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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   27312 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025

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A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law", she writes, as if that were inherently beyond the pale.

Well, uh, yeah? Guy who is functionally a guy but gets off on having people call him "ma'am" and getting into women's spaces so he can parade around with his dick on show is beyond the pale. That includes "yes I've now been convicted of violent rape but I suddenly discovered my inner femininity so please put me in the women's jail not the men's jail" specimens.

There may well be "I call myself legally a woman but I'm functionally still a man" types who don't cause any harm or intend to do so, but they seem to be rare specimens. The "my legal identity is a woman but I'm a straight guy who has penis in vagina sex with women" on the other hand, do cause waves even if they maintain that their intentions were pure.

Let’s back up a second. Should we be using male or female pronouns with you? How do you identify?

I’m very neutral, like non-binary, although I don’t like that word. I’m legally female. But I have facial hair. I have a penis. I have no breasts. I don’t have a feminine voice. I don’t wear makeup or dress up like a female. So imagine you’re a grocery store [clerk] and you’re bagging my groceries and you say, “Excuse me, sir . . . ” I mean, am I supposed to be offended? That’d be ridiculous. How would this person know? But technically, for legal terms, I am she/her. I put "female" on my driver’s license. But I’ve had to struggle my whole life fitting into traditional society.

...Have you considered just changing clothes in a stall or wearing a bathing suit?

It’s not for me to adapt to society at this point. Even if it’s the polite thing to do or you want me to or there’s a controversy or whatever, if nobody else is using a shower curtain or nobody else is using a swimsuit, it’s illegal to try and make me do it. Technically, and from all perspectives, I am female, and everybody agrees with that. We’re all on equal grounds under the law.

Disapprove of my attitudes, that's your right, but if I'm in a women's changing room I don't want this guy walking around with his dingle-dangle out even if he has legal papers that he's a Real Woman.

Disapprove of my attitudes, that's your right

And it's yours to disapprove of mine! But no one with your or Rowling's attitudes can be said to be in favor of transition, which is what I sought to prove. At best they are extremely narrow transmedicalists.

I'm against it, because I think it's mental illness the same way that having schizophrenia is mental illness. Does this mean that we should be mean to schizophrenics? No. Should we refuse them treatment? No. But also should we as a society adopt the ruling that "if Jane says that the spy cameras in the pipes are watching her, we all agree this is so and we hang up blankets over the walls"? No. We tell Jane there are no spy cameras in the pipes, we don't pretend "of course there are spy cameras in the pipes and this is normal and natural".

I think Rowling started out more supportive because she is more socially liberal (e.g. why the hell come out with "and Dumbledore is gay" for one?) but the backlash to "hey maybe don't put biological male bodies into rape crisis shelters" that she just wanted to set up death camps to murder all trans people pushed her to the limit.

I'm against it

I gathered. And again, that's your right. My point is: "puberty-blockers are dangerous means of transitioning and need to be used far less" is an entirely orthogonal opinion from "having the goal of transitioning is a mental illness/otherwise undesirable". If you think the health hazards of puberty blockers are a bigger problem than whatever ills might come out of social transition, and if (as I believe) trans activists would be willing to dial back the puberty blockers on health grounds iff they were assured this isn't the first salami-slice to a campaign against social transition, there is obvious common ground here that could be reached. But it can't be reached if the public face of the anti-puberty-blockers campaign is also strongly against social transition.

You said that she's against it, not that she's unsupportive.

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