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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.
I think that its clearly taught that way across society? Like, the general consensus is that it was at best a case of social hysteria and at worst a church-sanctioned terror campaign. There are a some well-known novels and plays on this topic.
Indeed, using a clear example of where Progressives 'won' and Conservatives lost, desegregation of schools is a topic I think almost all conservatives will 'accept' defeat on and aren't trying to bring back at any level.
Like, my point is that Progressives 'win' mainly because they do have narrative control, and that narrative control allows them to actually write the widely believed account of history. So when they claim they're on 'the right side of history' or they argue that the conservatives are just trying to stop inevitable progress, what they're really basing that on is "we'll either turn out to be right and will write the story of our victory, or if we're wrong we write it off so you won't get credit for stopping us."
I'd like them to temper their ambition with the knowledge that maybe they could possibly be WRONG about something and every time they 'win' it isn't necessarily going to make things better.
Well, the dodge that seems to be pretty universally used in both secular and Christian circles is that most of the people burned as witches were not in fact actual practitioners of black magic knowingly and intentionally in league with Satan. They were just innocent randoms convicted on sketchy evidence. This allows Christians to avoid thinking about whether burning people alive for heresy is justified, and it allows secularists to avoid having to support people who are engaging in human sacrifice in an attempt to hex and curse innocent third parties.
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