongoing interactions with supposed “trans youth” in my professional work has left me completely unconvinced that people who believe themselves to be “trans” are in any deep and fundamental way “in the wrong body”. In my experience thus far, they continue to manifest the psychology and persona more typical of their actual sex.
I feel pity for these people who are now, through cultural influences so pervasive everywhere, convinced that if they happen to have a preference for something that isn’t entirely stereotypical for their sex, irreversible surgical and hormonal alterations are the solution.
Back in my high school years I recall a man in long blond hair and a pink suede mini skirt and white go-go boots who attracted no attention in his work place, as people were used to seeing him that way and that was that. How much easier it would be if everyone felt the freedom to simply express themselves as they wish, the way he did, instead of through profound self harm cramming themselves into narrowly defined predetermined categories.
Your great and thoughtful writing is much appreciated!
Thanks very much for sharing your experiences and for your kind comments.
I agree it would be better if everyone felt free to express themselves however they wish, regardless of their sex, stereotypes, what pronouns they used, or the type of body they have?
hm, well thats good i suppose haha! i would be extra careful to not reveal anything they can link to your real name etc, as if you gain enough attention they *will* go after you!. I remember finding some good threads on this issue before, I believe I have a bookmark buried somewhere with a huge list of transgender sex crimes, I did manage to find this link which I remember was good:
Women are human is a very ... “political” site, but the information seems to be accurate. I think anyone who doubts the nature of these crimes, or thinks they’re overstated, or whatever, should check out that site.
A lot of mental illness among this small number of predators. A lot of violence. A lot of sex crimes.
I think there is such a thing as being too compassionate or too fair and in those cases it harms instead of helps. I wonder if the too compassionate or too fair has nothing to do with compassion or fairness but is instead some kind of neurosis in us. It feels self destructive.
Yes. Such an interesting thought. What would “too compassionate” be?
I think it would be “compassionate at someone else’s expense” — such as feeling sorry for poor, oppressed transwomen being stuck in men’s prisons, so you move them to the women’s without noting or acknowledging the obvious problems with that.
It’s self-destructive yes — or in the case of people making these decisions that affect women prisoners, destructive toward others.
With regards to the prison issue, in fact with regard to ALL women only spaces.
I think the only solution is to make men’s prisons safer for men who don’t conform to society standards of masculinity.
Whether it’s a separate wing for trans prisoners or private body guards to make them safer among the rest of the population, the only solution is to keep men a.k.a. males in with other men.
The problem with compromise is the men ALWAYS win and the women ALWAYS lose.
We got to the situation we’re in by inches. You can see it in the language used, first it was transwomen are transwomen we use “she and her” pronouns because it makes them feel better.
Then it was trans women or women and you have to use she and her pronouns.
Now, Not only are transwomen women they’re actually female and if you don’t use she/her pronouns you’re literally murdering them.
It’s a tale as old as time, we give an inch they take a mile.
Also, it could be that they’re unsafe in men’s prisons not because they’re trans, but because it seems a lot of them are arrested for being paedophiles and paedophiles do not do well in prison.
I just learned about them, so I haven't read any papers yet. I did see this from Dembroff though:
"I told my plumber that gender is when people expect you to live up to their ideas of what men and women ought to be, and that sex is how much your body looks like their idea of a man or their idea of a woman. She didn’t have any trouble following."
I think there’s a very important consideration not touched on in your post, which I believe undermines your conclusion that because trans women in prison seem disproportionately likely to have been convicted of sex crimes, this has ramifications for non-trans women in single-sex public spaces. That is the nature of sex crimes themselves, which represent a big umbrella of convictions, as listed in your post.
Most sex crimes take place between people who know each other. The vast majority of rapes, sexual assaults, and the entire category of sex crimes involving minors take place between parties known to each other - domestic partners or casual romantic encounters, family friends, fathers or uncles or older siblings or other male relatives. You include people convicted of the possession of child porn in your list, despite the fact that someone in prison for that might never have touched a child in their lives. This is not to say these crimes aren’t serious and harmful - just to say that the line from “trans women are disproportionately convicted of sex crimes” to “therefore women in public bathrooms are in danger” is an extremely faint line, when you take into account how sex crimes tend to happen. If trans women are (1) proven to be disproportionately likely to commit stranger-danger assaults, (2) proven more likely to offend *after* identifying as and transitioning to women such that they could believably use a women’s restroom pre-conviction, and (3) public attacks on cis women by trans women are provably on the rise as opposed to just more likely to be covered in the news because they’re controversial, then I think this argument would hold more water.
I think my point is a very limited (and true) point, especially if you consider the examples I gave of bad outcomes:
I’m not even saying “therefore women in public bathrooms are in danger” -- I’m saying the issue is more complicated than a simple “they just want to pee.”
The assumption has been that “transwomen” are some kind of “women” or “honorary women” or “woman-like” -- to the extent that they pose no danger to anyone. But on the contrary, it appears that “transwomen” are if anything, as a group, more likely to sexually offend than men.
That’s concerning. If we don’t let men into women’s spaces, why would we let another group of people, who are more likely to be a problem, into women’s spaces? What could be the justification?
Either way, we’re talking about a very small number of predators.
But are you suggesting that the data itself might be misleading? You can formulate a hypothesis, sure, but then you need to test it. Or you need to find some existing data that supports it.
Someday I’ll look more into the comorbid sexual issues of people with AGP and share what I learn. Just eyeballing it, there appear to be a disproportionate number of crimes involving children. I think it’s already pretty well established that people with AGP often have other fetishes, such as flashing / exposing themselves. I’ll look into it sometime.
It's not that I think the data is misleading. I think it simply can't tell us that much.
I'm also having some trouble grasping your argument. You say the conclusion is just "It's more complicated than 'trans women just want to use the restroom,'" and that you make no claim that non-trans women are in any particular danger based on your evidence. But the information you provided is (1) We invented single-sex bathrooms to protect women from sexual predators, (2) Trans women in prison seem to be more likely to have been convicted of sexual crimes, and (3) ....Therefore the issue of trans women in bathrooms is "complicated"? This feels like a hedge to me. Why bring up rates of sexual predation if what you're saying is just "It's complicated"? It seems self-evident to me that it's complicated. I don't know what conclusion I'm supposed to take from the information given other than "The narrative about the equal harmlessness of all trans women is wrong because trans women pose a real threat of sexual harm."
I agree with you that the issue is complicated. I disagree that that conclusion leads from that evidence. In the spirit of that, I'm trying to offer further complicating factors - for example, the fact that the disparate nature of sex crimes means you can't extrapolate a specific threat of harm from a long list of offenses.
I'd also offer the complicating fact that it's not actually clear bathrooms were originally sex-segregated to guard women from sexual predators. They're a Victorian invention, as I understand - women's public bathrooms were instituted long after men's because women were considered simply too delicate to leave the house, and the lack of privacy inherent in women urinating in public, particularly in a mixed-gender space, was horrifying to cultural sensibilities at the time. The institution of women's restrooms was an acknowledgment of cultural shifts that brought the woman's "sphere" out of the home and more into public life; the segregation was because literally every aspect of life in that time, for a certain class, was expected to be sex-segregated.
So, it's not that I'm flatly disagreeing with you that there's a potential problem here, or that I don't think the issue is worth discussing. It's that I think the facts you provided to support the only possible conclusion one can take from your piece are not actually conclusive at all.
I’m not hedging. I’m saying some people who call themselves transwomen are predators, just like some men are predators, and if we maintain single-sex bathrooms for safety from men, then the simplistic liberal/progressive argument of “they just have to pee” is not adequate to settle the issue.
I didn’t make a simplistic blanket statement such as “women are in danger from transwomen in women’s bathrooms” because it sounds about as over-the-top as saying “women are in danger from shark attacks whilst ocean swimming.”
Technically true, I guess, but there are a lot of questions left to be answered such as:
HOW much in danger (from transwomen or shark attacks)?
And then
WHAT do we do about it, in policy?
If you disagree with that, or think that’s hedging, I guess you can go ahead and think that.
If you want to make an entirely different argument and claim that single-sex spaces are some prudish Victorian artifact that are no longer needed, I think you’ll find a lot of women and girls disagreeing with you.
It’s not that I disagree that they currently work for that purpose, or that there’s no good reason to maintain single-sex spaces - it’s that you *said*, in so many words, that that was *why they had been invented,* and I don’t think that’s true! It’s not good evidence for the point you are making if it isn’t true!
I don’t think we actually disagree on most of the underlying points here - but I feel like I’m trying to respond to the words you put on the page and keep being told that that’s not what you actually said, or that where you say something I disagree with or that isn’t true it doesn’t actually matter for your central point. I completely agree that the questions you pose are the important ones. I don’t think the evidence you presented gets to answers for them. That’s it.
> Ask yourself why women have often had spaces apart from men. Is it because all men are dangerous predators? Does any woman think that?
> No. It is because a very small number of men are dangerous predators. The existence of a very small number of dangerous predators has justified keeping all men out and maintaining single-sex spaces for women. Non-predatory men understand that they are not being personally excluded, insulted, or suspected of being predatory — all men are excluded to keep women safer from the predatory few.
You just made a very compelling argument for racial segregation.
This is obviously an older article now, but I'm curious as to how much of that BBC article you read? It gets into a lot of data analysis questions that quite potentially explain a lot of the gender differences that you are seeing in the UK statistics. But I also noticed that you didn't comment on most of these possible data explanations. Perhaps the BBC article has been updated since, but I just wanted to say that while there might be deeper issues of transgender identity that still need to be discussed/addressed, it seems a little disingenuous not to discuss the probable flaws in said data. Maybe give it another read?
It's entirely possible that transwomen commit sexual violence more frequently than other males. But the data you cite don't tell us anything about transwomen in general; they only tell us about transwomen in prison. It could be the case, for instance, that transwomen commit non-sex crimes at lower rates than other males but sex crimes at the same rates. It could also be that males in prison for sex crimes are more likely to claim a trans identity in the hopes of getting transferred to a woman's prison, either for nefarious reasons (access to women in prison) or self-protection (recognition of the higher risk that other male prisoners might commit violence against them). Both of those situations are consistent with the data you cite. It's just hard to know what fraction of transwomen commit sex crimes, because our estimates of their population are so uncertain.
That said, I share your concern about transwomen in women's prisons. My preferred solution is to construct separate wings of men's prisons for any males at higher risk of violence from other prisoners. Transwomen, feminine gay men, disabled men, and older men can all be housed in those wings. This solution balances women's safety with transwomen's safety and has the additional benefit of making other groups safer.
Any data could be explained in any number of ways. Seems _likely_ that people are caught for crimes at roughly the same rates whether they’re trans or not. If two countries have 50% of their transwomen prisoners serving time for sex offenses, compared to a much smaller rate for men, I think it’s most likely …meaningful.
Regardless: separate wings of men’s prisons sounds like a goodidea, although it does sound expensive, so it might be hard to find the political support.
I originally started typing out a response that went something like, "According to Blanchard, most transwomen in the Western world are AGP, and AGP transwomen appear to have higher than average IQs. IQ is negatively correlated with certain types of crime, so it could be that AGP transwomen are very unlikely to commit certain crimes but about as likely as other males (or only slightly less likely) to commit sexual crimes." But in the process of writing this argument, I figured it'd be worthwhile to investigate the relationship between different types of crime and IQ. I came across this study that demonstrates that sexual criminals on average have lower IQs than violent non-sexual criminals: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.469.6742&rep=rep1&type=pdf. So there's definitely something strange going on given that the imprisoned subset of a higher-than-average-intelligence group* are more likely to have committed crimes that are typically more likely to be committed by individuals of lower intelligence.
Regarding the expense of separate wings, I wonder how much it would actually cost. How many prisons already have multiple wings? How much would it cost to move the prisoners around so that the ones of highest risk of violence all get put in one wing together? I honestly don't know the answers to these questions.
*It appears that HSTS transwomen have typical intelligence on average, so transwomen are a mixture of a higher-than-average-intelligence majority and a minority of average intelligence (https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/smarter-than-the-average-bear/)
Very interesting information, especially about the typical intelligence of various groups. I really don’t know what to think, but I appreciate you sharing this and it’s given me even more to puzzle over and think about.
I do think the problem of AGP, _plus_ really easy access to extreme porn (_plus_ easy access to people online who share your niche interests) in recent decades is one source of increasing numbers of people who identify as “transwomen.” In the 80s or 90s, doctors had decided transition wasn’t helpful and the mid-century trend among those demanding transition. had more or less burned itself out. The internet brought it back.
The escalation of all types of kink—weird old men dressing up as girls or even babies in diapers — is really hard to miss. The stories about guys with a pregnancy or breastfeeding or menstruation fetish, who try to “borrow” other people’s babies or who root through bins for used tampons, is hard to miss. A frequent obsession with very young partners is hard to miss. Does anyone want people with those niche interests around their kids? No, and it is unrelated to the people’s inner sense of “gender.”
I agree with Blanchard’s typology. A Blair White has a completely different life course and set of motivations than a Karen White. They almost couldn’t _be_ more different.
And now we’ve got this third category too, of young people using gender expression as their idiom of distress.
Could this be any messier?
Could it be any more obvious that _most_ people with gender dysphoria have more going on than a simple cosmetic “mismatch” between their body and the way they’d like to look? If it were a simple problem of outer appearance, we wouldn’t see so many psychiatric comorbidities in so many of these folks.
Such a mess.
Easy answer to your IQ theory…. Transwomen are far more likely to wxpwrience childhood sexual abuse. Those who experience sexual child abuse are far more likely to commit sexual crimes.
While it is true that anyone can say anything alongside whatever statistics they want to present, what this commenter is pointing out is that you are presenting a conclusion that does not follow from your data.
You take pains to be reasonable, and since this a common mistake, I assume it to be a simple error.
I'm a fan of your writing, but it feels like here you are starting with the conclusion and back-filling the argument (which happens all the time too, from the highest courts to the lowliest YouTube comment.)
Except that I didn’t start with the conclusion at all.
If you’d asked me “what would you expect if you saw data sets from two large nations?”
I would have said “I expect ‘transwomen’ will offend at much the same rates as men or perhaps a little lower.”
My prediction is based on informal observations that a lot of transwomen seem to retain male patterns of speech, behavior, entitlement, bullying toward women, etc. So I’d predict their criminality retained male patterns too.
But if you asked whether I’d expect them to be _more_ likely to commit sexual crimes than men, I would have guessed “no.” Pretty confidently too.
That would have been my guess despite seeing some very weird posts with sexual undertones online. There’s a genre, for example, where some “transwomen” triumphantly post pics or videos of themselves in women’s bathrooms, which is very weird behavior but not criminal behavior.
So my impression was “there are some weirdos in any group of people, but those outliers shouldn’t form my view of the group.”
That’s usually a good thing to keep in mind right?
So if I’d had to guess, I would have said “Male bodied people retain the same patterns of criminality, and there are also some rather harmless weirdos posting bathroom selfies, but they are probably locked up for sexual offenses at very similar rates to men.”
But my guess was incorrect.
This was so surprising it seemed worth writing about, especially because any decent, kind, not-bigoted woman is supposed to assume only good intent from “transwomen” in their spaces.
Fair enough, and I completely accept your reasoning and good faith. I just think you need more or different evidence to say that you were shown to be "incorrect".
Yeah I can see your point. I can see where it might not look like a lot.
I guess part of it for me is the knowledge that it would be possible but extremely unlikely for 60/125 to just be “random variation” among a sample where the true base rate is the regular male sexual offending rate of about 10-20%.
What is the likelihood of picking 60/125 sexual offenders from a sample where the true base rate is about 15%? Less likely than you might think.
If you find an online calculator that does these calculations, most will tell you the probability is “0” or less than the number of decimal points they round to (six places or so).
But if you find a calculator that will do the math to the required number of decimal places, you will see that the likelihood of this happening is a number preceded by a decimal point and 13 zeros.
If you do it twice (UK and US data both) the likelihood of it happening twice is that number, that decimal point preceded by 13 zeros, squared. Just incalculably tiny.
Or, as the less sophisticated calculators will tell you, the likelihood is zero.
It is not going on a limb to say there indeed appears to be a different rate of sexual offending among transwomen.
It’s possible to say with some confidence that those numbers are meaningful. I don’t know what the meaning is, exactly, or why it should be true, but among the subset of criminally-inclined people (because those are the ones who cause society all the trouble) transwomen seem more likely to commit sexual crimes than men.
Even if TW offended “only” at the rates of men, there would definitely a problem with self-ID and granting access to women’s spaces where the fantasies of the small subset of unwell people can be lived out publicly and inflicted on the nonconsenting.
If the rate of sexual offending is even higher (and it appears to be a lot higher) this is a real problem. It’s wrong to ignore or minimize the concerns of women who fear “perverts in the bathroom.” There may be “perverts in the bathroom.”
I should add, this is not at all my primary interest in the topic. It would be much more convenient for me and my interests around the trans issue (which are mainly related to kids, adolescents and young adults with ROGD) if these few unwell people didn’t pose a problem for women.
I felt bad when I realized that there indeed seems to be something to the complaints of some women that “It’s a fetish.” I’d been ignoring or minimizing that concern, because it’s not been _my_ personal concern. I don’t personally have a great fear of this.
It’s not a fetish for all, obviously, but it’s a fetish for some (the Wii spa guy perhaps?), and the concerns of women and girls who don’t want to be subjected to that type of behavior in their private spaces should be taken seriously by all of us.
It’s especially hard in a social context where we’re all encouraged to agree “transwomen are women.” No, they aren’t. I can politely play along if someone is otherwise law-abiding and socially appropriate. But it seems like another level of abuse entirely to the women who have genuine concerns to insist that this small subset of men use self-ID to get what they want from unwilling women.
Women need to be able to describe things in ways that seem true to them. The guy in Wi Spa was not a woman. He’s just a predator, and women need to be free to say that. Women also need a means for keeping someone like that out of single-sex spaces. The solution is not to say “most people aren’t predators and so this isn’t a concern.” That’s not how we handle other concerns.
Are you familiar with Natalie Wynn (best known as the You Tuber "Contrapoints")?
She's a trans woman who did her transition publicly through her videos (and although it's an obvious theme, it's not the only theme). She's a sophisticated thinker with a philosophy background, and she's the best person I've seen who explains most of the cultural issues surrounding the issue.
I highly recommend her videos if for no other reason than the artistry and humor, but any time I see anything about related issues I ask myself "what would contrapoints say about this? I have a sense she would have a better response than mine.
Here, as you indicate, it's not random because the incidences of committing particular crimes, being arrested for them, going to jail for them etc, are non-random at each step and not very well counted anyway. That's why you can't take these stats alone and draw any general conclusions.
(My personal issue is not LGBT related other than being an ally, but I am interested in criminal law and related policy. )
What if society let's tw get away with everything but rape? Then tw prisoners would be more likely to be rapists than typical men.
“What if”
Why don’t you find (or collect) some data and then come back to the conversation.
I've been waiting for someone to write this article in a shareable form that doesn't come off as paranoid and hysterical so I can share it and hopefully help some of my "good progressive" friends to think more critically about this issue. Thank you!
A couple years ago, I was explaining to a good friend, some of the issues around gender ideology, including that transIDed males were being transferred to women's prisons; I was highlighting the fact that sexual predators aren't likely to have a problem "identifying as female" if it gives them access to victims. She turned white and said, "this sounds like my brother" who, I didn't know until this conversation, had been in and out of prison for sexual assault and who liked to wear dresses when he wasn't incarcerated. Have we really come to believe that those men--who likely had difficult childhoods and do indeed deserve "fair treatment"--should be allowed access to spaces that are designed to offer safety from assault for women and children? Have we forgotten the fetishes of flashing and intimidating those physically weaker than than the offender? How do we not see that by throwing the door open to any one who claims to be a woman normalizes men coming and going and puts women and children in danger? The reasonable transsexuals that I follow seem to totally understand this; anyone with a penis who is insistent on access to women's spaces is suspect in my opinion.
Thanks StoicMom. Definitely it’s been my experience too. Many transwomen understand the concern.
Honestly, if they did and were decent people, wouldn't they campaign for trans people to use the restroom consistent with their birth sex? I don't understand why progressives think "transwomen's" feelings not only surpass women's feelings, but also their physical safety. Other than the fact that men always win.
It IS an easy problem: segregate by biological sex, period.
This solution has worked for thousands of years. We don't need to invent a new one, or pretend that the old one doesn't work. It does.
Also: it opens up the old complaint “oh you want to inspect people’s genitals you pervert!” No: no I don’t.
It did work until trans identities became more common. I want the spaces by sex but you know every post op or passing transwoman is going to complain about it: “what, so you want Blair White in the men’s room?”
No policy is going to make everyone happy.
So why do their concerns automatically trump our concerns?
My first instincts was to think that you are about to be cancelled for stating such an obvious point- which makes me really sad for the state of discourse. I truly don't understand how women are being treated so appallingly in the name of inclusivity. I'm not a feminist but this looks like old fashioned misogyny in high heels
Yeah it’s rough that women are expected to just shut up about an obvious safeguarding concern.
And it shocking that the state of things is such that good-faith concerns, fairly and gently described, can bring wrath down upon you.
But you know what? Someone’s got to say this stuff.
It is misogyny. Plain and simple. We are currently living in a time where someone with a penis is demanding access to womens spaces and we are expected to just go along with it. It’s shameful and frightening.
Yes, it is the revenge of the patriarchy.
You women thougt you had carved out safe spaces and places for youselves, but guess what? We men are now women too! We can enter, we can dominate, we can win the prizes at the competitions you foolishly thought were yours alone.
Y’all turn out to be much more impressive swimmers when competing on the women’s team.
https://pennathletics.com/sports/mens-swimming-and-diving/roster/will-thomas/14590
Not only swimming, also track:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cece_Telfer
Also, I wish you (who know better) would stop using the Orwellian language of the cult.
There is no such thing as a "transwoman".
There are only men who wish they were women, and who go to extreme lengths of drugs and surgery to pass as women.
But they are not, and never can be, women.
"Transition" from one sex to another is a biological impossibility for mammals.
This is a plain fact of science. Mammalian sex is encoded at the cellular level. No amount of drugs or surgery can change it.
The cult has been extremely successful in forcing its Orwellian use of language on the rest of us. For example, "sex assigned at birth" is an absurdity. Sex is not "assigned" at birth, it is DETERMINED at birth, by a procedure (looking at the newborn's genitals) that has a 99.98% success rate.
So please, those of us who know the truth, let's stop going along with the cult's indoctrination and language.
Speak the truth. Live not by lies.
I put it in quotation marks. My preferred term is trans-identified male, or trans-identified female but (1) I’m not sure everyone know what those terms mean and (2) I want to engage with people not alienate them. Blair White and other people I respect use that term for themselves. I don’t see the problem with the term “transwoman” other than it sometimes confuses people. I do see a problem with the mantra “transwomen are women” because it erases a lot of complexity.
"Blonde woman" means a woman who is blonde. "Transwoman", by the same etymology, means a woman who is trans. But there is no such thing as a woman who is trans. There are only men who want to be women, but are not.
So using the term "transwoman", with or without quotation marks, validates the lie. That is the whole point of the trans cultists insisting that everyone be "polite" to them, and repeat their lies back to them. If we do it, we have lost before we have begun.
Yeah but “fireman” doesn’t mean a man who is fire and “mailman” doesn’t mean a man who is mail. (And yes I know those are outdated terms but the point remains.)
The word “transwoman” (meaning “a male who has adopted that label, usually because they wish to appear more feminine”) doesn’t hurt me any. We just need to have a common understanding what those terms mean. I’ll never agree that “transwoman” is a type of woman.
Also: trans activists can “demand” politeness all they want, but it’s completely separate from what I choose to do. I’ll be polite to other people if I think it’s right, regardless of whether some twerp thinks they are “making me” do it.
I’m not too hung up on words if we can agree what they mean and they don’t contribute to confusion.
100%. The whole discussion of "transwomen" is akin to medieval monks arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I too have objected to the absurdity of sex "assigned" at birth, but would propose sex "observed" at birth. Although where does that leave intersex individuals?
I will simply comment with my own experience here, because I think the liberal compulsion to reflexively label as “racism”, “transphobia” etc anything that doesn’t neatly fit the utopian views they hold is simplistic, unintelligent and just plain terrible for us as a society.
30 years ago, long before “being trans” was a la mode, I was good friends with a woman-in-the making who gradually transitioned through surgery to recreate the exterior of a woman as much as is possible for a middle-aged man, because “he was in the wrong body”. This man — because that’s how I always perceived him, even though in conversation I made great effort to use the feminine pronoun in order to not hurt anyone’s feelings — proved always and unfailingly to be nothing but male. S/he reacted violently to verbal arguments with strangers, became first a prostitute and then a madam, imprisoning women from another country by confiscating their passports and forcing them to prostitute themselves for him/her. There was none of the greater agreeableness of a typical woman, and much more of a tendency towards interruption, physical solutions to disagreements and even pride in all of the above.
That early experience, along with my ongoing interactions with supposed “trans youth” in my professional work has left me completely unconvinced that people who believe themselves to be “trans” are in any deep and fundamental way “in the wrong body”. In my experience thus far, they continue to manifest the psychology and persona more typical of their actual sex.
I feel pity for these people who are now, through cultural influences so pervasive everywhere, convinced that if they happen to have a preference for something that isn’t entirely stereotypical for their sex, irreversible surgical and hormonal alterations are the solution.
Back in my high school years I recall a man in long blond hair and a pink suede mini skirt and white go-go boots who attracted no attention in his work place, as people were used to seeing him that way and that was that. How much easier it would be if everyone felt the freedom to simply express themselves as they wish, the way he did, instead of through profound self harm cramming themselves into narrowly defined predetermined categories.
Your great and thoughtful writing is much appreciated!
Thanks very much for sharing your experiences and for your kind comments.
I agree it would be better if everyone felt free to express themselves however they wish, regardless of their sex, stereotypes, what pronouns they used, or the type of body they have?
great summary. the trans activists will probably slander you for this, as they always do to anyone revealing they are liars ..
Interestingly, trans activists seem to avoid me like the plague! If they ever show up here, though, I’d be glad to discuss these issues.
hm, well thats good i suppose haha! i would be extra careful to not reveal anything they can link to your real name etc, as if you gain enough attention they *will* go after you!. I remember finding some good threads on this issue before, I believe I have a bookmark buried somewhere with a huge list of transgender sex crimes, I did manage to find this link which I remember was good:
https://www.womenarehuman.com/are-women-really-committing-more-sex-offences-now/
also, this is a good thread.. the creator of the flag is a pretty creepy/pedophilic type individual... https://twitter.com/WomenReadWomen/status/1510888538182922241
I hadn’t seen that thread. Thanks for sharing it, as disturbing as it is.
Women are human is a very ... “political” site, but the information seems to be accurate. I think anyone who doubts the nature of these crimes, or thinks they’re overstated, or whatever, should check out that site.
A lot of mental illness among this small number of predators. A lot of violence. A lot of sex crimes.
I think there is such a thing as being too compassionate or too fair and in those cases it harms instead of helps. I wonder if the too compassionate or too fair has nothing to do with compassion or fairness but is instead some kind of neurosis in us. It feels self destructive.
Yes. Such an interesting thought. What would “too compassionate” be?
I think it would be “compassionate at someone else’s expense” — such as feeling sorry for poor, oppressed transwomen being stuck in men’s prisons, so you move them to the women’s without noting or acknowledging the obvious problems with that.
It’s self-destructive yes — or in the case of people making these decisions that affect women prisoners, destructive toward others.
With regards to the prison issue, in fact with regard to ALL women only spaces.
I think the only solution is to make men’s prisons safer for men who don’t conform to society standards of masculinity.
Whether it’s a separate wing for trans prisoners or private body guards to make them safer among the rest of the population, the only solution is to keep men a.k.a. males in with other men.
The problem with compromise is the men ALWAYS win and the women ALWAYS lose.
We got to the situation we’re in by inches. You can see it in the language used, first it was transwomen are transwomen we use “she and her” pronouns because it makes them feel better.
Then it was trans women or women and you have to use she and her pronouns.
Now, Not only are transwomen women they’re actually female and if you don’t use she/her pronouns you’re literally murdering them.
It’s a tale as old as time, we give an inch they take a mile.
Also, it could be that they’re unsafe in men’s prisons not because they’re trans, but because it seems a lot of them are arrested for being paedophiles and paedophiles do not do well in prison.
This is a thread I made on Twitter of crimes committed by 'trans' individuals in the UK:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ILOVETINY/status/1502954339815464962
There's a couple philosophers named Dembroff and Byrne who have been debating this topic. I recommend if you want an academic perspective.
#TeamByrne
I just learned about them, so I haven't read any papers yet. I did see this from Dembroff though:
"I told my plumber that gender is when people expect you to live up to their ideas of what men and women ought to be, and that sex is how much your body looks like their idea of a man or their idea of a woman. She didn’t have any trouble following."
That plumber must be way smarter than me lol.
I think there’s a very important consideration not touched on in your post, which I believe undermines your conclusion that because trans women in prison seem disproportionately likely to have been convicted of sex crimes, this has ramifications for non-trans women in single-sex public spaces. That is the nature of sex crimes themselves, which represent a big umbrella of convictions, as listed in your post.
Most sex crimes take place between people who know each other. The vast majority of rapes, sexual assaults, and the entire category of sex crimes involving minors take place between parties known to each other - domestic partners or casual romantic encounters, family friends, fathers or uncles or older siblings or other male relatives. You include people convicted of the possession of child porn in your list, despite the fact that someone in prison for that might never have touched a child in their lives. This is not to say these crimes aren’t serious and harmful - just to say that the line from “trans women are disproportionately convicted of sex crimes” to “therefore women in public bathrooms are in danger” is an extremely faint line, when you take into account how sex crimes tend to happen. If trans women are (1) proven to be disproportionately likely to commit stranger-danger assaults, (2) proven more likely to offend *after* identifying as and transitioning to women such that they could believably use a women’s restroom pre-conviction, and (3) public attacks on cis women by trans women are provably on the rise as opposed to just more likely to be covered in the news because they’re controversial, then I think this argument would hold more water.
I think my point is a very limited (and true) point, especially if you consider the examples I gave of bad outcomes:
I’m not even saying “therefore women in public bathrooms are in danger” -- I’m saying the issue is more complicated than a simple “they just want to pee.”
The assumption has been that “transwomen” are some kind of “women” or “honorary women” or “woman-like” -- to the extent that they pose no danger to anyone. But on the contrary, it appears that “transwomen” are if anything, as a group, more likely to sexually offend than men.
That’s concerning. If we don’t let men into women’s spaces, why would we let another group of people, who are more likely to be a problem, into women’s spaces? What could be the justification?
Either way, we’re talking about a very small number of predators.
But are you suggesting that the data itself might be misleading? You can formulate a hypothesis, sure, but then you need to test it. Or you need to find some existing data that supports it.
Someday I’ll look more into the comorbid sexual issues of people with AGP and share what I learn. Just eyeballing it, there appear to be a disproportionate number of crimes involving children. I think it’s already pretty well established that people with AGP often have other fetishes, such as flashing / exposing themselves. I’ll look into it sometime.
It's not that I think the data is misleading. I think it simply can't tell us that much.
I'm also having some trouble grasping your argument. You say the conclusion is just "It's more complicated than 'trans women just want to use the restroom,'" and that you make no claim that non-trans women are in any particular danger based on your evidence. But the information you provided is (1) We invented single-sex bathrooms to protect women from sexual predators, (2) Trans women in prison seem to be more likely to have been convicted of sexual crimes, and (3) ....Therefore the issue of trans women in bathrooms is "complicated"? This feels like a hedge to me. Why bring up rates of sexual predation if what you're saying is just "It's complicated"? It seems self-evident to me that it's complicated. I don't know what conclusion I'm supposed to take from the information given other than "The narrative about the equal harmlessness of all trans women is wrong because trans women pose a real threat of sexual harm."
I agree with you that the issue is complicated. I disagree that that conclusion leads from that evidence. In the spirit of that, I'm trying to offer further complicating factors - for example, the fact that the disparate nature of sex crimes means you can't extrapolate a specific threat of harm from a long list of offenses.
I'd also offer the complicating fact that it's not actually clear bathrooms were originally sex-segregated to guard women from sexual predators. They're a Victorian invention, as I understand - women's public bathrooms were instituted long after men's because women were considered simply too delicate to leave the house, and the lack of privacy inherent in women urinating in public, particularly in a mixed-gender space, was horrifying to cultural sensibilities at the time. The institution of women's restrooms was an acknowledgment of cultural shifts that brought the woman's "sphere" out of the home and more into public life; the segregation was because literally every aspect of life in that time, for a certain class, was expected to be sex-segregated.
So, it's not that I'm flatly disagreeing with you that there's a potential problem here, or that I don't think the issue is worth discussing. It's that I think the facts you provided to support the only possible conclusion one can take from your piece are not actually conclusive at all.
I’m not hedging. I’m saying some people who call themselves transwomen are predators, just like some men are predators, and if we maintain single-sex bathrooms for safety from men, then the simplistic liberal/progressive argument of “they just have to pee” is not adequate to settle the issue.
I didn’t make a simplistic blanket statement such as “women are in danger from transwomen in women’s bathrooms” because it sounds about as over-the-top as saying “women are in danger from shark attacks whilst ocean swimming.”
Technically true, I guess, but there are a lot of questions left to be answered such as:
HOW much in danger (from transwomen or shark attacks)?
And then
WHAT do we do about it, in policy?
If you disagree with that, or think that’s hedging, I guess you can go ahead and think that.
If you want to make an entirely different argument and claim that single-sex spaces are some prudish Victorian artifact that are no longer needed, I think you’ll find a lot of women and girls disagreeing with you.
It’s not that I disagree that they currently work for that purpose, or that there’s no good reason to maintain single-sex spaces - it’s that you *said*, in so many words, that that was *why they had been invented,* and I don’t think that’s true! It’s not good evidence for the point you are making if it isn’t true!
I don’t think we actually disagree on most of the underlying points here - but I feel like I’m trying to respond to the words you put on the page and keep being told that that’s not what you actually said, or that where you say something I disagree with or that isn’t true it doesn’t actually matter for your central point. I completely agree that the questions you pose are the important ones. I don’t think the evidence you presented gets to answers for them. That’s it.
This post prompted me to compose a response, where I explain why I disagree with your conclusion:
https://ymeskhout.substack.com/p/contra-dolly-on-trans-criminality
> Ask yourself why women have often had spaces apart from men. Is it because all men are dangerous predators? Does any woman think that?
> No. It is because a very small number of men are dangerous predators. The existence of a very small number of dangerous predators has justified keeping all men out and maintaining single-sex spaces for women. Non-predatory men understand that they are not being personally excluded, insulted, or suspected of being predatory — all men are excluded to keep women safer from the predatory few.
You just made a very compelling argument for racial segregation.
Nope.
Try again.
Of course. Because “transwomen “ ARE men, with a particularly offensive & damaging fetish.
This is obviously an older article now, but I'm curious as to how much of that BBC article you read? It gets into a lot of data analysis questions that quite potentially explain a lot of the gender differences that you are seeing in the UK statistics. But I also noticed that you didn't comment on most of these possible data explanations. Perhaps the BBC article has been updated since, but I just wanted to say that while there might be deeper issues of transgender identity that still need to be discussed/addressed, it seems a little disingenuous not to discuss the probable flaws in said data. Maybe give it another read?