Talk:Riley Dennis

POV
This article is very neutral compared to most articles of this website. I am very surprised. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 68.0.189.224 / talk
 * Yes, well I was the main person who contributed to the article and didn't feel comfortable taking sides yet - but maybe other people have ideas too. -- Yisfidri  ( talk ) 09:56, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The dude is an insufferable narcissist. The article should clearly convey that.

I didn't get a neutral tone from this article at all, unless it's since been edited to be more sympathetic to the argument since the above discussion. Generally, defending the logic, saying that opposers base their arguments off strawmen, and not offering critique, merely commenting on the fact that it is critiqued, is not neutral at all; it's quite biased towards the argument in question. As for the argument itself, it's complete nonsense. Either we recognize that it's ridiculous to say that it's discriminatory to have categorical dating preferences based on biology (is it discriminatory to categorically exclude males from my dating pool if I am male and heterosexual?), or acknowledge that EVERYONE categorically discriminates technically to some extent and it's not a big deal and you should understand that and live with it. Most young people would not categorically include 80 year old married people as potential partners. Is that discriminatory, or is it understandable considering the various biological and other miscellaneous complications? The whole argument wreaks of false balance. 69.60.33.176 (talk) 18:56, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * All of this misses the point. The argument being made is that someone who doesn't want to fuck someone with the genitals they aren't attracted to is "discrimination". Putting this shite in that category is so messed up! No one is being discriminated against because someone doesn't want to date them, and if you don't want a chick with a dick it's totally logical to exclude trans women entirely as only 10% of them have had bottom surgery. Fucking madness I tell you. But hey I'm sure trans people being beaten up in the street will be comforted by that cotton ceiling workshop, aye?--2A00:23C4:3E08:4001:C8A9:D2B1:23D4:D714 (talk) 22:22, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Not really sure what you're yelling at me for, considering I agree with your position. My post is really just highlighting the numerous written problems with the article itself, considering that it pre-empts the criticisms you're providing with strawmen. 69.60.33.176 (talk) 16:35, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * That genital preferences are inherently discrimination is not what Riley argued. She argued that if your motivations behind your genital preferences is that "person with X genital's is Y gender" then the motivations are likely cissexist and require personal reflection. If you think everyone with a penis is by default male, and so sex with them would be "gay" then yes that would be transphobic.  Transphobia isn't just in explicit discrimination, but also attitudes and biases that delegitimize trans identities.  Even without transgender people, there are always the presence of folks with DSD's that complicate the narrative that a given genital trait equals one sex unambiguously and not another.  Sexual anatomy obviously does play in part in people's sexuality as another person's anatomy can create constraints to what sexual acts you can perform with them. Some which you may or may not be into.  Some folks have trauma and post-traumatic stress responses to the appearance of certain genitalia, Riley argues that is completely valid.  She even says she is hesitant to say genital preferences are in of themselves transphobic. This strawman of Riley's argument has sort of run it's course in TERF circles, and "debunking" it as the strawman it is has been done to death. To see it repeated here is just exhausting. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:34, 17 August 2022 (UTC).
 * But that argument just runs in circles. Nobody has any obligation to explain their sexual preference or the reasons for their preference to anyone for any reason. It's also tiring to have to defend one's standard response to sexual attraction or be labelled a bigot. Not every single thing in the world should be run through the lens of whether something explicitly appeals to the trans-experience or not, especially considering how minuscule the population is. I'm against discrimination, but it's not discrimination to have preferences. We all have them. You can try to impugn motives on those preferences all you want, but it's quite frankly histrionic behavior. I don't make lengthy screeds about how women are misandrists for not liking short guys. Not everyone is going to like you, and that's something you need to get over. They aren't necessarily bigots for it either. 69.60.33.176 (talk) 13:32, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * No one said you had an obligation to explain your "sexual preferences" to people. No one said that simply not wanting to sleep with someone is bigoted. No one said you had to "appeal" to any experience with your stated preferences. None of that is actually relevant to the point being made.  Can you at least try to engage in the topic with good faith instead of being trigger happy to construct any strawman fallacy that suits you? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 02:08, 18 August 2022 (UTC).
 * And honestly if you stated to me that you would ever sleep with or date a black person, I don't care what your "preferences" are I have the full right to think of you as racist. People don't owe you a favorable interpretation of your stated "preferences" just as much as you don't owe explaining yourself to anyone. If you are that insecure about it that is on you. -Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 02:13, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * It takes only about 2 or 3 back and forth comments for someone to equate trans with being black. Shut that Eurocentric shit up. The two are not even remotely same on any level. There are no biological differences between any race that can be meaningfully attributed to race. There is no "blacksexuality" or "whitesexuality". Meanwhile, there are very obvious differences between the sexes that would make a preference between a sex a significant choice. I don't personally give a fuck if someone has a "favorable" interpretation of my preferences if that interpretation is rooted in abject stupidity. If someone thinks I'm a bigot for preferring tall women, or women with blue eyes, good for them.  And if a woman says she has a preference for men that are above 6 feet tall, I'm not going to label them anything for their preference. That's their perogative. The funny thing is, those preferences are a hell of a lot less significant than having a certain set of genetalia! Clearly, you're projecting your internal insecurities out on the world. If you're upset that guys won't date you because they think of you as a guy, get over it! Find men that do! It's not rocket science. I'm sure everyone has dealt with rejection at some point in their life, but if there's one universal constant, it's that people who complain over the people who reject them, whether they be "nice guys" or "nice girls" or "nice trans" are the most pathetic people in the dating world. But thanks again, literal white knight for wielding the black experience as a cudgel to justify your own insecurities. That's sure to make you look more enlightened, not just a gender identity-palette swap of the KKK! 69.60.33.176 (talk) 19:15, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Lmao "equate". Holy strawman fallacy batman! you should also learn how to spell "genitalia" and "pejorative". "Obvious difference between the sexes" sort of fundamentally misunderstands how sex works because there isn't two distinct mutually exclusive sexes with no continuum or overlap.  What does it mean if you get into a sexual relationship with someone who has both a penis, and a vaginal opening? Such people exist. What "sex" are they? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:18, 20 August 2022 (UTC).
 * It should probably also be said there was no "homosexuality" or "heterosexuality" until the 19th century. Prior to that same-sex attraction or same-sex sexual activity was just thought of as something you experienced or did, and not something you built as a inherent part of your own identity. It should also probably be said that people identifying with something other than the sex their culture assigned to them at birth have been found cross-history and cross-culturally; they have gone by many different names across various cultures -- but they have always been a thing.  These things are fluid and socially constructed. People claim "racial" preferences in dating and sexuality, so the analogy stands (note it is an analogy not a equivalency as your strawman representations implies). None of this stuff is as concrete and fixed as you treat them to be, and if you want to talk eurocentrism you probably don't want to push an understanding of sex and gender largely enforced by European colonialism upon cultures that openly embraced the fluidity of human sexuality.  - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:32, 20 August 2022 (UTC).
 * You talk of fallacies but completely lack the self-awareness to recognize that your entire argument is the genesis of fallacy! Comparing racist preferences to sexual preferences is very obviously a false equivalence and you're fucking braindead to think they're even remotely comparable. "Analogy isn't an equivalence" Do you realize how fucking dumb you sound? Race isn't the same thing as species; there are no fundamental categories that separate races in any meaningful way. Sex isn't an identity, dumbass. Have two male animals in captivity and see if they can breed to test your hypothesis of how fluid their sex roles are. There's no issue with homosexuality, but there's nothing socially constructed about the fact that a homosexual pairing cannot breed. Therefore, there's an actual substantive reason to choose a mate of the opposite sex (not gender, since you seem to think the two are the same thing), meaning that doing so cannot possibly be construed as bigoted by anyone actually thinking about it for two seconds and not just saying the first thing their emotions tell them to. "Such people exist" oh the exception to the rule? The .5% of the population? How stupid do you have to be to define a process by the existence of statistical outliers? None of which actually alters my point; if a person doesn't want to be with an intersex person for the reasons I've described, that makes them no less bigoted than anyone else I've described. And you top your uneducated, fallacious emotional diatribes up with typo correction. Pedantry is the tool stupid people use to attempt to bridge the gap between them and the educated; too bad it literally never works. 69.60.33.176 (talk) 15:14, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

I stopped reading at "Meanwhile, there are very obvious differences between the sexes that would make a preference between a sex a significant choice." Discussion collapsed. 01:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The follow up reply also seems to think that sexual categorization has to do with the organisms role in breeding which is factually false. In many insect colonies the vast majority of females don’t produce gametes and can’t reproduce. That role is restricted only one or a few females, usually a queen. Can’t believe this person brought up the impossibility of homosexual breeding to refute me for this supposed stance I have about sex being completely fluid. I never said sex was fluid, just that isn’t a mutually exclusive binary. Pick up a slug. Congratulations you have picked up something that is both male and female according to scientific classification standards. So much for “basic” biology. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 08:53, 2 September 2022 (UTC).
 * It's more stunning to me that they're willing to dismiss intersex people like they don't matter. "The .5% of a population??" They say incredulously. Also this person brought up male animals in captivity about sex roles but I point to you the case of intersex lifestock and also hens acting like roosters. The natural world is a terrible example arguing this since nature itself has always been a giant mess of categorization and I don't see how sex traits is any different. 19:00, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Clarification of what constitutes harassment
"Dennis has put forward several opinions that have been the subject of controversy, and she has been the target of a large amount of harassment from those who disagree with her, with many of her videos being downvoted." Just to clarify, are we saying downvotes are harassment? Because saying "with many of her videos being downvoted," implies that harassment against her includes downvotes.
 * I think it's saying that the downvotes imply controversy. It's very ambiguous and should be reworded. —Kazitor, pending 21:44, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I have done some work on this and expanded the whole "trans dating" section - hopefully it's better now. -- Yisfidri  ( talk ) 07:40, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Needs criticism
Riley Dennis’ genital preference argument is very week and honestly needs more critical analysis than it’s getting. Her assertion that someone can simply “unlearn” their sexual orientation sounds a lot like conversation therapy. She also seems to scoff at the notion that people don’t have to like certain genital by responding to the comment “I’m allowed to have my genital preference” by saying “ Technically this is true” also know as true. And her idea that genital preference is in any was analogous sexual racism is absurd. A cis white woman and a cis black woman are anatomically more similar that a cis white woman and a trans woman. No comparison to be made. Her idea seems to be that somehow sexual organs don’t play a role in sexual attraction and sex. That is not even close to being true. Ceilingcrasher (talk) 15:56, 2 December 2018 (UTC)Ceilingcrasher
 * I made a start on this, but I feel it's a complicated issue in which I can kind of see both sides. I've done a bit of light editing to make her argument clearer and added a sentence to the effect that she goes a bit too far in totally dismissing attraction to certain sex organs. -- Yisfidri  ( talk ) 07:35, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

What happened?
How did this website devolve into a left wing version of Conservapedia? 64.141.80.139 (talk) 03:44, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Elaborate, drive-by BoN. 03:48, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Contradiction?
Logically speaking, the intro to this article is contradictory. The subject is described as a "transgender activist" (presumably she's also transgender?). She is also described as "she" and as "non-binary" - so why refer to her as any gender? Also as a "non-binary woman", so how could she be both non-binary and also a woman? Finally, she is referred to as a lesbian - the definition of which is a woman who is sexually attracted to other women.

So is she female (specifically male-to-female trans), or non-binary (ie. genderless)? --82.21.97.70 (talk) 01:48, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * She identifies as a non-binary woman because she sees herself as being "somewhere in-between gender-neutral and super feminine" on the gender spectrum - i.e. leaning toward the female end of the spectrum but not far enough to be a binary woman. (Maybe it's kind of similar to identifying as a demigirl?) Anyway she explains it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruST0GPi68s (from the 2:43 mark). --Butter Melon Cauliflower (talk) 14:17, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Really RW? Really?
Discrimination that causes harm falls into the categories of housing, medical services, employment, verbal/mental and physical abuse based on someone's sexuality or race etc, ableism, police and state violence and of course education. Someone categorically and totally rejecting trans people from their dating pool does not fall under any of these categories. Someone's bodily autonomy comes before any trans persons romantic or sexual feelings. Labelling someone a "transphobe" of this violates the tenancy of bodily autonomy. Being labelled a transphobe very often carries negative social consequences in many areas, and using this word against someone simply excising their bodily autonomy is 100% rape culture. Fuck off with the whataboutarry of "well they could be mean to trans people in other ways! This shows they clearly will be discriminating against them in other areas!" that's a FALLACY and you know it! The truth is, there are people out there rejecting trans people all the damn time and no one is the wiser. All good and well but then what happens? Someone accuses them without a shred of evidence of being transphobic. This is where this leads to. Fuck me. The genetical preferences shite has caused massive harm to the trans rights movement. Ask yourselves why there is no "boxer brief ceiling". --2A00:23C4:3E08:4001:C8A9:D2B1:23D4:D714 (talk) 22:16, 27 May 2022 (UTC)