Title: Gaydar Jamming
Date: 2022-05-08 21:00
Category: commentary
-Tags: anecdotal, ideology
+Tags: anecdotal, ideology, homosexuality
Status: draft
Two related anecdotes on the power of ideology over observation—
-One day in high school journalism class, the topic came up
+In my high school journalism class back in the mid-'aughts, there was this fat Latino boy, L., who had distinctly "feminine" mannerisms. (I'm not even sure how to describe it in terms of lower-level precepts, [as if the memory is encoded by category](/2020/Dec/crossing-the-line/). You know it when you see it.)
-[topic of handwriting ]
+One day in high school journalism class, the topic of gender and handwriting came up, and it was remarked that L. also "wrote like a girl." Being the [proud antisexist ideologue that I was at the time](/2021/May/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-in-relation-to-my-gender-problems/#antisexism), I [wrote in my notebook](/images/crossdreaming_notebook_samples.png) about how this observation about L.'s handwriting was disturbing, in a way.
+Naïvely, of course, you'd think it would be ideologically _validating_: L. and his manner and his handwriting were living proof that not all boys are masculine! But everyone—even the smart sexists—knew _that_. No, the disturbing part was that if "feminine" handwriting—potentially—indicated "feminine" behavior more generally, that implied that _"femininity" was a valid concept_, which was not a notion I was inclined to grant.
-[One of my old notebooks](/images/crossdreaming_notebook_samples.png)
+Ideology isn't my style anymore—or rather, these days, my ideology is centered on the accuracy of my probabilistic predictions, rather than being indignant that some people think it's okay to make probabilistic predictions about humans.
+
+Looking back,
+
+[I had to have known]
very distinctive voice
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff