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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

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Why do you suppose suddenly they are a major front in the culture war?

You're not wrong, but I think it's several reasons:

  • As you mention, that community has defended and/or denied the existence of obvious bad actors, especially sex pests who either are or claim to be trans (there's high profile examples of both).
  • There's been an enormous growth (like, orders of magnitude) in the number of people transitioning medically (as in cross-sex hormones and/or surgeries) and an even bigger growth in the number of people self-identifying as "trans" in the last ~15-20 years, which has resulted in:
  • A lot more "visibly trans" people, who a lot of people find disturbing (especially MtFs),
  • The demands made by the movement getting louder and applying more frequently.
  • A lot of "holy crap what is happening" reaction as people's family members get (apparently suddenly) sucked in to the movement and often start doing things like changing their names, insisting on being referred to as the opposite sex, even things like taking cross-sex hormones and getting irreversible surgeries.

Even without the bad actors issue, I think this would be a major CW front. Maybe bathrooms specifically wouldn't be as big of a flash point, but there was always going to be something.