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For me, it makes more sense to focus on the ~1 million infants who are circumcised every year in the US than to focus on the relatively much smaller number of minors who undergo gender hormone treatment or surgery. Circumcision isn't as harmful on average, however it is happening to a much larger number of minors than the number of minors who are gender-transitioning, and unlike with gender-transitioning minors, there isn't even a faint amount of consent from the person who gets the surgery, there is literally zero.
I think it's fine to focus on both at the same time, of course.
At least for me, there's three problems with this perspective: 1. Circumcision is not really a thing in my country except for a tiny jewish minority, and there is no movement to spread it whatsoever 2. The evidence is quite strong that circumcision or not just doesn't matter much for any important life outcomes 3. As far as I can judge, even in places where circumcision is common, it's perfectly acceptable to just not do it.
Now compare the trans (and to a lesser degree other LGBTA) movement: 1. It's rarer here than in the US, but there is a dedicated lobby pushing it and similar things have spread here in the same manner 2. The evidence is quite strong that being trans is very bad for most important life outcomes, especially once you actually read the studies in more detail and notice that trans individuals are far worse off irrespective of the support they're getting, and that the studies are often deliberately designed to obfuscate this distinction 3. Saying "my daughter identified as a cat last week and as a princess the week before and has been consistently been very feminine all her life, I don't think we should overinterpret her saying she is a boy" already outs you in certain circles as "conservative"
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I'm not in favor of circumcision (jews, muslims, etc. excepted, of course), but it's seems far less bad than the trans things. The latter causes tangible harms to people's lives, and is currently warping society around it.
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In my case this is the literal equivalent of "why don't you do something about FGM in Somalia" thrown at western feminists. I find the practice barbaric, but over here it's next to unheard of (at least outside of the protected classes in coalition with the trans movement). Even in America, there are certain characteristics of this issue that doesn't make it prone to becoming a culture war hotspot - most importantly people leave you alone if you don't participate. The other thing is the direction the practice is trending in, 1M per year would put it at ca. 1/3 whereas I remember the stat of 2/3 of men being circumcised in the US back when I was getting into spats about it on internet forums.
All in all, if it makes more sense to you, than go and focus on it, but why do I get the feeling what you actually mean is for people like me to stop talking about the trans stuff?
I don't mean that you should stop talking about the trans stuff, I just don't agree with how big of a deal some people here make of the trans stuff, and how often they post about it, given how few people it affects compared to other issues. I get that it's a leftist vanguard in the culture war, but then people should be more honest that they care about it because it's a leftist vanguard more than that they care about it because of the kids who are getting hurt by it. I agree with you though that the direction the practice is trending in is encouraging in, that makes me happy.
I think there are two big points here:
Despite #1 I personally don't proactively start fights about this, but I've been willing to wade in here and elsewhere when the topic comes up, and I get why it's some people's cause area.
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I think a major motivation there is that, for people who have kids, there is a portion of the trans activists who will directly try to influence your kids in their direction; if you are unlucky, your kid could suffer serious consequences. It's one of the aspects of the culture war that has the potential for the most direct, severe personal impact, even if the absolute odds may not be that high. I would be against it even if it were a rightist point.
By contrast, nobody's trying to secretly circumcise the kids. (Or if they are, they're doing an incredible job keeping it secret.)
But that's because they succeeded so well they became the status quo. Assuming you think transness is harmful or something similar, a future where "transing" your kids is done openly is not better one than they have to do it in secret. It's worse because it means they won so thoroughly it is now entirely accepted.
That's status quo bias. Because X succeeded and is now the way things are, it is not as bad as Y which is a new change.
Now Y can still be worse than X for other reasons, but the fact X is done openly isn't on its own an argument for it being less harmful.
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I just had this numbers argument with @vorpa-glavo. I categorically reject that framing. Saying I should post more about circumcisions than the trans issues makes about as much sense as saying people should have talked more about circumcisions than the Catholic Church child sexual abuse scandal. If we approached every medical scandal this way, we'd probably never hear about any of them. Nobody takes that kind of numbers-based utilitarian analysis seriously, and for good reason.
I have a better idea - if leftists want me to stop pointing out how they're hurting children, they can stop hurting children.
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But anti-circumcision activism is just as hopeless as it was ten years ago, or moreso now that the men's rights activists (who were the only people who cared) are now on official "hate-speech terrorism watchlists" in most countries. None of the discussion on the motte has even moved the needle here, let alone made a dent in society.
So what was the point? If rationalism is about winning, why does none of this ever win anything?
I'm not sure that's true. Even if it is, anti-circumcision activism is much less hopeless than it was 50 years ago.
Well first of all, not everybody on TheMotte considers themselves a rationalist or has a background in the rationalist community. Personally, while I enjoy and have learned from some rationalist writings, I do not consider myself a part of the rationalist movement.
Second, while TheMotte largely agrees with your policy preferences, the rationalist community as a whole does not. It is not surprising that a movement that is not dominated by people who agree with your policy preferences is not winning at enacting policies that you prefer.
Third, even if the rationalist community was dominated by people who agree with your policy preferences, it is not clear that rationalists are particularly good at getting policy changed. I think that the rationalist movement has definitely had some effect on politics. It has, for example, produced a few quite good writers who have convinced a pretty large number of people to either change their minds about certain things or to speak more openly about what they already believed. But the effect has been limited. I think one reason for that, even putting aside the question of whether rationalists are actually any smarter or more rational than the average politician, is that most rationalists are not the kind of personality types who crave power and are willing to do what it takes to get it.
Yudkowsky wrote that "Rationality is Systematized Winning", one of the few things written by him I've ever even glanced at so far, and it seems to me that even there he pointed out that it is irrational to act as if being a nerdy hyper-verbal person who cares about truth is going to magically give you political power.
But rationalism attracts people who care more about being nerdy hyper-verbal people who care about truth than about gaining brute power through hook or crook, and it's far from clear that rationalism is actually more rational than competing movements, so I'm not surprised that rationalism is not dominating politics.
I would also like to point out that, even if rationalism does not win as much as you would like, it's quite possible that in the absence of rationalism, your preferred politics would win even less.
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Why let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I'm not sure if matters of consent are of the utmost primacy to me.
I have no interest in being hamstrung by the circumcision debate while more clear and obvious ethical violations are occuring in front of our eyes. Especially since nobody's going to harangue me for having incorrect opinions on circumcision.
I get why it may be logically consistent and principled to go after both circumcision and gender transitioning wrt to minors, but I think reality is screaming for some triage and focus here.
To me it's not clear which is the more clear and obvious ethical violation.
Depends on where you bring up the topic.
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It is comforting to read your post, I feel similarly.
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This requires first showing that circumcision is majorly harmful.
I'll grant you that it appears to be a net harm for most boys who undergo the procedure. If I have sons they will not be circumcised. But we allow parents to make decisions for their children that turn out to be mildly bad all the time. I'm yet to be convinced that circumcision isn't in this category. Circumcised men can still have and enjoy sex, they father children, they have no trouble with any of this.
I agree, but I think it's clear that if somebody proposed that we should let parents have a small part of their sons' ears cut off during infancy the vast majority of the public would be against it, even though it would be no more harmful than circumcision. Circumcision has been grandfathered in through tradition. The very fact that it is legal points to a disturbance in society's approach to what parents are allowed to do to their kids. I think it would be good to hold the infant's body inviolate from parental decisions except in the case of genuine medical issues, even if we still allow parents (as I agree we should) make some stupid decisions for their kids like making them to go to a bad school or whatever.
It is legal, as far as I know, to have your son’s ears reshaped into pointy ones, which sounds like the closest analogue to what you’re describing.
I guess point to you on the basis of ‘it’s still legal because nobody has done it yet’. I just think circumcision is too small a deal to forbid outright when it’s that widespread; maybe there’s ways to reduce its prevalence somewhat(which I support), but outright banning something undergone by the majority of the male population and not particularly harmful sounds like a bad idea.
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Right, but those are strong religious and traditional headwinds to be battling against, opening up multiple fronts of conflict when I am only interested in one in the here and now - eliminating nonsense about 'reversible puberty blockers' and the commonly accepted pseudoscience in that orbit. I'm not sure if badgering potential allies about circumcision helps towards that aim. Table it for later, I say.
If I could be convinced that banning the practice and any other 'cosmetic' surgery for minors was the silver bullet to my issues with gender transitioning, I'd sign off on it. Just doesn't seem feasible. And I don't think people are all that confused about circumcision and what it entails. That is less the case for 'dilating' your nether regions. I think a lot of passive support for minor transitioning would dry up if it were exposed to the reality of the practice without the safety of WPATH euphemisms. I don't think that dynamic is in play with circumcision.
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