The User Known As "Bluesteel" is a girl

Thanks for your arguments, Pro. I will first point out the flaws in my opponent's case before presenting mine. I'd also like to thank Pro again for making a debate on this issue, as it was obviously necessary. Rebuttals: Pro begins his case by arguing that in the case of a tie, the voters should give him the win. He justifies this by stating that: "a) I've been a member of the site for far longer than my opponent has, and have known bluesteel for far longer than he has, so am a far better authority on whether or not bluesteel is a guy or girl than my opponent. If the debate is tied at the end you vote aff since I'm more likely to be right from personal experience and knowledge" In the event of a tie, the win should actually go to Con because Pro has the burden of proof. If Pro does not prove beyond any doubt that bluesteel is a girl, then Con wins the debate. Pro can use his experience as an argument during the debate, but his word simply isn't enough to prove his case. If the above is considered and the voter still feels that it is a tie, they should mark it as so. "b) I've been in G+ hangout sessions with bluesteel and have seen her with her webcam on, therefore have eyewitness testimony that my opponent lacks. If the debate is tied you prefer my eyewitness testimony over my opponent's lackthereof" Again, Pro doesn't provide any evidence for this, meaning it *has not* been confirmed that pro has even seen bluesteel with his own eyes, nor has it been confirmed that if he has, he is telling the truth when he says that bluesteel is a girl. "userhood is distinct from personhood in that it's an entirely digitally constructed identity" According to Merriam Webster dictionary, a user is defined as: "A person or thing that uses something". [1] This essentially means that "userhood", by definition, is the exact same thing as personhood, completely invalidating my opponent's claim. "The anonymity of the internet has empowered internet users to construct identities that can be entirely fictional from their real life identities" Although it is possible to pretend to have a personality on the internet that different from their own, this does not mean that that the actual personality (Or in this case, gender) of the person has changed. In order to win the debate, Pro must show that the person who uses the account known as bluesteel is a girl, not that the person pretends to be one. "multiple users can have access to a single account" Although this is technically possible, there has been no evidence given to indicate that particular account is used by multiple people. "A user account cannot be both a guy and a girl at the same time, as that runs contrary to understandings of biological gender, without which identification of gender becomes impossible objectively." If multiple people were using the account, we would refer to them as "users". In that case, saying that a group of people consists of people with different genders makes perfect sense. It has already been established before that a "user" is a person who uses the account. "Second, one person can hold multiple different accounts simultaneously" Not on Debate.org. The terms of use and service specifically outlaw this, and it has been enforced by the moderators of the site. [2] "the splitting of a person to share multiple different accounts is nonsense, as each account may have a distinct persona, speech, beliefs, mannerisms, etc, that make that distinct user a distinct individual" Again, the traits of a person using a website does not change if they pretend to be someone else on a different account(s). The traits and gender of the person using the accounts remains the same regardless of what they may pretend to be. Althoug I agree with the first two premises of pro's second argument, I disagree with the third. "Premise 3: Not only have there been threads saying that Mikal and bluesteel were in a romantic/sexual relationship (http://www.debate.org......), but it's been rumored that there are also secret sources (partially divulged by bhu2001) confirming that they were, in fact, in a relationship. After a little digging, I discovered the identity of the source and asked for confirmation. To protect the identity of the anonymous source, I edited the picture to black out usernames (http://i1179.photobucket.com......). This confirms that bluesteel and Mikal were in a heterosexual relationship." Someone's word simply does not prove this. They could be joking or lying, there obviously needs to be more serious evidence to prove this. Thank you for reading! Good luck pro and have a nice day. Sources: [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2] http://www.debate.org...