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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025

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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.