Sunk cost fallacy is so damn accurate…
Ad hominem is incorrect. Ad hominem is when you reject a person’s argument because of who they are rather than the substance of the argument. This is them making a statement of their own, without presenting any actual evidence for it. (And Hitchen’s Razor applies here: the argument can be rejected outright due to a lack of any attempt to provide evidence.)
Sunk cost fallacy is wrong. To make it a sunk cost fallacy, the argument would have to have been something more like “you were born as a boy, everyone knows you as a boy, you have a whole wardrobe of men’s clothes, why would you want to give that up now?” As presented, it’s somewhat closer to a naturalistic fallacy.
False dichotomy is right, if we assume an unstated but implied “and therefore you can’t be a woman”.
False equivalence and non sequitur are absolutely spot on.
Skill issue just made me laugh 😆
“Trans people are mentally ill” is indeed a non sequitur, but if we investigate it a little further it’s even worse. If we assume an implied “and therefore they can’t know about themselves well enough to say they’re a woman/man”, it becomes a form of ad hominem, and begging the question besides. Ad hominem because “you’re mentally ill therefore can’t know the truth”, and begging the question because the underlying claim is “trans people aren’t real”. Why aren’t they real? “Because they’re mentally ill”. How do we know they’re mentally ill? “Because they identify as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth.”
I liked “non sequitur”.
“Yes but that’s unrelated”For sunk cost, I think the post could have illustrated this one more accurately as “You were raised a boy,” which I think encapsulates the parental investment that makes it a sunk cost. That’s how I had initially read it, at least.
I think the false dichotomy angle could also be expanded by factoring in intersex people who are similarly forced into AMAB/AFAB boxes despite biologically not fitting neatly into those categories, basically that the labels male and female themselves are a false dichotomy. Sorta blurs into the next point re: chromosomes, but I think it still captures two different ideas (Biologically male and biologically female are not accurate categories, and chromosomes are not indicative of gender identity).
And I think even the ad hominem aspect could be blurred a little bit to still make sense, if read in the sense of, like, “You’re a man, you can’t understand what it means to be a woman, therefore you’re not allowed to call yourself one.”
Isn’t a false dichotomy when two options are falsely presented as the only options when more options exist?
Usually yes, but afaik not in this case.
The argument would be:
“You are amab therefore not a woman”
Which implies:
“You are either amab either a woman”
But a question remains:
¿Por qué no los dos?
Yes that’s correct. In this case, the false dichotomy is between amab+man and afab+woman. It rejects options such as amab woman and afab man. And enbies.
Transcription
A Bluesky post by “Sherry CD-ROM” (@sherrycdrom.bsky.social):
“you’re a man”
ad hominem“you were born a boy”
sunk cost fallacy“you’re amab”
false dichotomy“you have xy chromosomes”
false equivalence“trans people are mentally ill”
non sequitur“changing your sex isn’t possible”
skill issueReposts
1083Likes
3150I love Sherry CD-ROM! Go check out her youtube channel if you want retro gaming and philosophy delivered to you by an artificial lifeform (not AI!)
Yo what that sounds fire thanks
