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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I always preferred dolls to cars, thought it was cool that one time someone gave me a hot pink t-shirt, and was amused when that first letter my parents received about disability benefits kept calling me "she" ... But none of that made me a girl. And if we're talking gendered stereotypes, I preferred action figures and rough-housing and swords most of all, and was conspicuously annoyed when people intentionally misgendered me (unintentionally was / is kinda neat).
When I was 8-9-ish, my grandpa tried to hide a doll I'd sleep with. This was quite upsetting. Were I 8-9-ish today, and anyone at school found out about these things, would I get the opposite treatment? ... And it's hard to imagine how I'd'veresponded. I think I was both aware enough of the absence of seriousgender identity concerns, and stubborn enough to say so bluntly, but I'm only, like, 75% ish confident in that. And that mostly because I haven't heard anyone who would be doing said hypothetical convincing sound like they'd have any idea how to be convincing to 8-9-ish me.
The especially frustrating part about this whole mess is that I've always wished I'd somehow dodged puberty ever since puberty. But I had to experience a good deal before I could really make that decision, after which it was far too late to do much about it. What's more, I get the sinking feeling that the neurological effects of puberty were relevant to my figuring this out, and to certain ... positive character development? things, and this was never just a physiological dysphoria. Negative character development throughout elementary school also hurt a lot when I became aware of it. As much as I deeply loath what has become of my body, I was at peak a-hole in the couple years before puberty. I like to think I could be reasoned into realizing this and trying to improve, even without getting mindflayed by hormones, but it doesn't seem at all likely that such would actually happen if all this were taking place today. Someone would say "Are you sure you're not a girl? Here: let's put off puberty while you think about it." And that would be it, and I'd probably be even more emotionally incontinent for lack of the trace amounts of prepubescent testosterone or whatever that enabled me to train resistance to crying over minor things.
This whole situation is just so frustrating! Even if I had a mental time-machine, it's not like I could go back to the 90s, chop off my testes, then hand them off to someone who could science up viable gametes just in case I found someone willing to be artificially insemenated by a permachild for some reason other than that I obviously brought the winning lotto numbers back with me. I can't Detective Conan myself smaller now and take advantage of The System™ without contributing to its misuse against children, the majority of whom I'd be quite shocked to discover are any better at resolving this stuff in time than I was. Oh, and the trans activists probably would hate me because it being age-related instead of gender-related pattern-matches to trolls who claim age dysphoria as an excuse for active paedophilia to tarnish trans people by association. (FWIW, I denounce said trolls.)
There really should be more options for helping children with dysphoria, whatever the type. There really should not be a creepy movement to sterilize children based on a short conversation. The information necessary to make a decision like that is not available to humans with our current level of knowledge and technology. As much as I might wish I'd accidentally sat on some dry ice when I was 10, I can't in good conscience support the policies that would have given me what I want when it would have been viable. When we get Medical Omega, maybe things could be different, but for now, I'm not sure there's anything to do for kids like me besides support after it's too late.
(Attempts to prove me wrong are very, very welcome.)
More options
Context Copy link