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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   45549 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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This is pretty clearly a woman.

We have differences in lived experiences, then. I've said this before, but I really think Hanania nailed it by hypothesising that the anti-trans side cannot be understood without acknowleding how some are simply innately disgusted by what they perceive as abnormal physical features. Or, to simplify, too many people have a disgust reflex against non-passing transsexuals for the movement to succeed.

You can talk about how we should all apply Bayesian reasoning to deduce that an odd looking person is likely to prefer she/her, but that's a tall order for someone experiencing literal transphobia (as in: an instinctive, uncontrollable fear/repulsion) as they look at the person.

As for your commentary on how "passing is transphobic", I think it has been independently suggested a thousand times by some of the more radical trans activists.

Do you have any links to these radical activists who say that? That's new to me.

Actually, just assume I'm wrong. I don't have the links

I really don't like this line of reasoning, it dismisses a lot of very valid criticism of the movement as mindless revulsion.

How so? What criticism is dismissed simply because the underlying motivation is disgust? Disgust does not make or break an argument.

Because there is plenty of intellectual opposition to it aside from revulsion, such as genuine fear for the children that appear to be being abused.

Mindless revulsion is itself an argument.

Would you eat a cockroach? Why not?

‘Because it’s gross’ is a perfectly valid answer.

It's a valid answer but not a very stable position to rely on as disgust is often found to be malleable or something people should get over if the utility gain is large enough. I'm deeply suspicious of anyone who characterizes one of my positions in a way that places it on unsolid ground be they ally or foe. If the main objection to eating cockroaches is that it's gross repackaging the bugs to be more palatable or hidden in other food stuff can be considered to have addressed the concern. You will not address my concern with transgenderism by making them pass more effectively.

I think for most people "I find X disgusting" = "X is disgusting" = "X is bad". The idea that one's personal sense of disgust is not a reliable guide to morality doesn't occur to most people.

We have differences in lived experiences, then. I've said this before, but I really think Hanania nailed it by hypothesising that the anti-trans side cannot be understood without acknowleding how some are simply innately disgusted by what they perceive as abnormal physical features. Or, to simplify, too many people have a disgust reflex against non-passing transsexuals for the movement to succeed.

I mean, you don't have to limit it to non-passing transsexuals. Botched plastic surgery, people of walmart, even a lot of extreme body mod stuff makes me gag. Normally this is an issue between myself and where I lay my gaze, and I'm content to live and let live. But there aren't people out there trying to fundamentally reorder society and groom children into splitting their tongues or trying to get make sure their face lift gets infected.

Although it occurs to me, after trying to write that sentence about a dozen different ways, that society does encourage a lot of fucked up shit. It's so fucking easy to become obese in America, and plastic surgery is very much encouraged and glamorized. And our society is increasingly reordered around obesity. The medical profession is under increasing pressure to stop telling people to lose weight, and just attempt to treat the symptoms.

very much encouraged and glamorized

Show this to the guy downthread arguing that trans acceptance will lead to plastic-surgery acceptance. America already has a significant fraction who are into obvious voluntary surgery; it’s just mostly split on class lines.

I can’t agree on the alleged social threat of trans people, though. Targeting children is somewhere between irresponsible and unethical, but that’s not what they are doing. Literally every trans person I know is an adult and firmly focused on affirmation rather than evangelism. That may lead to a false positive rate by encouraging uncertain members, but this isn’t somehow unique to trans issues. To me that means the live-and-let-live category should apply.

By all means, protect the vulnerable, especially children. One can’t get tattooed before 18, and tight controls on other body mods are reasonable. But don’t mistake the cherry-picked worst examples for a general argument.

I can’t agree on the alleged social threat of trans people, though. Targeting children is somewhere between irresponsible and unethical, but that’s not what they are doing. Literally every trans person I know is an adult and firmly focused on affirmation rather than evangelism. That may lead to a false positive rate by encouraging uncertain members, but this isn’t somehow unique to trans issues. To me that means the live-and-let-live category should apply.

I think there's a sort of equivocation between "trans people" and "trans activists." When people talk about having problems with trans people targeting children, it's in reference to trans activists, and it's hard to tell how much that overlaps with actual trans people. In my experience, the vast majority of trans activists are not trans people, for instance, but that doesn't stop them from claiming that their activism is on behalf of trans people. This is why I suspect that this sort of equivocation is actively encouraged by trans activists as a useful rhetorical tool by which to defend their positions as being what trans people - the actual minority that people care about - want rather than merely what trans activists - just some set of humans who agitate for sociopolitical change - want.

By all means, protect the vulnerable, especially children. One can’t get tattooed before 18, and tight controls on other body mods are reasonable. But don’t mistake the cherry-picked worst examples for a general argument.

School districts around me have been caught secretly socially transitioning kids, with an official policy of maintaining two sets of documents. Birth name documents for the parents, and trans name documents for internal use. When it's government policy, it's a general argument.

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