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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

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You can just call yourself doctor, nobody cares. You can't suddenly start practicing medicine or teaching at a university, but nobody will stop you from calling yourself that.

Punishable with up to 1 year of jail e.g. in Germany; and yes, if your Karen neighbour figures out you were not technically allowed to, she will absolutely report you.

Yeah, but over there misgendering is also punishable with rather large fines.

It is? Hot damn. Then it would actually be rather dangerous...if "trans people" actually existed, outside of a few basement dwellers nobody ever sees in daylight.

Yup, €10K, thanks to the recently(ish) passed Selbstbestimmungsgesetz. It already resulted in a peak-Germany situation where a neonazi got jailed for neonazism, had a sudden sentencing-day transition, and started suing people for being referred to as anything other than a stunning and brave woman.

if "trans people" actually existed, outside of a few basement dwellers nobody ever sees in daylight.

Eh, much like everywhere else, the average transgender case changed from weird middle-aged dude that likes to throw on a dress, to autistic adolescent girl having trouble making sense of her place in the world.

It's common enough that I've actually seen the latter organically (i.e. not because I'm obsessed with the subject)

I recall that you have some OPSEC in place, so no sweat if you refuse to answer, but where?

Here in the Provinz, there just aren't any. I mean, for sure they are somewhere, we do have the internet after all and social contagions do spread, but it doesn't look like they go outside enough to be encountered in the wild. Or the whole pronouns business is after all not important enough to actually make it public in person.

I think some time ago I PMed you where I was at. It's not exactly rural, but my impression is it's still seen as relatively conservative. I think the girl's father lives in one of the wokest parts of the country though, so that could have contributed to the contagion.

That is not the point; 4bpp is specifically analogizing the overnight invalidation of documents where you called yourself "Dr." to the overnight invalidation of ID papers which included transgender people's chosen genders instead of their sex. In either case, it seems inordinately disruptive to the lives of the people involved, even if one were in favor of phasing out the practice as far as issuing new documents is concerned.

I think this interpretation stretches credulity enormously. You don’t go out and picket over minor changes in procedure, even if it is annoying; you do so for perceived loss of privilege (the inability to use the Dr. prefix as a signifier).

Every trans person has lost the privilege to drive if their documents are immediately invalidated. Driving without a valid license is a crime in Kansas. Any trans person driving around with their old license would be risking arrest and prosecution until they could secure an updated license.