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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Are The Global Elites Coordinating to Push LGBT Acceptance And Gender Theory?

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Last week @2rafa posted her comment about WEF conspiracy theories, concluding that the WEF is a mundane organization, pushing mostly boring neoliberal status quo stuff, to the extent they push anything at all. This post isn't necessarily a direct response to that thesis, but might be an interesting contrast to it.

I am a proud Deranged Conspiracy Theorist. It's a relatively new state of affairs for me, but some time ago I've tried the tinfoil hat on, and it seems to fit. This means when the WEF is in session, I browse their livestreams and videos, and if something catches my eye, I watch the whole thing. So when I saw the video titled Beyond the Rainbow: Advancing LGBTQI+ Rights, I knew I had to watch it.

It's a discussion panel featuring a diverse cast of LGBT (well, L and G as far as I can tell) speakers from around the world. We have

Ben Fajzullin, an Australian journalist currently working for the German Deutsche Welle

• Fahd Jamaleddine, a “global shaper” from Lebanon

Sarah Kate Ellis from GLAAD

Tirana Hassan from Human Rights Watch

Sharon Marcil from the Boston Consulting Group

This is in no particular order, to the extent there are themes in this discussion, they're rotated through the conversation, so going over it chronologically doesn't make a lot of sense.

The goal of the panel is to discuss success stories of the LGBT(QI+) community, and best practices on how to implement “this type of thinking”. They start off by bringing up how last year there were still 80 countries with sodomy laws on the books, and now we're down to 70. A reasonable point to start, if there's a steelman case for the global elites coordinating to push LGBT acceptance and gender theory, that would be it.

Would I have no objection if this was where the whole thing ended? I'm not sure, maybe @DaseIndustriesLtd made singletons sound too scary for me, maybe I watched too much Star Trek as a kid, and the idea of the Prime Directive ended up influencing me a bit too much, or maybe I just have an irrational fear of my elites betraying me for membership in a global club? Hard to say. During the Q&A someone in the audience brings up an example and example from the other side:

we can trace directly the sources the resourcing for homophobia in Ghana straight line to the U.S churches

I don't want to be Americanized by Evangelicals any more than I want to be Americanized by Progressives, so I find it just as wrong as Davos-aligned orgs going around the world and spreading their ideas. The only way I could hold my nose, and tolerate it, is if one side was clearly winning, and this was the only way of preserving some viewpoint diversity.

Either way, while the goal ending sodomy laws is something I agree with, Davos panels on how to accomplish that make me uncomfortable.

Singapore is one of the most recent examples that [has] decriminalized [being gay]. It's taking the legislation off the books but at the same time Singapore fortified the rules around same-sex marriage and so you know it's not always a win; and they did that because they were playing to the more conservative base which was agreeing to decriminalization.

This is still on the mundane side, because I also agree with gay marriage, but it raises red flags when you compare it to the western culture war. Many people already had their suspicions, but the pretty explicit “we'll get you next time” that the Singaporeans get to hear if they're paying attention, raises some interesting questions about the seamless transition from gay marriage to trans issues in the west, and about taking any future assurances about social reforms in good faith. Other then that, coming back to the point about singletons, even though I'm personally for gay marriage, different definitions of marriage are one of the central examples of what I think different cultures should be allowed to experiment with.

Later they make a point that this isn't something limited to the non-developed countries:

Marriage equality laws, all of these issues, are actually becoming signs of modernity. They are becoming signs of democracies and countries which respect rights for everyone, but we're seeing also that this has become a new battleground, and in particular this isn't something that happens in certain parts of the world and not others. Even in Europe we see Hungary and Poland who have really been using LGBT rights as a battleground, essentially to try and harness the support of the conservative elements of society, and the government using it to put themselves up as some sort of hero of protector of family values.

Originally they name drop Poland and Hungary, so it might sound like they are focusing on marriage laws, but “using LGBT rights as a battleground to try and harness the support of the conservative elements of society” is a fully generalized argument. Later on they describe the US in similar terms:

May I just say one thing on that, because that is a Battleground that we're facing in the United States right now. It's really tough, I'll be honest with you, they're putting it under parental rights. I'm a parent I'm married to a woman and I have two kids, so they're talking about some parental rights, and they're excluding us, and they're targeting us, and they're banning books at a rate that we've never seen before. They're conflating these conversations about bodily autonomy and trans youth, and it's a really tough moment right now in education in the United States. I'm absolutely sure it's being exported globally this kind of framework that they've come up with, that's been really effective over the past year. They're legislating against it as well.

This is Sarah Kate Ellis describing the state of the controversy in the US. Everything you've heard about trans women in sports, placement in prison based on self-ID, concerns about the standards for diagnosing dysphoria in kids, the reversibility of puberty blockers, and their side effects, minimal ages for surgeries, eunuch fetishists promoting their fetish via WPATH, schools hiding children transitioning from their parents, Drag Queen Story Hour, and putting Queer Theory in school material have been reduced to the above paragraph, and it's made clear these stances are being deliberately pushed back on.

Someone seeing the WEF as boring and benign should also meditate on how despite gathering people from all over the world, they somehow seem confident no one in the audience is going to give them any push-back. They're not worried an American might say “you've misrepresented everything that's been happening in our country”, let alone that someone from a more conservative part of the world might proudly assert their values.

And of course, the part where she says ***they*** are exporting their framework globally, as she's sitting at Davos, talking to an international audience of some of the most powerful people in the world, is just... *Chef's Kiss* (there will be more of those).

This is still on the mundane side, because I also agree with gay marriage, but it raises red flags when you compare it to the western culture war. Many people already had their suspicions, but the pretty explicit “we'll get you next time” that the Singaporeans get to hear if they're paying attention, raises some interesting questions about the seamless transition from gay marriage to trans issues in the west, and about taking any future assurances about social reforms in good faith. Other then that, coming back to the point about singletons, even though I'm personally for gay marriage, different definitions of marriage are one of the central examples of what I think different cultures should be allowed to experiment with.

I am confused by this paragraph. Is it surprising that people who think sodomy should be legal also think gay marriage should be legal? I'm not really seeing how there is an "explicit" "we'll get you next time" either. They're mentioning that they think its progress that Singapore has legalized sodomy but wished Singapore had gone farther and legalized gay marriage, or at least not added a constitutional amendment against it. Is it nefarious to express preferences about the laws and rules of other countries? On a panel dedicated to discussing exactly those kinds of rule and policy changes in other countries?

It's also not clear to me how Singapore was not "allowed to experiment with" laws against gay marriage or sodomy. As best I can tell there is no external actor coercing them to go one way or the other, it seems to me driven by changing sentiment within the country. Should countries be obliged to maintain laws they think are bad for the purpose of maintaining some kind of global viewpoint diversity? Is it wrong to try and convince countries to change their laws by reason and argument if not many countries have similar laws?

Is it surprising that people who think sodomy should be legal also think gay marriage should be legal?

The way she framed it conservatives in Singapore made a deal: "ok, we'll give you decriminalization, but we want to make sure it doesn't go further than that" (to that end they even "fortified" marriage in law). She makes it sound like it's an obstacle to overcome, not a compromise to be honored.

Is it nefarious to express preferences about the laws and rules of other countries?

Yes, it's like expressing a preference on what kind of food your neighbor eats, or how often they have sex. It's none of your business, and it's creepy to poke your nose into it.

Do you see some creepy aspect in the story about American Evangelicals spreading their views on homosexuality in Ghana? Or is your only problem with it that you disagree with them?

It's also not clear to me how Singapore was not "allowed to experiment with" laws against gay marriage or sodomy.

There was a literal international conspiracy to get them to stop. It didn't not involve direct force, but these people did not recognize they're putting their nose somewhere it doesn't belong. Also, keep in mind when I brought up experimenting with different setups, I explicitly mentioned marriage, not sodomy laws.

it seems to me driven by changing sentiment within the country

They explicitly talk about coordinating to change sentiments within countries as well. This is something they should not be allowed to do, in my opinion.

Should countries be obliged to maintain laws they think are bad for the purpose of maintaining some kind of global viewpoint diversity?

The countries themselves can make whatever decisions they want.

Is it wrong to try and convince countries to change their laws by reason and argument if not many countries have similar laws?

Mostly yes. Especially if it involves conspiring to use corporations, NGOs, the country's own youth, infiltrating their media, in order to "convince" those countries to change their laws.

The way she framed it conservatives in Singapore made a deal: "ok, we'll give you decriminalization, but we want to make sure it doesn't go further than that" (to that end they even "fortified" marriage in law). She makes it sound like it's an obstacle to overcome, not a compromise to be honored.

I mean, yea, from her perspective it is. I'm curious how you think this compromise works. It seems like your perception of it entails that, since the sodomy law is repealed, nobody is ever allowed to argue for the legalization of gay marriage for all time. This seems like a strange perspective to me, and certainly is not how I understand it. The compromise is about particular legislation happening now. Not about some commitment to never ever changing laws or advocating they be changed in the future.

Yes, it's like expressing a preference on what kind of food your neighbor eats, or how often they have sex. It's none of your business, and it's creepy to poke your nose into it.

I think there are many relevant moral differences between states and individuals and between state policies and individual preferences that make this comparison inapt.

Do you see some creepy aspect in the story about American Evangelicals spreading their views on homosexuality in Ghana? Or is your only problem with it that you disagree with them?

The second one. I think evangelicals spreading their views in Ghana is bad, because I think the views being spread are bad. I have no particular issue with people trying to convince others of their viewpoints more generally.

There was a literal international conspiracy to get them to stop. It didn't not involve direct force, but these people did not recognize they're putting their nose somewhere it doesn't belong. Also, keep in mind when I brought up experimenting with different setups, I explicitly mentioned marriage, not sodomy laws.

If the conspiracy doesn't involve means or ends that I think are objectionable I struggle to see why I should object to its existence.

They explicitly talk about coordinating to change sentiments within countries as well. This is something they should not be allowed to do, in my opinion.

How would you even stop this? Should Singapore not be allowed to participate in the global internet, because maybe they'd see things that would change their views on LGBT people? Does the Singaporean internet need to be censored to ensure their present social values are maintained forever and ever? Is it bad to show people ads depicting LGBT people as normal people if such ads convince people that bans on sodomy are wrong?

Mostly yes. Especially if it involves conspiring to use corporations, NGOs, the country's own youth, infiltrating their media, in order to "convince" those countries to change their laws.

I don't understand why "convince" is in scare quotes, what methods were employed that aren't covered by that label? I guess I just disagree that convincing people to change their ways by argument is wrong.

I mean, yea, from her perspective it is. I'm curious how you think this compromise works. It seems like your perception of it entails that, since the sodomy law is repealed, nobody is ever allowed to argue for the legalization of gay marriage for all time. This seems like a strange perspective to me, and certainly is not how I understand it. The compromise is about particular legislation happening now. Not about some commitment to never ever changing laws or advocating they be changed in the future.

There's a gulf between "never changing laws after this" (unreasonable) and "this compromise holds only until we break our opponents"

The stronger the latter feeling, the more distrust and the less reason for the status quo power to compromise in the first place. If the opponents are going to be immovably opposed until they achieve maximal gains you might as well try to break them first while the mores are still somewhat on your side.

It undermines the very basis of compromise.

If it were a budget law there'd be less of an issue with the idea that we'll redo it next year. This is about social norms that need to be somewhat stable.

There's a gulf between "never changing laws after this" (unreasonable) and "this compromise holds only until we break our opponents"

To both the LGBTs and the people they're convincing, "break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter". Your arguments depend on the idea that gay or gay marriage bad somehow, which clearly can be argued for, and some people here agree with, but without that it's just "people who want law vote for it", which is not scary.

"break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter".

And break those we can't convince. That's always part of it no?

Look at the US government basically setting up a bounty system against people who don't want to do things like bake cakes for gays. Your business, but you could lose your life's work for your religious beliefs. That's breaking someone.

Your arguments depend on the idea that gay or gay marriage bad somehow

No, it depends on moral beliefs being sticky and having a normative quality: i.e. people who have them want to keep and instantiate them. Some people (in this case trad Sinagporeans) believe homosexuality is wrong. Therefore, when faced with an opponent that has clearly no interest in anything but tactical compromise on the road to utterly overturning your moral principles - the trads (who usually start out with an upper hand) have an incentive to not compromise at all, lest they succumb to salami tactics.

To both the LGBTs and the people they're convincing, "break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter".

It doesn't, of course. It means "convince a higher power to impose our will on our opponents." Very few people from either side actually engage with their peer-level opponents. The entire game nowadays is convincing people with power to execute your will over your enemies.

I remember reading something, and I don't remember whether it was here or elsewhere, about TRA groups saying their best strategy was to approach MPs or other people with power quietly, and try and keep what they were asking for out of the media and away from the spotlight. The public must not be told. They must not find out. Because the public will oppose them. But if they can convince these key people, they can bypass the public and force their will on them anyway.

I remember reading something, and I don't remember whether it was here or elsewhere, about TRA groups saying their best strategy was to approach MPs or other people with power quietly, and try and keep what they were asking for out of the media and away from the spotlight. The public must not be told. They must not find out. Because the public will oppose them. But if they can convince these key people, they can bypass the public and force their will on them anyway.

It was Joyce's book.

And yes, it was exactly as you framed it.

This stealthy approach has been central to transactivism for quite some time. In a speech in 2013, Masen Davis, then the executive director of the American Transgender Law Center, told supporters that ‘we have largely achieved our successes by flying under the radar . . . We do a lot really quietly.

We have made some of our biggest gains that nobody has noticed. We are very quiet and thoughtful about what we do, because we want to make sure we have the win more than we want to have the publicity.’

The result is predictable. Even as one country after another introduces gender self-ID, very few voters know this is happening, let alone support it.

In 2018 research by Populus, an independent pollster, crowdfunded by British feminists, found that only fifteen percent of British adults agreed that legal sex change should be possible without a doctor’s sign-off. A majority classified a ‘person who was born male and has male genitalia but who identifies as a woman’ as a man, and only tiny minorities said that such people should be allowed into women’s sports or changing rooms, or be incarcerated in a women’s prison if they committed a crime.

Two years later, YouGov found that half of British voters thought people should be ‘able to self-identify as a different gender to the one they were born in’. But two-thirds said legal sex change should only be possible with a doctor’s sign-off, with just fifteen percent saying no sign-off should be needed. In other words, there is widespread support for people describing themselves as they wish, but not much for granting such self-descriptions legal status. The same poll also asked whether transwomen should be allowed in women’s sports and changing rooms, sometimes with a reminder that transwomen may have had no genital surgery, and sometimes without. The share saying yes was twenty percentage points lower with the reminder than without – again demonstrating widespread confusion about what being trans means, and that support for trans people does not imply support for self-declaration overriding reality.

How would you attribute increasing 'acceptance' of homosexuality and trans people in society to "a higher power imposing our will on our opponents"? One could argue media, or social media, are playing a significant role, but that's not exactly "executing your will", more persuasion.

about TRA groups saying their best strategy was to approach MPs or other people with power quietly

This clearly isn't the general strategy of 'trans activists', who are all over twitter and are present on left-leaning TV and news websites with stories about legislation to protect trans people, how transphobia is bad, etc. 'Approach people with power quietly' is often a good strategy for actually getting legislation passed, whatever the area.

How would you attribute increasing 'acceptance' of homosexuality and trans people in society to "a higher power imposing our will on our opponents"? One could argue media, or social media, are playing a significant role, but that's not exactly "executing your will", more persuasion.

Here's a very obvious way:

  1. The government passes a "anti-LGBT discrimination law" that allows workplaces to be sued if anything conceivably homophobic or transphobic (by its standards) happens and is not addressed.

  2. Companies don't want to be sued and face punitive damages so they start putting up courses against disliking homosexuality or trans and encouraging acceptance. They institute a pronoun policy to push trans acceptance. They make it clear punishment is the cost of non-participation or flouting the rules. They hire a HR department to watch over all of this.

  3. People care about their livelihoods so they have no choice but to go along. Some falsify their beliefs by acting like they agree, some have the good fortune to be able to believe the things they're forced to conform to. Many go along to get along with yet another tedious corporate mandate like putting pronouns in their bio or introducing themselves with them even when they don't believe in the concept.

This has been the playbook since the Civil Rights movement and explains the rapid acceptance of the trans activist line without anything like the debate over gay marriage; the system is much more refined and entrenched now and so it can pivot very fast - especially by leveraging past successes to create an aura of inevitability that discourages resistance and encourages elite adoption (elites themselves educated in institutions that accept a lot of these things)

The people who are accepting... aren't your opponents and so you don't need to force your will on them? These two things are completely orthogonal. I'm unclear if anyone even has actually been persuaded to chance their minds, as opposed to the simple replacement of generations.

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To both the LGBTs and the people they're convincing, "break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter".

Like this charming song which is ha-ha only joking, we just mean we'll make everything and everyone nice.

That it comes across as extremely creepy is apparently not clear to this bunch, and gosh mate, that hairstyle? if I had a kid who copied that look, I'd lock him in the shed.

Yes, a bunch of gay men from San Francisco singing about converting kids to disco and rainbows is not at all sounding like "fresh meat fresh meat".

... yeah, that is a joke, and the normal belief really is 'we will make everyone nice and kids will wholesomely discover they are gay'. They'd justify this by pointing to the many gay people who grew up in conservative families, 'knew they were gay' from a young age, but couldn't say anything. They are intentionally playing into the 'creepy' idea of 'corrupting your children', as a joke. This is single joke of a truly massive amount of gay-oriented culture and music for a population of 10M english speaking gays. It doesn't represent the general attitudes or actions of gays at all, because it is a joke.

(as usual) that can all be true and gay can still be bad. but that has to be directly argued for. It seems like there's some vague ideas that there's something wrong with gays, but isn't really developed and just comes out in misdirected grievances against things one sees on twitter or discord.

To both the LGBTs and the people they're convincing, "break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter"

And that "our rights" includes taking a scalpel to your 14 year old daughter's chest, or being put in female prison on your say-so.

If that's your argument, that's one of substance not of the right of international institutions to try to promote change abroad.

No, hold on. This branch of the thread went off into the LGBT activism in itself. I still believe in everything I said about international organizations.

What do you think a (sufficiently intelligent and non-seething) LGBT-supporter would say when they hear that response?

Maybe ">90% of trans people are over 18, and maybe 2% of them are in prison. Trans people just want to be accepted as the gender they are, and put a lot of effort into being, and be treated similarly to anyone else. You're picking particularly contentious niches-within-niches - many trans people don't even get surgery, those that do >95% of the time get them over age 18, and even those who get surgery under 18 are 16-17, not 14. Why focus on those, when the bulk of what we want are thinks like insurance-covered hormones for adults and general social acceptance?"

The non-seething trans supporters are either on my side and cast out as heretics, or keep their head down.

This reminds me to some non-seething socialists' attempts to get to dodge the damage done by the culture war: "right wingers are using culture war to distract you from the real issues like economics, worker exploitation, etc". Well, if it's a ln existential threat to me, and merely a distraction to you, how about a compromise - you concede the entire culture war to me, and I concede the entire economy to you? Win - win! Oddly I never had takers.

Same goes for non-seething trans activists. They'll never agree to not trying to sell puberty blockers as a magical pause button, to minimum age limits on medical intervention, on sex segregation in sports, and all the other "neiche issues", at least not without landing in the same pit I'm in (and bless the ones that took the leap!). It's only so long that I can go by stated instead of revealed preferences.

And that's without going into the object level stuff. I think you're wrong on that too. IIRC the modal trans person today is an adolescent female.

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Why focus on those, when the bulk of what we want are thinks like insurance-covered hormones for adults and general social acceptance?"

"Why focus on the purges, when the bulk of what we want are things like fair conditions for the proletariat?"

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I guess how stable is "somewhat stable"? In the United States over the 12 years between when sodomy was constitutionally protected and when gay marriage was constitutionally protected popular support for the latter increased from around 40% of the population to around 60%. Was that too fast of a change? Would it be a violation of this "compromise" if, a decade from now, Singapore has a substantial debate about legalizing gay marriage? What if popular support has changed similarly in that time?