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Notes -
The New York Times just published an article on a trans study not being published for ideological reasons (Archive)
Has anyone else noticed a clear "vibe shift" on trans issues recently? It would have been unimaginable for this article to be published in the New York Times just a few years ago, but now, it just seems like part of an overall trend away from trans ideologues.
I'm am curious where this trend continues. Is it going to go all the way? Will trans issues be seen as the weird 2010s, early 2020s political project that had ardent supporters, but eventually withered away and died like the desegregation bussing movement? Or will it just settle into a more moderate position of never using any medication on children, but allowing adults to do whatever? Or maybe it is just a temporary setback and the ideologues will eventually win out?
Also of note, trans issues are coming to SCOTUS again. The issue presented is
I recommend reading Alabama's amicus curiae brief for an in depth critique of WPATH. SCOTUS is set to hear oral arguments on this case on the 4th of December, so this is lining up to be an interesting oral argument to listen to. SCOTUS usually releases the big controversial cases at the end of their term, so the opinion on this case will probably be released in the summer of '25.
I think Trans issues have been the 'high water mark' for Social Justice, and the tide may not be receding but people are not going to let this particular dam actually break. It feels like we're in a 'bargaining' stage where we are trying figure out how to slot Trans people into society in a way that doesn't reject their existence but also doesn't sacrifice, e.g. women's sports, childrens' puberty, and Religious freedom in the process.
JK Rowling probably deserves some sort of credit for giving otherwise progressive women a rallying point on this matter that doesn't require directly cooperating with the right.
I've made this point before. There was a time when State-Enforced eugenics was a progressive policy goal. (that thread was on the same topic as this one, funny enough)
THAT got completely abandoned. Alcohol Prohibition was also a progressive goal too (crossover with evangelicals, though). I bet the 'healthy at any size' movement goes the same way now that Ozempic is making it much easier to not be obese.
When progressives fail in their goals, they don't admit defeat. They write it off, avoid mentioning it again and may even pretend it was never their idea... unless they hold onto it and try to bring it up again later on. When they win, they just write the history to make it seem inevitable.
So to me, the question becomes, if they 'lose' now, will they try again in 10 years? Or is this project be utterly abandoned.
This seems to be what would happen by default for any long-lived political movement that is actually winning enough that the losses on objectives that don't get dismissed in the churn can be written off as an exception in the style of "unless they hold onto it and try to bring it up again later on". Do modern Christians admit the end of witch trials as a defeat? What about Mormons and polygamy? Outside of an edgy fringe, are US conservatives admitting defeat on their erstwhile goal of preventing women's suffrage?
I don't quite understand what would even be the intended purpose of getting progressives to own alcohol prohibition and eugenics and "admit defeat" on those goals.
Genuinely having good faith belief that XYZ is right and then fighting for XYZ is how someone takes orders from a hivemind, though, whether that be progressive or conservative or any other ideology or way of thinking. And this, to me, is the sticking point of the issue I have as a progressive with the movement that's called progressive; the point of progressivism is progress, which means moving forward, not just moving in some direction and then declaring the direction as forward. In order to do the former instead of doing the latter while honestly but mistakenly believing that it's the former requires actually acknowledging this risk and finding ways to mitigate the risk. A risk which can never be reduced to zero or even all that close to zero, but which can still be reduced through things like empiricism and discourse.
As you say, though, this is useless unless progressives are convinced that they actually took orders from a progressive hivemind, or at least acknowledge the very real risk that that they are taking such orders, which seems about as likely as a snowball's chance in hell right now. The fact that this is the state of things seems pretty insane to me, akin to a world in which, say, Muslims can't be convinced that there is only one god who is called Allah or Christians can't be convinced that Jesus Christ is the son of God and died for our sins.
You seem like as good a person to ask as any, and I've been wanting to for a long time: What is the pole star here? What is the point upon which principles should converge? I have my opinions as an outsider, but I'd love to know how the matter occurs to you.
Presumably there should be some consistency in the notion of 'forward'. What is the end goal which, if moved toward, tells you that the motion is progressive rather than lateral or regressive?
I wish I had a simple answer, but I think there isn't a pole star to follow other than the vague notions of making things "better" in some real sense by increasing prosperity and reducing suffering for each and every individual. One obvious problem there is that these things are highly idiosyncratic and difficult to measure, but I think e.g. getting rid of anti-sodomy laws or making gay marriage a thing helps to achieve that better by benefiting gay people, or having progressive taxes and welfare and socialized health care helps to achieve that better by benefiting poor people. I think stuff like "equality" or "freedom" are decent enough slogans for supporting bringing up people who were considered lesser than others or who were granted fewer rights than others, but only exist as end goals in some far flung future where we have so much prosperity that each individual is equally free to create a literal heaven in reality for themselves. In the here and now, I think the immediate goals include figuring out which of existing systems can be dismantled for easy gains (I think treating individuals on the basis of group identity is one such system that needs dismantling, which is where I diverge greatly from the modern progressive movement), or figuring out how to maintain economic growth so as both to uplift the poorest of us and to bring about that scifi post-scarcity future, or figuring out how better to advance knowledge so that we can build the tech needed to free us from our physical constraints (this, too, is where I disagree heavily with modern progressivism, as they seem all too happy to play-act at knowledge generation through a cargo cult of academics).
From a high level view, perhaps you can say that the goal is bootstrap our way into figuring out what the metaphorical pole star is, since we've been forced to contend with the reality that the pole stars that our civilization used to follow - and still follow to a great extent - were merely mirages that happened to be useful in certain contexts but also greatly harmful in certain others.
I've also said before that a progressive is someone who read Brave New World by Huxley and thought, "Hey, this seems like a pretty cool society to live in" like I did, and I think that's generally true, though that specific world probably isn't a realistic end state goal.
Well, thank you for the thoughtful reply. We disagree on many things but inasmuch as I wasn't asking to argue with you about it, I won't.
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The goal of progress is equality. True, absolute equality, not just de jure equality before the law but to stand alone before the state on the same terms as one stands alone before God.
That metaphor is not a coincidence: progressivism is thoroughly Protestant in its view of liberalism. Liberal conservatism tends to have a more Catholic view wherein intermediating institutions are a good way, perhaps the best way, to interface with the state.
To this end, progressivism tends to be quite hostile to intermediating institutions because the goal is to produce denuded and atomized individuals so that equality before the leviathan is the only option; the prayers of the saints cannot protect you so they shouldn't be allowed. And, due to the impossibility of this aim, perpetual revolution is the only way to maintain progress because asymptotic rest states are an inherently unstable equilibrium- if you aren't going forwards, you're going backwards. There's a quote in De Maistre, 'the counter revolution is not the revolution against but the opposite of the revolution' not running the revolution results in corporatism- the human norm- which undermines majestic equality before the leviathan.
See I'd take it farther and suggest that progressivism -- the flattening of all hierarchies -- is literally just Satanism dressed up in nice intentions. This is also why pride is such a key component. Pride being the sin of Satan, who decided that he could do just as well as his own God rather than submitting to God himself who dares say that actually some things are better and higher than others, and that rightness, beauty, goodness, happiness etc. are found embracing one's role and proper place.
In my church we teach that demons have no hierarchy because hierarchy is orderly and points to God. With this in mind the connections are obvious. And yes, the desire to replace God with the state is paramount, even when the state is transparently prone to possession by evil powers and principalities.
But I'm interested in the response of the person I asked.
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