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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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The thing, here, is that I disagree with the framing that being trans is undesirable (in an ideal environment, anyway; obviously, in a right-wing dystopia where it gets you fired from your job and alienates you from your prejudiced family, it's less likely to come out net-positive on life satisfaction).

For most trans people I know, transitioning has been a joyous and fulfilling experience. Actual trans subreddits, Discord servers, etc. are full of trans people actively delighting in their transness, not dens of wallowing and self-pity. I think the over-medicalization of what is at heart a lifestyle choice has done the whole thing a great disservice; in my book the "oh woe, gender dysphoria is soo bad, you have to let people transition" thing was another one of those well-intended white lies from 'my side' that I cannot abide, because what they've done is muddled what should be a moral slam-dunk to anyone truly concerned with liberty by trying to hitch it to a murky question of fact. I support people's right to transition whether or not they have such a thing as medically-defined "gender dysphoria". It's not a medical question, it's a moral question about autonomy, about freedom and self-determination. I support trans people in exactly the same way that I support people's right to have plastic surgery or change their name or dye their hair or dress up as anthropomorphic dogs - and for the same reason that I will support people's rights to become all kinds of cyborgs if that sort of technology ever becomes something more than one of Elon's pies-in-the-sky.

Now, with that cleared up… I don't want to come across as if I'm totally unsympathetic to parental concerns in those cases. Of course it would hurt for your child to reject the name you gave them. I understand that. But moody teenagers, and indeed grown adults, have gone "oh my god, mom, stooop, everyone at school calls me Jay, 'Jeremiah' sucks" since the dawn of time. It didn't use to tear families apart. And sure, if your kid were to be the kind of trans who wants actual surgery and not just a change of wardrobe (remember, that's by no means everyone!), you can be concerned about the mild but real risk of health complication. But again… kids get into dangerous hobbies their parents are queasy about all the time. In my view, you shouldn't be more concerned about a daughter of yours wanting top surgery than about a child of either gender getting really into biking, or rock-climbing, or, really, any high-level competitive sport. Call me when there's a moral panic about high school football.

(Whether young children are competent to make such a big lifestyle choice is a whole other discussion, but has no bearing on whether it's okay to let them experiment with a cross-gender name if they want. We don't let nine-year-olds get into cave-diving, and by my own analogy it's sensible to heavily frown on underage gender surgery; but that's no reason to bar them from dressing up in a cool plastic helmet and exploring dark corners of the playground with a flashlight.)

But I wonder about the viability of this movement. I mean, that's what "we" used to be. "We" got defeated by "the woke movement" so...how will "Reform Progressivism" be different?

The practical argument is that, as Nelson outlined in the OP, there are a lot more sincere progressives than cancel-happy sadists. All pro-free-speech conservatives + all pro-free-speech progressives = winning coalition. My hope is that it's just one of Scott's coordination problems, and Reform Progressivism only needs to achieve escape velocity to win the teeming masses over from the witch-hunters.

The more idealistic argument is that, you know, I think I'm right. I think I am putting forward the banner of "good ends, achieved via good means"; and I am optimistic enough about human nature to hope that, so long as the idea gets out there at all, this will be naturally attractive to people who had hitherto had no choice but "good ends, achieved via evil means" or "evil ends, achieved via whatever means". (No offense.)