Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
One of the minor weekly dramas in my corner of X, the everything app, had to do with this tweet by Flesh Simulator, where he states that
(Flesh Simultor is a somewhat popular youtuber who specializes in talking about existing conspiracy theories and seems to be one of the few actually heterodox leftists, combining stuff like rabid support for socialized healthcare and the Palestinian cause with reluctant support for ICE even after the MN shootings, but that is not directly relevant to the current micro-drama)
In response he got hundreds of quote tweets and replies from people who called the 25% estimate comically unrealistic, mixed with MTF-run accounts suggesting that he is a "repressor" (someone who, in trans slang, feels gender dysphoria, but chooses not to transition due to various fears) because, again, no way a normal cis man would think that 25% of fellow men would press the "magically change one's sex" button. That seemingly caused FleshSim to backpedal a bit, stating that his estimate assumed that the button could be used to change your sex back, but my impression is that the original tweet was supposed to mean a one-way ticket to womanhood.
I was very surprised by that reaction to the tweet, because I'd give around the same estimate. My impression always was that if a "magically change biological sex" button was on the menu, the world, or at least the developed parts of it, would be at a 35:65 M:F split within a year or so. Basically, the real world would turn into what you see in most MMOs – almost all women would stay women, but a significant minority of men would choose to become women as well.
Now, I'm far from unbiased here, given that, I, for one, would absolutely press such a button. While I have no plans of transitioning IRL and belong to the 95% that are "still fine" living as the sex I was born as, my post history has me admitting to being a weeby sperg who does not feel much of a connection to his IRL body and physical reality and spends most of my time on the computer, so me choosing to press the button is probably not exactly surprising. But still, I just fail to see FleshSim's 25% conjecture as particularly outlandish. Surely, the quote tweets are all just signalling, and the share of people who'd press the button's gotta be at least in the double-digits, right?
So I ask you, minds of The Motte, what's your best guess about the percentages of men and women that would press the magical "change biological sex" button (for the purposes of the experiment, the button, due to being magical, also solves minor accompanying issues such as getting the new legal name on documents, etc.) if it was freely available?
FWIW I feel the same as you. I've been open that I would certainly have pressed that button when I was younger, and might now, and part of my resistance to trans stuff is that it's an infovirus that would have really fucked me up if it'd come ten, fifteen years earlier.
Agreed. Sometimes I say things and I think, "wow, they're going to crack an egg over my head, aren't they?" and of course it's always a catch-22 -- denying gender dysphoria is often treated like repression rather than honesty.
My biggest concern with the trans movement is the possibility of sweeping up people who just don't fit in society for one reason or another and giving them a pathway that says they aren't 'defective', they have a real condition shared by dozens of us and now they're explained
When I was a young child I had a period of time where I legitimately believed there was a chance I was some sort of space alien Superman'd onto the planet. I just felt like I didn't fit. What's interesting to me is that this kind of narrative has almost entirely been captured by the gender and sexual minorities debate: when Pixar recently made a movie literally about a child who believes he might be a space alien, the critical response was that this was because he was gay, or transgender, or autistic. Even the concept of "being weird" has become a kind of regularized set of categories! It feels almost high modernist: like we are supposed to have such a profoundly complete understanding of the human phenotype that every oddity can be precisely categorized and explained.
I often get along with transgender people better than some might expect of me based on my worldview, but I'd argue that I'd get along with them just as well had they never transitioned. I like people who don't fit. They're interesting, and sometimes more real.
More options
Context Copy link
Even with the trans social contagion I'd personally have a lot less issue with a magical button or procedure that could actually accomplish gender transition. Current surgical interventions might want to do that but are at best a crude simulacra.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link