site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

And then when those externalities do happen, and a male-born trans person wins against a female athlete (inherently, unfairly), or a trans person assaults a woman in the bathroom, or a trans prisoner impregnates a woman, those objections are at best handwaved away and dismissed as outliers or discredited, or at worst labeled "transphobic" and censored.

As others have said, trans people (and other gender non-conformists) are a significant part of the rationalist community. The points you mentioned simply do not come up when it comes to the daily interactions that people in it would have.

Take the prototypical Bay Area trans woman someone like Scott Alexander would know: autistic, nerdy, moderate-to-high income, involved in tech, polyamorous (but mostly dating other trans women), and largely similar to other rationalists in terms of mentality. This type of individual is not particular athletic (unless it’s rock climbing), unlikely to be involved in criminal activity or engage in violent behaviour (much like the average male nerd).

This is a stereotype perhaps, but familiar to anyone that hangs around those circles; there’s very little downside to being accepting of them, and the factors you brought up have no direct impact and are in fact very low-probability events when it comes to that demographics.

Sure. Obviously, a lot of the externalities with transgenderism go away if you have a social norm to actually be nice, including not using transgenderism for bad results.

But I understood Scott (and others) to be talking about trans people in wider society. I would have less of an issue with them if they clarified that they were only talking about trans people in the context of the rationalist community.

Or if they drew a line in the sand and said, no, actually, it's not acceptable to give Norton the head of Rutherford B. Hayes, and we need policies on emperor-identified people to ensure that doesn't happen.

One point is that trans people are far more likely to be the victims rather than the perpetrators of sexual assault and violence, and you won’t have much luck convincing groups like rationalists to focus on the statistically smaller externalities of bad actors that they don’t know, versus the statistically more common occurrence of their friends being threatened, abused, raped or victimised.

But moreso I fail to see why trans people need any special policies. Assault or sexual harassment in bathrooms is illegal regardless of the perpetrator’s gender or biological sex; trans people should go where they pass/are safest. Segregating by biological sex is a losing battle; if trans men are forced to use the bathroom of their biological sex, they can get assaulted for being “men in women’s bathrooms”.

Rape in prisons should not be tolerated, people who sexually assault their cell mate should be isolated and dealt with appropriately.

Women’s sports is more thorny, but I don’t see anything wrong with banning anyone who went through male puberty or more generally went above a certain threshold of exogenous or endogenous androgens in the past (a former trans man who took T from ages 13-17 would have an advantage against cis women, a trans woman who took puberty blockers since the age of 12 would not).

One point is that trans people are far more likely to be the victims rather than the perpetrators of sexual assault and violence

Do you have a source?

if trans men are forced to use the bathroom of their biological sex, they can get assaulted for being “men in women’s bathrooms”.

The actual answer here is, on a fundamental level ‘then they should not be trans women, and this is a consequence they took upon themselves when they decided to become one’.

The practical level answer is, of course, that no one cares about technically-very-confused-woman using the men’s room/locker room/whatever, even if it’s de jure illegal. Just don’t extend special protections and ignore the problem because it isn’t one you have to worry about.

One point is that trans people are far more likely to be the victims rather than the perpetrators of sexual assault and violence

Source? I was under the impression that they're actually less likely to be the victims of any crime, although it is a pretty small sample size to draw any significant conclusions either way.

and you won’t have much luck convincing groups like rationalists to focus on the statistically smaller externalities of bad actors that they don’t know [...]

Okay. But they should at least edit in a little disclaimer that says their writings on trans people are meant to be read in the context of the rationalist community, right? (Actually, they should do that for basically everything, but that's a different story...)

But moreso I fail to see why trans people need any special policies. Assault or sexual harassment in bathrooms is illegal regardless of the perpetrator’s gender or biological sex;

Well, why do we have an age of consent? That could be considered a special policy for children, since violating someone's sexual consent is already against the law.

The reason is that there's enough gray area in the law that it's far more prudent to draw a line in the sand and add a special policy that forbids any sex with anyone below the age of 18. This way, we can cut the Gordian knot and end the otherwise interminable debates about whether a minor really consented to sex in this instance or not.

The meta-reason is that children are different enough than adults and thus need a special policy for them. So it goes for trans people too.

Segregating by biological sex is a losing battle; if trans men are forced to use the bathroom of their biological sex, they can get assaulted for being “men in women’s bathrooms”.

The trans person in the news story you linked to, Noah Ruiz, pleaded guilty to aggravated disorderly conduct. I'm guessing that this is referring to "defense mode":

[Jennifer Ruiz, Noah’s mother said] “He was in defense mode, and when police got there, they didn’t listen to him.”

So I doubt the story that Ruiz claims. The TikToks that Ruiz has posted don't really amount to anything significant, nor do they support the claims. It sounds like Ruiz started the altercation (and not for looking like a man in a woman's bathroom).

Again, I don't believe this narrative of trans people just being flat-out attacked if someone thinks they are doing the wrong thing.

Rape in prisons should not be tolerated, people who sexually assault their cell mate should be isolated and dealt with appropriately.

Yes of course, that is already the policy. But my focus was on women being impregnated, because the easiest and simplest way to 100% prevent prison pregnancy is to separate by sex and disregard prisoners' trans identity.

a trans woman who took puberty blockers since the age of 12 would not [have an advantage against cis women]

It's a misconception that you can simply "stop" puberty. I mean, you can, but the rest of the body still develops. I would also object to this being possible in the first place because I don't believe taking puberty blockers is good for the physical health of any minor. They'll have many health problems for the rest of their life.

Here's a different idea - why not just let trans people compete with men, or create a separate sports category for trans people?

Source? I was under the impression that they're actually less likely to be the victims of any crime, although it is a pretty small sample size to draw any significant conclusions either way.

My understanding (sorry no source) is that this is largely due to a greatly disproportionate number of MtF transgender people working in the sex industry.

if trans men are forced to use the bathroom of their biological sex, they can get assaulted for being “men in women’s bathrooms”.

I don't get it. Why are we supposed to be concerned about the outlier of trans men being assaulted in women's bathrooms, but shrug off the outlier of women being assaulted or perved on by trans women?

Rape in prisons should not be tolerated, people who sexually assault their cell mate should be isolated and dealt with appropriately.

If that was even slightly realistic, we wouldn't need sex segregation in prison to start with.

a trans woman who took puberty blockers since the age of 12 would not

Do we know this for sure?