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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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one would like mainstream society to be sending a message like: it's perfectly alright to be a nerdy masculine woman or an effeminate man

That's the tack that society has been taking since at least the 80s or so. Obviously there's no blinded experiment or anything and lots of different overlapping trends, but it seems pretty clear to me that downplaying gender roles led to an increase in people desiring to transition rather than forestalling transitions.

That's the tack that society has been taking since at least the 80s or so.

It used to be. Then a certain kind of angry, selfish person started problematizing masculinity and proclaimed that "nerdy/masculine woman" (masculinity as action) and "effeminate man" (masculinity as identity) were all bad.

That started around 2010 or so and has done nothing but get worse. It seems that the trans stuff is just responding to that worldview.

That's the tack that society has been taking since at least the 80s or so. Obviously there's no blinded experiment or anything and lots of different overlapping trends, but it seems pretty clear to me that downplaying gender roles led to an increase in people desiring to transition rather than forestalling transitions.

Hypothesis: Downplaying the traditional norms effectively removed the training wheels from the kids who would have really needed them. It may be difficult to adapt to unsaid social norms if the well-meaning adults are too drunk on their utopian koolaid and insist there being no norms. If a task is difficult, some people do not succeed.

If you complain, the well-meaning adults may say that you've got it all wrong, it is how it is meant to be: the kids (later grown-ups) who take non-standard paths have been liberated from oppressive structures and are finally able to find/express their non-standard identity.