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 -
Back in February, Maine state representative Laurel Libby got censured by the states House of Representatives for posting a tweet featuring state track-and-field champions photos with the same kid that won the recent women's pole vault also placing fifth in men's poll vault two years prior. (Tweet on page 9 of this pdf.)
The censure (passed narrowly along party lines) is based on the notion that Libby is endangering the minor athlete with all this publicity, and that she must apologize. She refused to do so. The rules of the House of Representatives say that "is guilty of a breach of any of the rules and orders of the House … may not be allowed to vote or speak, unless by way of excuse for the breach, until the member has made satisfaction." So until Libby apologizes, she is barred from speaking on the floor, and barred from voting.
Libby sued in federal court for 1st Amendment violation. Meanwhile, she has been seeking emergency relief to restore her voting rights (and thus also the representation rights of her constituents). Both the district court and the First Circuit court of appeals have declined to grant her the emergency relief:
Today, the US Supreme Court granted the emergency relief.
The tweet in question is on an important current political topic made by an elected representative, is inline with her platform (which is likely why she got elected in the first place), and has only publicly available information. The censure bases its rationale on possible harm to the minor athlete, based on indirect evidence that harm could happen (but didn't): tweets by others about this kid, and some study finding that trans kids are four times more likely to be bullied. So it seems to me that this is a clear-cut case of clearly protected political speech by someone whose job it is to speak it.
I am therefore trying to wrap my head around the "legislative immunity" argument that both the district court and first circuit found persuasive. In Maine House of Representatives, some things require a super-majority (2/3 votes), e.g.: overriding the governor's veto. What is to stop the slim majority of one political party of censuring enough members of the opposing party based on similar fig-leaf reasons, depriving them of the ability to vote, and thus gaining the super-majority?
I don't find this compelling. A vast majority of behavior that falls under "doxxing" involves the collation and signal-boosting of information that is technically 'publicly available' to a motivated sleuth, but not widely distributed. The most familiar example round these parts would be Scott's real name, which was always trivial to find through the Internet Archive if you knew to look for it. That wasn't a good reason for the NYT to publicize it against his express wishes, and I think the same goes here.
(Of course, that only proves Libby's behavior was either knowingly dickish, or irresponsible. There's still a leap from that to arguing it's so beyond the pale that it's worth barring her from fulfilling her duties as an elected representative. But as a matter of common decency, all else being equal, Libby should apologize.)
It's a tough question. Normally you'd expect to anonymise the student but in this case, in order to avoid "how do you know that's the same person?" or "this is all fake", she did have to show evidence that it was who she said it was.
The timeline does sound skewed to me, though; I note by the PDF the update was that in 2024 John was still competing with the boys which is where he tied for fifth place, then in 2025 Katie won first place with the girls.
So 2023 or 2024 - ties for fifth, 2025 - first place. I think looking at that leap in performance, it's hard to argue "trans girls in sports don't have any advantage over cis girls" at this stage. I've no idea if the kid is on hormones and we'll have to wait a couple of years into the transition to see any real changes, but that is the crux of the argument: while we're waiting those years, Katie formerly John is now beating girls for places on state teams, college sports scholarships, and possibly Olympic places.
(The irony would be if the reason John only made fifth place competing with the boys is because they were secretly transitioning all along for a couple of years, but now they're fully out as Katie).
Oh, I make no claims as to the merits of the argument. I think publicizing and politicizing a teen's name like this would have been bad form even if we were talking about an unambiguous, garden-variety cheater (say, a kid who'd taken prohibited steroids). It's just not a responsible politician's place to name-and-shame a random minor like this, whether the kid did something actually wrong or not.
If someone is mature enough to transition they’re mature enough to take criticism of it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link