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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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Oh being cis and straight is absolutely affirmed by schools every minute of every day.

Indeed, thinking about it further, I see that symbols of straight pride always accompanying the not-straight ones (flags, banners, crosswalks, etc.), mandatory readings of works that are primarily about how awesome being straight is rather than more objective literary value, teachers specifically going out of their way to promote exclusively straight sexual activity and discussing it in detail, and many other examples too numerous that I'm sure I've forgotten them.

Of course, if "affirmation" means "the mere tolerance/existence of straight sexual student behavior in the halls serves as its own affirmation" (in the same way, and certainly consistent with the belief that "the tolerance of anti-whatever belief systems is affirmation of that viewpoint"), one would simply expect that to be discouraged in equal measure (and in most places, it is) rather than what we see, suggesting that the motivations are different and that those affirming aren't interested in equality.

Yes, almost every story involving romance or relationships will be about straight people being happy about their relationships models, many will talk about how awesome their straight love is, they will probably read Romeo and Juliet, etc.

I don't know how things were like when you were growing up, but from my experience most teenagers romantic feelings are barely taken seriously at best, or outright mocked at worst. Hardly what I'd call affirmation.

The example you gave here has to do with normalization, which is a completely different thing. It also has nothing to do with "gender".