site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30380 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If you check my post history, you'll find my tale of attending a cabaret show, one run by ladyboys. And I genuinely couldn't tell that they weren't real women, despite straining my eyes trying. Is there something about the Asian physiognomy that makes it easier for them to pass? The closest thing I found to a tell was the waists, but even then they were well within the range for natal women. The railway community in the West take note, that's how you pass with flying colors.

In addition to selection effects (non-passing ladyboys wouldn't attract much clientele), you've probably been less exposed to Thai faces and so have less practice distinguishing males and females. Funnily enough, it goes both ways; I'm a trans woman and when I visited Asian countries (e.g. Malaysia, not known for its wokeness) I got called ma'am a lot more than back home in the West.

I already speculated about selection effects in a previous comment, but I still find the notion dubious.

Firstly, I'm not aware of any similar performance in the West (or India for the matter) where a large number of trans performers pass so convincingly. Even the transwomen touted as passing do so largely in posed photos, with the number that can get away with video dropping precipitously, and the number passing up close in person vanishingly low.

Certainly I wouldn't expect to be fooled if I was in boob-grabbing distance, as was the case when these performers lined up outside for photoshoots if you were willing to pay.

Also, the issue with claims that I'm simply not astute enough to spot trans people outside ethnicities I'm familiar with is that I think I can still convincingly distinguish European, African and Indian transwomen with ease. It's only the Thai that give me serious pause.

I think it's just that there are substantial numbers of Asians who are less sexually dimorphic or appear feminine, if Korean boy bands are anything to go by. Not the majority of course, but still enough that with enough pruning and picking you can get a few to pass even under scrutiny. I'm not 100% sold on that hypothesis, but it's the best I can come up with.

I grew up in a majority-Asian city so I'm not sure I'd agree with the "Asians are more naturally feminine" hypothesis, as opposed to other factors such as estrogen being available without a prescription, and Thai trans women DIY'ing from a young age (the younger you start HRT, the easier it is to pass). I think it's more to do with the fact that there's no similar visible "kathoey culture" in the West so trans women are much more dispersed; you won't find a high concentration of them in any one location as easily as you would in Thailand. But there's plenty of passing trans women, e.g. famous actresses like Indya Moore, Hunter Schafer, Valentina Sampaio (a number of Euphoria viewers didn't even cop on to the fact that she was trans, despite playing a trans character in the show), and a number of models, sex workers, and OnlyFans performers that anyone who's sufficiently terminally online can discover.

I looked up the people you specifically mentioned (I've already watched Euphoria, courtesy of my girlfriend!) and I will concede that Valentina wasn't obvious, she has that overly sharp look that's common enough in natal women that I wouldn't think twice, while the other two are clearly trans.

I honestly don't know much about the availability of estrogen etc in Thailand, but it is possible that very early starts combined with strong selection effects could explain what I've seen!

It’s also possible your “trans detector” has high sensitivity but low specificity, giving you a high false positive rate. One could correctly identify most trans women as trans due to their masculine traits, but could also identify many cis women as trans.

Nowadays with the growing trans hysteria you have many masculine cis women being harassed or even assaulted when using the women’s bathroom, due to getting “clocked” by their wide shoulders or being over 6’ or just having the wrong shape. You also have “transvestigators” who take it to an extreme and think a huge amount of celebrities or random people in the street are secretly trans - they think that Elon Musk is a trans man because of the curvature of his spine, or that some female celebrity is a trans woman because she has straight clavicles and a prominent jaw.

India doesn't really have any substantial number of trans folk, at least not in the Western sense. The closest we've got in any numbers are hijras, and they have a vested interest in being obvious, since their primary means of subsistence is being so fucking creepy and insistent that you're willing to slip them a few bucks to fuck off. They'll insult your manhood, grope you, spit on you or threaten to lay curses upon you and yours if you don't comply.

So it's hard for me to evaluate the accuracy of my trans detector when the base rate for people even attempting to pass is so low around these parts.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats