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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26358 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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Excellent write-up, I agree with much of it nearly exactly. Including liking but being perplexed by deBoer. It's like one of those What english sounds like to non-english speakers videos. The underlying tone and analytical thought is there but he somehow manages to sprinkle in some moral mutant level different values in so he ends up veering all over to places I wouldn't have gone.

I generally like Freddie, even where I disagree with him. He has enough time at the coalface of education to know that the platitudes about blank slates and that all that is keeping some kids down is just plain old racism, for instance, are rubbish: some kids are smarter/more academically able than others, and if you try forcing "all must go to college" on them then you hurt the less able ones without actually helping them.

This trans issue stuff is, in my uninformed opinion, in part because this is congruent with his beliefs and the cultural milieu he moves in, but also - and again, this is only my view - that when he had his unfortunate mental issue a while back and got into trouble, he got eaten by a lot of people for what he wrote/said during that time, with no sympathy. This is something he talks about to this day, so it plainly it bothers him. And I think the trans piece here is in part "when I was acting crazy, nobody had any sympathy for me", so he's extending compassion there, but also that he's terrified of saying the Wrong Thing again and being crucified again for it. Since the trans definition/claims/demands shift with the wind (remember when "it's about gender, not sex, because sex and gender are different things" was the line being sold? Yeah well now you're a bigot if you try and distinguish between biological sex and gender identify), it's entirely possible to say the wrong thing by mistake and unintentionally, and the Extremely Online who look for reasons to be offended will leap on any error and pillory you as "you want to send trans people to torture conversion camps and then kill them literally".

Yeah well now you're a bigot if you try and distinguish between biological sex and gender identify)

I might be misunderstanding you, but whatever happened to phrases like ‘penis havers’ and ‘menstruaters’? As dumb as they may be, they are references to biological sex.

Some of those got dropped because a trans woman can have a penis, and such persons were highly offended about being classed in as "penis havers" with men because they are not men and this is their perfectly legit lesbian feminine penis. Also, trans men may menstruate and become pregnant, and that doesn't mean they're women, bigot. Tampons for non-binary folx and trans men!

Truth being stranger than fiction, and all that jazz.

I think the point of those phrases was to take away the references to biological sex. That is, there is no longer "male" and "female," there are "penis havers" and "menstruators" whose only meaningfully distinguishing characteristics are that they have penises and that they menstruate, unlike the people not in those categories. A pre-op MTF transwoman has both the same gender and sex as a ciswoman; she's just also a "penis-haver."

Also, if you enjoyed the post, please consider subscribing to my Substack: https://firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com/

It's like one of those videos What english sounds like to non-english speakers videos

What a perfect analogy.

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