#using your brain

I see her most recent take is that Imane isn’t trans but she’s “a male [incorrectly] assigned female at birth”.

…Seriously?

Putting aside the concept that it still shouldn’t MATTER even if that WERE true; how was this conclusion drawn exactly?

Before the evidence that she wasn’t trans was made clearly available and put under JKR’s nose, JKR seemed to assume she was trans - not this specific misidentified gender/chromosome situation. This only came AFTER the pushback against the allegation of transness.

What this means is that the conclusion is foregone - this must be a man - and the supposed evidence is only found after the fact to prove the assumed result.

That is how pseudoscience works - starting with a conclusion and working backwards. There’s supposed interviews and investigations to support JKR’s claims that for some reason are not verified. Supporters think that’s an effort to suppress the truth; critics think it’s because it’s unreliable if not false information.

And the thing is, the legitimacy of all this supposed “evidence” about Imane’s chromosomes (which should be PRIVATE but here we are) doesn’t even matter! Everything thrown at her is evidence to support a conclusion JKR and others jumped to just by looking at a person.

At the end of the day, that’s the level of legitimacy we’re at: “it looks like”.

Gender police looked at Imane and made an absolute decision, based on NOTHING but how she looks, and the fact that she made a shorter white woman cry.

It doesn’t matter what gets desperately scrounged up and thrown around as ~evidence~. It doesn’t matter that JKR has slightly changed the allegation to account for transphobia in Algeria and a cis female birth certificate.

No one was looking at a birth certificate or studying up on Algerian gender politics when Imane won her match. They were looking at her strong face, her big frame, and the tears in the white woman’s eyes.

See, I thought it was funny at first because JKR was so obviously digging her own grave… right?

But I forgot how pseudoscience works.

You just keep looking for and grabbing onto any information that could support the assumption you already wholeheartedly believe.

It’s sniveling and detestable. Because people will always readily hop onboard that pseudoscience train. Because it’s a communal affirmation of first impressions, of gut-feelings, of what FEELS true.

There is no more scientific value in this whole investigation than that of flat-earther discourse.

The Earth LOOKS flat, so it MUST be flat; if someone LOOKS conventionally male, they MUST be male.

Anyone who has read this blog before will know that as well as reading fantasy/sci-fi and watching films in this genre, I love playing computer games. After all, the blog is called “The Old Girl Talks Fantasy” and this includes computer games too. My favourites are RPG games. Role-playing games, for anyone reading this who hasn’t come across them yet, are games where the player chooses either their initial playing character – a warrior, a mage, a thief – or you develop your character into a fighter, a magician, etc as you go through the game and acquire experience points. I don’t just limit myself to RPGs though. I really like other games and I play games on Facebook too.

It’s quite unusual for someone of my age to play anything more than Angry Birds on Facebook, especially a woman. But more older women (and men) really should start thinking seriously about taking up gaming in their free time. There are many benefits.

First of all, as we get older, our reflexes start to slow down. One way to stave off this slowing down is to use them more often. If you play a computer game like an RPG where an enemy may jump out at you at any point and you have to be ready to fight in an instant, playing this will help your reflexes stay young. If you don’t feel ready to play something so demanding, you can start with a game you can find on Facebook like Zuma or Woka Woka  Marble Blaster, where you have to shoot the balls quickly to complete the level, or the Monster Blasters Link Blast Daily Challenge which is a timed challenge so you have to be quite fast.

Then, of course, there’s our mental capacity. Doctors say that if we want to keep our brains young and ward off the early onset of senility, we should keep our minds active. What better way than to start playing a new game. RPGs include tasks which demand you work out the best ways to complete them. Usually, there isn’t one single method, so there’s plenty of scope to be creative. Still don’t want to play an RPG? Just go to a site like Bigfish games. They have cheap and cheerful Hidden Object/Adventure Games. With these games, as well as testing your observational skills and using your brain to figure out the next steps, there are mini-games which must be completed to proceed to the conclusion. These mini games include such tasks as connecting a series of pipes so that liquid can find its way to an outlet, matching shapes to form a pattern or jigsaw puzzle type tasks. If you find a mini-game too demanding you have a “skip” option which doesn’t affect the final outcome and you can go back at the end of the main game and try the mini-games again. Practice makes perfect!

(The Chinese Healer Hidden Object Game)

Another problem that affects older people, particularly those who are house-bound, is social isolation. There are so many online multi-player games to play that can help with this problem. Games like World of Warcraft, the Elder Scrolls online, Final Fantasy online and so on. I don’t play these games myself, so I can’t really say too much about them but there are millions of players out there to connect with. Once again, if you don’t want to totally immerse yourself in the gamers’ world, you can play Facebook poker, for example. Here you can play the well-known card game and chat to your fellow players from all over the world. Players often play in the same game room at around the same time so you can get to know your competitors quite well – and there’s no money involved, just play for the fun of it and get to “meet” a lot of new people.

Of course the one thing we all need as we grow older cannot be addressed by playing video games – exercise. Although video games can be a benefit as we grow older, we should still find time to do some form of exercise, to walk or go to the gym, to swim or cycle if we can. So, remember, when you play games, learn and have fun, but don’t get too addicted. Remember to stand up and move around regularly when you play and take regular breaks from the screen.