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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.
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?
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.
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.
The countries themselves can make whatever decisions they want.
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 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 It seems like your perception of it entails that, since the sodomy law is repealed, nobody is ever allowed to argue for the legalization of gay marriage for all time.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.
I think there are many relevant moral differences between states and individuals and between state policies and individual preferences that make this comparison inapt.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Modal is like the peak of a distribution, or in a discrete sense the 'most common value' - it's plausible the modal age of a trans person is <18 because trans is becoming more popular, but the average or median i'm pretty sure is >18, just because the trans minors of 5 years ago aren't minors anymore, and many transition after 18. Citing a report on a report on studies is bad but The analysis, relying on government health surveys conducted from 2017 to 2020, estimated that 1.4 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds and 1.3 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were transgender, compared with about 0.5 percent of all adults., which points to >18.
When I said 'non-seething', I meant 'not as a part of a partisan argument'. I think a lot of trans activists aren't that invested in the specific topic of surgery for minors (as distinguished from hormones for minors, or surgery generally). Many of them continue to believe that underage kids aren't getting surgeries, and usually won't directly defend surgeries for minors, in my experience. General trans activists and the transgender medicine community are different - a part of the latter does some surgeries on minors, but much of the former still has the 'common sense' reaction to surgery on minors.
And ... if you believe the 'trans people have severe dysphoria and surgery alleviates that, so surgery on trans adults is good' (which I don't), I don't see why that doesn't apply to kids as well. Of course, in that frame, children are still very stupid and will often say they're trans when they aren't, so it should be gated behind years of 'are you sure' (which was part of the motivation for puberty blockers) - and it is at the moment, I think.
Here's something that could square the circle somewhat: most people, normal or otherwise, are not activists. Activists, people in power, etc, do not care about the opinion of the majority, as long as they can get away with it, which is almost always.
Though that only works until a point, because:
So when you tell them it is true, and show them the evidence, do they thank you for it, and adjust, or attack you as a transphobic rightoid?
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