# I'm protesting my Warning **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 21, 2020, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746 "2020-01-21T14:51:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/21 "2020-01-21T16:20:18Z")
I suppose the issue, to the extent that there is one, is that most of the time when people say “men” everyone knows what “men” are - cismen, biological men, people with XY chromosomes and penises and testicles who identify as men. As here - > [@](#): > > Men’s Rights Advocacy. This can include threads about how men are somehow disadvantaged in society, women are somehow genetically inferior or have a predisposition toward specific gender roles and other threads about the ways in which men are somehow naturally entitled to be in charge… Everybody knows this doesn’t mean transmen. Of course this is for GD, not GQ. The SDMB has put a lot of effort into the suggestion that “all men are XY chromosomed and have a penis” is at the least an opinion. Maybe the title of the mass shooting thread should have referred to “biological males”, but that seems like nitpicking. In the context of that thread, in GQ, it seems clear enough. FWIW - not much. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/22 "2020-01-21T16:22:49Z")
Last I heard, something like 1% of the population is transgender. And most of us know a lot more than 100 people, so yes, most people would be expected to know someone who’s transgender. But how many mass shooters are there? More to the point, how many have there been since transgenderism has been sufficiently recognized that we’d know if a shooter was transgendered? Especially since most mass shooters die in the course of their shooting, and so cannot be further questioned afterwards? And further, how close is the difference between male and female mass shooters (by any definition)? Even if one did manage to find a handful of transgendered shooters, regardless of whether one counted them as male or female, it would remain true that the significant majority of mass shooters are male. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/23 "2020-01-21T16:30:56Z")
I thought it was deserved. You had already received the warning by the time I read your post, but if I hadn’t seen a warning I would’ve reported the post. There is a place for discussion of gender issues, but challenging every post that uses the words “man” or “woman” is trolling. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/24 "2020-01-21T16:32:10Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > But if I say “because men are different and work harder and derive more pleasure from being at the absolute top of a company than women” even if I say it’s 40% if the answer, I’d be tarred and feathered as misogynistic because “how dare you say women are different from men”. You can’t have it both ways. Bullshit. Your contention that the subject that men and women might (on average) differ in some ways is anathema simply makes me more convinced that you were trolling. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/25 "2020-01-21T16:39:16Z")
Wow. One of those few times where I don’t have an opinion. As the acceptance of transgender status has just recently been widely recognized as a thing, I think that it is important in these discussions, if we stand by the idea that male and female are not biological constructs, to explore the idea of what it means for men to do this or women to do that. However, it would be pretty tedious to have every.single.discussion about men and women to have to have a side discussion about trans issues. But then again, that’s what you ask for when you say that biological females can be males. So… I dunno. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/26 "2020-01-21T16:41:57Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > However, it would be pretty tedious to have every.single.discussion about men and women to have to have a side discussion about trans issues. But then again, that’s what you ask for when you say that biological females can be males. So… No it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/27 "2020-01-21T16:47:50Z")
The Mods (2) have made an unsupported claim that basically there would be insufficient sample size to get meaningful statistical data for this, further more implying that also should be obvious to everyone. Some posters here seem to not accept the Mod’s premise at face value and question it, thus negating the Mod’s contention that it is obvious to everyone. Chronos actually tries to defend his position that people should intrinsically know this by explaining why they should intrinsically know this - oh the irony that one needs to explain why someone should already know something. I agree it should be reversed and should have been a non-infraction guidance action instead. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/28 "2020-01-21T16:52:45Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > However, it would be pretty tedious to have every.single.discussion about men and women to have to have a side discussion about trans issues. But then again, that’s what you ask for when you say that biological females can be males. You’re wrong. So is the OP. The fact that some people that you want to think of as men are actually women and vice versa does not mean that there is no difference between men and women. In fact, it means the opposite; transgendered people are demonstrating that there is a difference between men and women by transitioning from one to the other. What would get tedious is having to re-explain this simple concept in every single discussion where men or women are mentioned because some people can’t handle the reality of it. So the OP was justifiably warned not to bring it up in a discussion where it wasn’t a relevant issue. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/29 "2020-01-21T17:20:03Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Some posters here seem to not accept the Mod’s premise at face value and question it, thus negating the Mod’s contention that it is obvious to everyone. This being the SDMB, the fact that someone questions a premise doesn’t mean it’s not obvious to everyone, including the one questioning it.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/30 "2020-01-21T17:25:50Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Oh, bullshit. In the absence of any reason to believe there have been enough transgender or nonbinary or genderfluid mass shooters (have there been _any at all_, that we know of? Hard to believe that angle wouldn’t take over Fox News for most of a week) to have an impact on the statistics, it’s a blatant attempt to bring transgenderism into a discussion that has nothing to do with transgenderism. While not a mass shooter mostly due to a failure. [One of the school shooters here in Colorado last year was transgender](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colorado-shooting/transgender-teen-accused-in-deadly-colorado-school-shooting-wanted-revenge-idUSKCN1TM09T). I’m not sure which direction. I don’t watch Fox news so I don’t know if they spent a week talking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/31 "2020-01-21T17:32:30Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > While not a mass shooter mostly due to a failure. [One of the school shooters here in Colorado last year was transgender](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colorado-shooting/transgender-teen-accused-in-deadly-colorado-school-shooting-wanted-revenge-idUSKCN1TM09T). I’m not sure which direction. I don’t watch Fox news so I don’t know if they spent a week talking about it. I would count _one_ transgender mass shooter as a statistical anomaly…and a failure wannabe transgender mass shooter wouldn’t even count as that. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/32 "2020-01-21T17:41:30Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > While not a mass shooter mostly due to a failure. [One of the school shooters here in Colorado last year was transgender](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colorado-shooting/transgender-teen-accused-in-deadly-colorado-school-shooting-wanted-revenge-idUSKCN1TM09T). I’m not sure which direction. I don’t watch Fox news so I don’t know if they spent a week talking about it. Out of [434 mass shootings in 2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019) (some of which included multiple shooters), or 0.2%. (The incident did qualify as a mass shooting, which is based on the number of people shot, not the number of fatalities.) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/33 "2020-01-21T17:41:42Z")
The statement on its own seems disingenuous, simply because it’s bringing it up in a situation where it is both irrelevant and the answer already known. But throw in the OP’s history on this particular topic, and it becomes obviously an attempt at a gotcha. What I hate the most, though, is this thread. You can’t just ask it once as a gotcha. You have to pretend that it was sincere and challenge the Warning. Posts like yours are why it’s so easy for the mods to assume that everyone is lying to get out of being in trouble. If it were up to me, furthering the charade to try and not get in trouble for it would get you in further trouble. Though I do understand the mods’ reluctance to do this, as not all cases are as obvious as this one. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/34 "2020-01-21T17:53:17Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > I’m not sure which direction. According to the article, female to male. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/35 "2020-01-21T18:55:20Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It’s not unreasonable if the definition matters. Are you suggesting that there’s a commonly-used definition of male/female that contradicts the idea that most mass shooters are male? > > Wait, how are you defining “mass”? > > How are you defining “shooter”? > > How are you defining “most”? > > All of those questions are equally insignificant to the observation. But Aji de Gallina hasn’t been on a years-long kick to discredit the idea that “shooters” refers to rifles AND pistols, nor a kick to discredit the idea that “most” includes numbers as low as 70%, nor that “mass” includes occasions where just 4 people are killed. So he didn’t nitpick those definitions. He only irrelevantly nitpicked the definition that’s part of his ongoing transphobic patterns. I agree with you, except that I think the definition of “mass shooter” could be relevant. Last time I checked it meant 4+ homicides. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/36 "2020-01-21T19:00:43Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I agree with you, except that I think the definition of “mass shooter” could be relevant. Last time I checked it meant 4+ homicides. > > ~Max Check the link I posted. Some sources include incidents with 4+ shootings regardless of fatalities, some define it as 4+ shot and killed. But this is a rather irrelevant detail, since by any definition males are by far the predominant perpetrators. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/37 "2020-01-21T19:06:30Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > What I hate the most, though, is this thread. You can’t just ask it once as a gotcha. You have to pretend that it was sincere and challenge the Warning. Posts like yours are why it’s so easy for the mods to assume that everyone is lying to get out of being in trouble. I agree and I think that’s a very valid point. For the kind of statement made by the OP, it should get a warning just because of how it was stated in GQ. A question like that can very easily be taken as trolling, so it should be phrased in a way to make clear it is a genuine question relevant to the discussion. This kind of post in GQ, in and of itself, should garner a warning: > [@Why are pretty much all mass shooters male?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-pretty-much-all-mass-shooters-male/846501/7): > > How do you define male? > Are you implying that men and women are different? The obvious assumption is that it’s meant as a threadjack. If the question is being asked earnestly, then there should be more context around it to avoid that very reasonable mis-assumption. If the OP had included some stats about many mass shooters were cis- versus trans- gendered, the question might be more relevant. I thought it was trolling when I first saw it, and the convoluted explanations being offered up now are just confirming what I initially thought. I’m really glad this side discussion ended up here rather than derailing the original thread. Especially in GQ, if someone can’t phrase their questions in a way to avoid these kinds of derailing arguments, they really need to reconsider what they post. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/38 "2020-01-21T19:16:10Z")
If I were a moderator (which I am not), I would have modded you with either a hijack or trolling. You seem to argue in this thread that you were hijacking the thread, not trolling. Both hijacking and trolling are expressly prohibited by the same GQ rule #1, so I don’t know what you are trying to accomplish here. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/39 "2020-01-21T19:40:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Transgenderism and mass shootings are both rare enough that any statistics or other factual information would be somewhere between meaningless and nonexistent, so you can’t have been asking about that. The only reason you were writing that is to use as a gotcha the next time you posted in a transgender-related thread. Yep. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746/40 "2020-01-21T19:48:52Z")
I can’t imagine how someone answering those questions would bring anyone closer to an answer to the question being posed. For example, the question “How do you define male?” Does the OP have a substantive answer that relates to why certain definitions of male relate to mass shootings, but other definitions of male lead to a different set of facts? If so, then it certainly is relevant… but my, what are the odds that the OP or anyone else has such information at their disposal? It is possible that the OP needed answers to the questions he posed so that he could follow up with some substantive answers to the General Question. If that’s the case, **Ají de Gallina** , if you shared the information that you were preparing to use to inform us why men seem to be the vast majority of mass shooters, pending answers to your questions, then I would agree that it is clear that you were not trolling and your questions were intended to bring everyone closer to a clearer understanding of the issue. However, I must admit my suspicion that you don’t actually have anything substantive to contribute, otherwise I think you would have addressed that in this thread. If that’s true – that you have nothing to contribute to improve anyone’s understanding of men and mass shootings – then it seems that you were just soliciting information from certain posters to use as ammunition in other debates, which to me seems like some variation of hijacking/trolling/being a jerk. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-protesting-my-warning/846746.md?page=3)