This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
In the context of genital care, yes (assuming your statistics are correct).
In contexts where their underwear stays on, no.
So you think a male person can flip back and forth between being a woman and being a man, purely depending on what clothes he's wearing at any particular moment?
I'll say the same thing every gender-critical feminist I know has said at one point or another: femininity is not just a costume to be put on and taken off at will. A male person does not become a woman just because he's wearing a dress and makeup.
No, I believe that whether a person is a man or a woman depends on why you are asking, just as with the difference between a 'blegg' and a 'rube'.
No, if she identifies as a woman, she is a woman for most purposes. Things which involve the genitals are, assuming she has not had the relevant chirurgery, one of the exceptions; medical concerns are another, in which biological sex must be broken down into multiple aspects, such as hormones, current anatomy, natal anatomy, and chromosomes. (cf. Neural Categories, E. Yudkowsky, February 2008; How An Algorithm Feels From Inside, ibid.)
What "purposes" are these? Not physical strength and speed; not aggression; not propensity to commit assault (including sexual assault); not absence of the male reproductive organs (as previously established, only 5% of trans women undergo bottom surgery); not the corresponding ability to rape and impregnate female people; not the corresponding ability to infect others with STIs; not likelihood of being a victim of sexual assault; not ability to bear children; not menstruation; not likelihood of suffering from assorted medical conditions like PCOS, endometriosis, uterine cancer and so on; not likelihood of holding typically female interests (indeed, the overwhelming majority of "trans women" I know hold stereotypically male interests like math rock, D&D and video games); not likelihood of being sexually and romantically attracted to male people only (it seems to be a toss-up as to whether "trans women" are heterosexual or homosexual males, and female lesbians have been complaining for decades about how many lesbian spaces have been effectively colonised by "transbians" i.e heterosexual males, many of whom don't even make the most token effort to pass).
Once you subtract all of those, I'm genuinely curious which "purposes" are left by which a "trans woman" can be considered a woman. This really seems like a "what have the Romans ever done for us?" situation. When trying to predict how a trans woman will behave or what life experiences they will have, for what purpose does their maleness provide worse predictive power than their "identifying as" a woman? I've interacted with far more than my fair share of trans women in my life, some of whom had gone to significant lengths (up to and including medical interventions) to modify their appearances to more closely resemble a typically female one. At no point did I ever experience a subjective sensation that I was talking to a female person: 100% of the time, I felt like I was talking to a nerdy man who expressed himself exactly as I would expect a nerdy man to, and who had all of the interests and habits of mind expected of a nerdy man, coupled with an incidental fondness for cross-dressing (and sometimes not even that). A subset of these trans women barely even pretended to hide how pornsick they were (outside of pornography, female women do not typically walk around wearing t-shirts with "CUM SLUT" emblazoned across them) or their unabashed hatred for female people, but that's beside the point.
You also haven't answered my earlier question as to whether "gender identity" is a trait just as innate as "sex".
The ones that, if you don't know her very well, and aren't being hired for purposes involving her body, are any of your business.
An individual is responsible for what they, personally have done; they are not responsible for what they are capable of doing but haven't done, or what people who share characteristics with them have done. Therefore, the decision about how much, if any, of an individual's body is relevant to you belongs to that individual alone, unless and until that particular individual commits a wrongful act.
Admittedly, this is dependent on the axiom that the well-being of individuals is the measurement of ethics, with one's duties being derived from the effects on other individuals; however, the contrary world-view, of the subordination of the individual to the family/community/other collective abstraction, has been known to lead to many Bad Things, including, as part of many societies' traditional marital practises, the forcible rape of women-as-in-people-born-with-vulvae (when they first landed on the moon, it would be another seven years before it became a crime for a husband to rape his wife).
What? I literally don't understand what this means.
"Bob is a woman for most purposes."
"Well, here is a list of the most pertinent ways in which women differ from men, or in which society treats female people differently from male, none of which are applicable to Bob. How, then, is Bob a woman?"
"None of your business."
Legitimately – what the fuck does that even mean? You're saying I have to treat Bob like a woman because he demands it, but if I express the slightest curiosity about how, exactly, Bob is a woman, you accuse me of invading Bob's privacy? I'm just supposed to take it on faith that Bob is a woman "for most purposes" (none of which he cares to enumerate) and should be treated accordingly? Wow, I can't imagine how this policy could be (has been) exploited by bad actors.
With respect: bullshit. Not only does this not describe how anybody lives their life, not only does it not describe how anyone should live their life – it doesn't even describe how you, personally, live your life. You literally aren't following the moral principle you demand everyone else follow.
When you are walking down the street late at night, and you pass a drunk person acting aggressively, I'm going to hazard a guess that the size of the berth you give them depends heavily on whether they're male or female. You do this not on the basis of what they, personally, have done (you don't know if they have a criminal record, they're a complete stranger to you). You do this on the basis of: if they're a male person who gets in your face and tries to hit you, if they succeed, they will do a lot more damage than if they're a female person.
Another example. If you're not the parent of a small child, imagine that you are. You need to leave your child alone for an evening, your child is too young to be left alone, and none of your friends or family are available to look after the child. You put up an ad saying you're looking for a babysitter, and receive two applications: a fifteen-year-old female, and a fifteen-year-old male. (If you like, the fifteen-year-old male can claim to "identify as" a girl, but still has fully intact and function male genitalia.) You aren't allowed to learn anything else about the applicants other than their age and sex. Who do you hire?
Am I wrong about any of the above? If not, I'm dying to hear your explanation for how you aren't a complete and utter hypocrite.
My worldview is also dependent on that axiom, and a related axiom that not all harms are created equal. In order to prevent harm coming to their children, it makes sense for parents to hire babysitters who are not members of the demographic responsible for the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults of children (not to mention penetrative rapes, given that this demographic is the only demographic capable of penetratively raping others with anatomy alone). I do not dispute the fact that it's upsetting for the sexually well-behaved members of this demographic to be denied employment opportunities on the basis of traits they have no control over (although most of them are mature and empathetic enough* that they can eventually learn to understand why parents are more willing to leave their child alone with a female stranger than a male, without throwing a tantrum about being the victims of sexist discrimination): I just think that the amount of mental distress caused is infinitesimal compared to the amount of mental distress caused by a child being sexually assaulted or penetratively raped by an adult male. It's a trade-off I am perfectly willing to make (along with virtually every other reasonable adult), basic utilitarianism. I think it's frankly disgusting that you're invoking the historical example of marital rape when the policy you're advocating is a rapist's credo. If parents legally could not take "candidate's sex" into account when hiring a babysitter, can you envision any scenario in which this wouldn't result in tens of thousands of additional child rape victims every year? If so, how?
But you don't dispute that: you just think a man's right not to feel sad supersedes a child's right not to be physically violated by his or her guardian.
You still, still, still have not answered my question on whether "gender identity" is innate or not. Gosh, I wonder why.
*A category which includes me but, apparently, not you.
Yes, you are wrong about both of the above.
WRT the baby-sitter, I flip a coin, and take the same protective measures for 15F as I would for 15M, 15tF, 15tM, or 15X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger
Agreeing with you is not a sine qua non of maturity.
Disagreeing with you does not necessarily constitute a 'tantrum'.
But if you consider second-/third-/umpteenth-order effects, people being treated as suspicious by default on the basis of natal anatomy and its physical sequelae creates a precedent, which will be seized upon by the 13/50 crowd to support similar suspicion-by-default on the basis of skin colour.
This will lead to escalating tensions in society, until it boils over. If we're lucky, we get a rerun of 1968 or 2020; if the dice come up snake-eyes, society collapses and we end up less able to prosecute rapes by strangers, and much less able to prosecute rapes within families.
To make the point that, even if your sole goal is to minimise the rape of people-born-with-female-genitals, your strategy might be less than optimal.
Less of this, please.
Legally, I do not support non-discrimination law intruding into that particular case; I do not think you should end up in the dock on suspicion of favouring a woman over a man, a white woman over a black woman, or any other such distinction, in hiring, in your personal capacity, an individual for services in your personal residence, even if I disagree with your reasoning.
Teach children that certain parts of their bodies are private, that they have the right to not have them touched is a way that feels wrong, that this right supersedes parental or parentally-delegated authority; or at least don't ban books that teach this.
If their baby-sitter makes them feel uncomfortable in some un-nameable manner, listen to them and possibly find another baby-sitter rather than telling them to shut up and not be 'disrespectful'.
I believe it most likely is, per the reported experiences of transgender individuals; as I do not personally identify with gender any more than any other aspect of the meat-puppet I inhabit, I do not have the ability to say for certain.
In the UK among other jurisdictions, rape is defined as forcible penetration with a penis. No one has ever been impregnated via digital penetration alone. I imagine the number of people who have contracted STDs via digital penetration is vanishingly small.
Do you have young children? If so, have you really just multiplied their risk of being sexually assaulted by 9x purely to prove how progressive you are?
You claim that a basic principle of leftist thought is that it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of traits one has no control over. But by your own admission, you are demanding we stop discriminating on the basis of one trait we have no control over (sex) in favour of another (gender identity).
I wasn't accusing you of throwing a tantrum, but you claim that some males feel "humiliated" by people correctly inferring that they are male and hence members of the demographic responsible for disproportionate amounts of assault and rape, and that they might lash out in consequence. "Tantrum" seems like an accurate description of the foregoing.
No. It literally is a rapist's credo. Even if it wasn't consciously designed with the intention of making it easier for rapists to commit and get away with their crimes, that's it's practical effect. Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice and all that.
In other words, "if the babysitter has sexually interfered with them, don't hire the babysitter again" as opposed to "avoid hiring a babysitter who is a member of the demographic most likely to sexually interfere with them in the first place". Being progressive and not discriminating against male people is so important to you that you are completely fine with a male person sexually interfering with your child as many times as is necessary for your child to come to you and tell you that the babysitter has touched them inappropriately – as opposed to just taking the commonsense approach of not hiring a male babysitter in the first place.
I truthfully don't get what the threat is here. Unless we stop acknowledging that male people are male (and allow rapists and sex pests free reign to rape and sexually assault to their heart's content), then the
gamersincelsautogynephiles will rise up and wreak havoc on our society?As I've previously stated, the overwhelming majority of male people have no problem with people acknowledging that they are male and treating them accordingly. The only demographic who seems to have a problem with this is "trans women", who (as they are quick to remind us) are a tiny minority, perhaps as little as 0.5% of the population if we're being generous. They do not exist in sufficient numbers to pose a credible threat to the functioning of Western society. "Don't negotiate with terrorists" is sensible advice virtually all the time: all the more so when the terrorists in question are a tiny minority of extremely thin-skinned who can be reduced to floods of tears simply by catching a glimpse of their own reflection in a mirror or having a stranger address them as "sir".
And it used to be defined as to not apply within marriage; we changed that, and we can change the other.
If Alan rapes Barb with his penis, and he wears a condom, Barb is unlikely to be impregnated or contract a social disease; he is nevertheless prosecuted no less vigorously.
No, I take measures to protect them even from a cis-woman.
I was more referring to the prodromal phase; what would have been referred to twenty years ago as 'grooming'; don't hire that baby-sitter again if he/she/they start laying the groundwork for the worst offences.
No, I am also opposed to discrimination on that basis.
I am attempting to illustrate possible nth-order effects.
Society treats people-born-with-male-anatomy as suspicious-by-default --> a precedent is set that people may rightly be judged by the behavior of their demographic rather than innocent-until-proven-guilty --> the 13/52 crowd ignores your distinctions and uses that precedent to treat Black people as suspicious-by-default --> years and decades of being followed in stores/avoided on the street/not picked up by taxicabs/&c. build up until Black people (and their white allies) decide that they have Had Enough, as we saw in 1968 and 2020. If it doesn't boil over, it can still lead to Bad Things done to Black people, such as Emmitt Till; the same can be said of judging individual Jews, such as Anne Frank, by the alleged acts of the Jewish people as a whole.
After the revelation of the horrors of the Third Reich, combined with the cruelties in the Unitedstatesian South, progressives, and in subsequent generations moderates, came to the conclusion that judging individuals by their race/ethnicity is dangerous, and ought to be treated as radioactive. (I don't mean realistic radioactivity, e. g. a glove 1% more radioactive than the 80%-lower-than-global-average local background, or spent fuel pellets that, had they powered Kublai Khan's stately pleasure dome, would have cooled off to the point where one could pick them up bare-handed and, as long as one doesn't eat them, be none the worse for wear. I'm referring to the Hollywood/Simpsons image of three-quarters rusted yellow barrels full of glowing Avada-Kedavra-green sludge that, had they existed in the hoary days when first were laid the foundation-stones of the Great Sphinx, would still cause cancer and monstrous birth defects at 100 metres.)
Subsequently, the same logic was extended to sex/gender, which, even if one does not believe it obligatory per se, nevertheless functions in a manner akin to the Jewish practise of gader saviv HaTorah, a fence around the Law.
My argument is isomorphic to the late Charlie Kirk's 2023 remarks on gun control.
In both cases, there is a horrifying-to-contemplate problem threatening the most vulnerable members of our society (rape/mass shootings of the sort of which Columbine is the type specimen).
In both cases, a seemingly simple solution is proposed (treat half the population as guilty until proven innocent/abolish private ownership of firearms).
In both cases, many innocent people are held responsible for the actions of a few.
In both cases, proponents of the suggested policy frame the drawbacks as meaningless, and their opponents' objections as petulant whinging and/or evidence that they deserve to be so held responsible.
In both cases, the proposed policy is criticised for potential nth-order failure states (less credibility in opposing the more fanatical thirteen-fiftiers leading to either a racist dystopia or mass civil unrest/Iran in 2026)
In both cases, the argument is made that the proposed policy is both:
a cure worse than the disease, and
not necessary as there are better solutions (Mr Kirk's proposal to have armed guards at schools/teach children that certain parts of their body are private and if the baby-sitter shows too much interest in those parts they should tell an adult whom they trust; listen to them if they do so. [Note that if my young child thought as you do and did not wish to be left with an assigned-male-at-birth baby-sitter, I would not attempt to force the issue; this will also show that he/she/they can trust me if the assigned-female-at-birth baby-sitter behaves inappropriately with her fingers/an object, or brings in another person, assigned-male-at-birth or otherwise, who does so.])
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link