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 -
Then what use does it have? Outing would have absolutely no value if it doesn't change anything.
If it's "obvious" to everyone then there should be no reasonable liability to be had here. Engaging in sexual acts with a trans person could only be done with explicit consent, and any argument that they were "tricked" would be laughed out. This only works if you don't believe it is obvious to everyone and people have to be told. And nobody would even care to do things like putting it in law or trying to call it rape or whatever because they would understand that exact thing if it was so blatantly obvious.
Why does it matter what you personally use? You aren't making a claim that you alone have this power, you're saying that it's obvious to "everyone". If there's a whole bunch of people who can't do it accurately, then that is enough to debunk.
Do you disagree with the toupee fallacy being a fallacy then? Or are you just saying "nuh uh" because you have no response to it?
Well duh, since when do people change their mind on the internet? They'd rather just go "nuh uh" even to known and documented logical fallacies.
Interesting.
So there's two perspectives here: One from the trans person themself, who thinks they pass. One from everyone else, who sees that they don't pass. If someone "outs" them, it doesn't change anything to other people, but the trans person now knows that they don't pass -- i.e. the trans person now knows that everyone else knows that they are trans -- and if they didn't want to be outed then they might fear being attacked by transphobes. So because people recognize this, and because people don't want to cause trans people to fear for their lives, there is a social norm that we don't talk about someone's transness and potentially "out" them unless we know for sure they are comfortable with it. That's where "outing" comes from, and being able to "out" a trans person doesn't mean that they pass. That's what I mean when I say that trans people (especially trans-identified males) stick out like a sore thumb, but people are too polite to talk about it. If I'm being uncharitable, "outing" has value to people who want to bully others and make them fear for their lives, and this can still happen even when a trans person doesn't pass.
Has any "I was tricked" argument actually ever been used in a successful case? The closest I'm aware of is the so-called "trans panic defense", but every single murderer who has used it has still been prosecuted and sentenced for murder.
I'm having a tough time imagining a successful argument that someone was "tricked" based on this. Let's say you're both adults, you're both around the same age, there are no weird power dynamics going on, you're both mentally and physically abled, etc. and you're both sober and not under the influence of any substances. You're only attracted to natal women and you don't want to fuck men or anyone with a penis. You see what you think is a woman and she wants it too so you take her home. Your room is well lit. You both get naked and then see that actually, "she" is a man with a penis.
At that point, what reasonable person wouldn't just say "no" and stop the sexual contact entirely? If you still continue with sexual contact at that point, I'd argue that it's entirely your fault. If you come back later and bring suit or a police report alleging rape based on being tricked, I'd expect you to be laughed out of the room every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I consider myself a representative sample of reasonable everyday average people. Just because there are some lizardman's constant amount of people who are so stupid/motivated to ignore contradictory evidence doesn't mean that it's not obvious to everyone. Am I not allowed to even say "It's obvious to everyone the sky is blue" when there exists a mentally ill man high on fentanyl who thinks the sky is purple? Should I qualify it with "it's obvious to most people"?
I think the toupee fallacy is a fallacy. I don't think that you citing the fallacy means you have a slam-dunk argument. I think that you citing the fallacy is just you making an argument that supports your position. I still disagree with your argument and I have provided counter-arguments to your counter-arguments. I am not just going "nuh uh" and refusing to elaborate, I am providing specific details and arguments that match the shape of your arguments.
Interestingly enough, in this comment, you haven't addressed my responses to the toupee fallacy in specific detail beyond reiterating that it's a documented logical fallacy, which I didn't ever disagree with.
How so?
Ok let's try it in a simple way.
I take the argument that all wigs are easily spotted as wigs.
I say that everyone can tell someone is wearing a wig except for all the wig wearers who think it looks natural.
Maybe you point out that lots of people who wear wigs get comments that imply others think their hair is natural. Maybe a bald guy said "you're lucky you still got your hair" to one or something.
I counter with "well that's because everyone is just being polite and they're all pretending to not know it's a wig"
You point out "then why would revealing someone is bald be a thing"
I say "well it was obvious, it's just that no one was willing to talk about it until they got the wig snatched off".
You say "well what about all the people who think someone is wearing a wig and then turns out wrong?"
I say "They don't matter, I can tell if someone is wearing a wig and I've never been wrong (how do I know that?) and wigs are obvious to everyone"
Now imagine this is done in a world where roughly 50% of the population doesn't like wigs as a concept and something like 10% or whatever thinks wearing wigs is a sin. One where some people with wigs who are actually obvious report being stared at or insulted in public, while others with wigs that look like more like natural hair report being treated like natural hair.
Imagine this in a world where politicians in some places even made laws saying that wig wearers had to disclose their wigs or else it was rape, despite my claims that it's obvious they have a wig on to everyone so non consensual sex with a wig wearer is practically impossible.
Doesn't that sound silly then? Yet this is the arguments and logic you are using. It justifies the "all wigs are obvious to everyone" viewpoint just as well. I have sparse evidence presented that all wigs are obvious to everyone, and there's tons of reasons to believe that some wigs do look natural and my only defense is actually everyone is just super polite and nice about this specific thing despite society being made up of tons of assholes who do stare at some trans folk/visibly disabled folk/etc other rare oddities. Wig wearing is the one thing and this one thing only where no one is a jerk (except for the times they are).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link