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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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Well, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez removed her pronouns from her twitter bio. Does this represent Democrats coming to see the extremes of gender ideology as a political liability? In addition to her we have a representative from Massachusetts, Seth Moulton facing criticism over expressing sympathy with the anti-trans in women's sports position, and in part blaming the election loss on some of the demands of ideological purity on this issue in particular.

Even Reddit seems to be sensing this shift and top comments are reflecting unease with trans orthodoxy. Even the comments from many Democrat supporters on Reddit seem to be avoiding a full-throated defense of trans orthodoxy and instead blaming Republicans for making an issue out of something that hardly affects anyone.

Is this a sign of things to come? Will they actually move against gender orthodoxy or just make it slightly less visible while pursuing the same policy goals behind the scenes?

Edit: Just wanted to share this clip as well as it seems germane

I've long since lost the reference, but probably 6 years ago I saw some segment on The Hill about a study done by a trans advocacy group. And basically it was a policy document pointing out that putting penises in women only spaces, especially women only spaces with minors, is about the most unpopular policy you can possibly run on. So what needs to happen is that trans friendly politicians need to lie, and then quietly do it anyways. Don't worry, trans friendly advocates in media, and trust and safety teams on social media will cover for you.

No matter what mouth sounds Democrats make, I will never trust them on this subject ever again. And unfortunately for them, until all my children are over 18, it's literally my number one priority. We already live in a world where Democrats sanctioned the state taking kids away from parents, and putting them on a path towards mutilation and sterilization. You don't just get to walk away from that and hope nobody brings up all those children you sterilized.

We already live in a world where Democrats sanctioned (...) putting them on a path towards mutilation and sterilization.

I really doubt you can find anything from a major politician that supports that claim. This isn't even "making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike", it's just plain making things up.

  • -23

Some schools secretly socially transition children. Some locales will take children out of parents' custody if they fail to support transition. This is not all right wing paranoia.

Some schools secretly socially transition children.

Can you provide a source for the claim that schools are forcing uninterested, non-consenting children into transition? Or are you just searching for the maximally inflammatory way to say "some kids don't trust their parents not to disown them"?

Some locales will take children out of parents' custody if they fail to support transition.

Really? "Fail to support" transition, or "try to block their kid from accessing the relevant medical treatments"?

This is not all right wing paranoia.

Neither of those is an example of "mutilation"

  • -20

Really? "Fail to support" transition, or "try to block their kid from accessing the relevant medical treatments"?

Without doubt, the former. There's a high profile case of a sex-trafficked teenager that the authorities refused to release to her grandparents, because they used her birth name, which resulted in her being sex-trafficked again.

This is without going into the question of whether there are any relevant medical treatments to begin with, or if it's just glorified cosmetic surgery/intervention.

If you can only provide one example, that's hardly supporting your case. If anything, that suggests the opposite: this is so incredibly rare that it made the news.

The medical community, the scientific community, and the community of people who have actually undergone the process all recommend it, so I'm not sure on what grounds you would claim that it's not a valid medical treatment.

  • -13

If you can only provide one example, that's hardly supporting your case. If anything, that suggests the opposite: this is so incredibly rare that it made the news.

Originally you said it doesn't happen, and the reason why authorities do it, is because the child is denied medical care. At the very least I'd expect you acknowledge that it happens sometimes given the evidence. The reason this was such a big story was it's particularly egregious nature (the double sex-trafficking part), but there were other stories of custody disputes based on nothing more than pronouns / identity affirmation. It was almost enshrined in law in California but for a veto.

The medical community, the scientific community, and the community of people who have actually undergone the process all recommend it, so I'm not sure on what grounds you would claim that it's not a valid medical treatment.

This is false. Anybody that made a comprehensive review of evidence came to the conclusion that the evidence is of poor quality. This includes WPATH, which commissioned several systematic reviews, and refused to publish them when the evidence didn't say what they wanted to say it.

Originally you said it doesn't happen

No, I said no one is getting mutilated. That has nothing to do with custody. I expressed skepticism about the idea that the majority of these cases, or even a significant minority of them, are really just "failing to support".

The California law said that pronouns could be a factor, not that they were the only factor. That seems reasonable to me. If I kept misgendering you, I'm sure you'd consider it insulting. I'm not sure why insulting your kid and being generally hostile to their medical needs wouldn't be a factor in such a decision.

A custody case also isn't a locale "taking a kid", it's a court deciding which parent provides the better environment for the kid. The whole process is initiated by the other parent, not the courts. If courts were just swooping up and fostering kids because a teacher reported a pronoun violation, we'd be having a very different conversation.

There's a recurring theme here, where responsibility is out-sourced from the people actually initiating things. "Schools" don't transition kids; kids transition. "Courts" don't take away kids, the other parent is bothered enough to demand a divorce and argue for full custody. The courts aren't responsible for someone's wife thinking they're a shitty husband. This doesn't just happen out of the blue. Another adult, one deeply involved in the situation, looked at it and said "I need to protect my child from this person".

  • -11
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