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 -
Also my understanding of most Trans violence statistics is that they tend to be more illustrative that being a sex worker is very very dangerous than anything.
Article on the latest trans murder statistics, you will all be surprised to learn that making yourself a big, visible target and/or being poor or living in Third World countries, engaging in criminal activity and sex work is the most dangerous way to be:
Disentangling "murdered solely and simply for being trans" from "murdered because women get murdered more than men by intimate partners/prostitution has always been risky" is tough. Also some of the data gathering is skimpy, to say the least; take this example of 2008 murder in Winnipeg, which is happily included in the "there have been 19 cases of trans people murdered in Canada over the years" statistics, even though it's purely notional:
https://transmurdermonitoring.tgeu.org/en/entity/8ig65tvrsdl
So somebody was allegedly murdered (though it could have been suicide or they fell down the stairs or something) on that date in that place, and all that is known is that they were transgender. No name, nothing else, just "transgender person murdered for being transgender in Canada, put it on the list".
Yeah, sure. There's a very subtle eliding going on with these cases; from "trans person murdered" to "this is because they were trans". Such as this case, which could be an ordinary street robbery gone wrong (again, data very skimpy). The victim was trans, but that's not the reason for the murder (unless we assume random person on street identified this as a trans woman and decided to do some trans murdering). However, in such lists released to the press and used as publicity, the implication is "all these people were murdered for being trans" not "trans people are murder victims for a lot of the same reasons cis people are murder victims".
That dishonesty is what dries up any sympathy I have for the activists and their causes and calls for "we just want to be treated with politeness".
Okay being a sex worker and/or a major political agitator as a black/brown person in a third world country is dangerous. Yet the average rhetoric implies that the average university-educated white/asian trans person has a vast threat of targeted violence.
In Australia right now there's a medium news story at the moment focused on hardcore Islamists luring gays on hookup apps to beat and rob them. Yet similar dishonesty is being implied as if random White Australians
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link