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 -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
Do you really expect that conclusive proof of the inferiority of blacks RE: IQ and crime would lead to the reinstation of such or similar laws, as if society hadn't changed at all since then?
Society has changed, but it hasn't changed enough, and seems to be backsliding in some ways.
If there were a universally-(modulo-lizardman-constant)-acknowledged taboo against judging an individual by the actions of his/her/their demographic group, I would be a lot less worried. (cf. my discussion with @FtttG regarding discrimination on the basis of natal genitals and the sequelae thereof)
I'm really sick of you trying to make me (and other gender-critical people) sound ridiculous and/or perverted by characterising my opinion as "discrimination on the basis of genitals" or similar. "Sex" is not reducible to genitals. Male bodies are not just female bodies which incidentally happen to have penises bolted on. Even trans-identified males who have undergone bottom surgery retain male patterns of violent crime.
"FtttG thinks sex-segregation is reasonable in certain contexts" is a perfectly acceptable gloss of my opinion on this matter which I wouldn't object to. "FtttG thinks he's entitled to know about the genitals of complete strangers, but refuses to tell us why!!" is both a flat lie (I have been more than willing to articulate my reasoning) and a transparent effort to imply that anyone who isn't maximally trans-affirming is a sexual deviant. It's cheap, obnoxious and contemptible behaviour. Knock it off.
And how do you think a trans-woman might feel, when people characterise her identity in such a manner?
The pro-trans side was not the first to use that particular tactic.
No, they also have testicles rather than ovaries; all other biological differences are downstream of the hormones produced by these organs, hence 'sequelae'. (definition)
I have re-read the linked posts and have not found anywhere where I have claimed that you refuse to tell us why you think you're entitled to know about the genitals of complete strangers; I am rejecting your claim that your reasons justify the intrusion on people's privacy.
If you walk into your manager's office and you're like "I want to see all my cow-orkers' complete medical charts, which will help me make Bayesian inferences on which ones are most likely to go postal, so I can shun them.", how amenable do you think your manager will be to your request?
If someone is loudly parading their perversion around for all and sundry to see, it's not wrong for me to accurately characterise it as such. Rather, you demanding that I refuse to recognise that the Emperor has no clothes (something which is obvious to everyone, including you) amounts to gaslighting.
Woman: Getting changed in front of a male person makes me uncomfortable and I don't think I should be expected to do it.
Trans-identified male: When I put on women's underwear, I
become physically arousedexperience gender euphoria.Celestial-body-NOS: Oh my God, I can't tell the difference – they're exactly as sexually deviant as each other!
Likewise, plenty of trans women just do look ridiculous. Maybe you think it's not polite to point it out, but I know you think it. Don't tell me you look at this person and think to yourself "wow, what a hot sexy lady! I would love to take a gander at those bizarre prosthetics she's wearing under her top!"
To reiterate what I said above: many trans women barely even pretend to hide that their "identification" is just acting out a sexual fetish. You can do this "tu quoque" shit all you like: doesn't mean it's equally true of both sides. Women who want to protect their intimate spaces are not exactly as perverted as gross fetishists who are openly, proudly addicted to sissy hypno porn and hold conferences on how to "overcome the cotton ceiling". In fact, the former group isn't perverted at all.
We can quickly sense-check this by looking at the two groups' stated demands. If, as you imply, gender-critical people's obsession with trans people's genitals is borne of sexual deviance, it sure is weird that they're demanding that trans people not expose said genitals to female people. Is this how we talk about any other kind of kink or sexual fixation? Do people with foot fetishes explicitly object to people walking around barefoot? Do men with a fixation on women's arses generally object to strange women baring their arses in front of them? Gender-critical people are not obsessed with trans people's genitals because it turns them on: they know what's in a trans-identified man's pants and have no desire to see it for themselves.
Meanwhile, trans activists are demanding a) the right to expose their genitals to female people who have made it abundantly clear this behaviour makes them uncomfortable, and that b) female people get undressed in front of them, even if doing so makes them uncomfortable. In other words, on the basis of a claimed, unfalsifiable mental state, trans activists want a special dispensation to commit acts which would otherwise be considered indecent exposure or voyeurism. Call the female people objecting to this hateful bigots all you like – we both know which of these two groups it's more appropriate to level the accusation of sexual deviance against.
A transparent lie. You said:
Would it be fair to say you consider me part of the "anti-trans faction"? No gender-critical person I've ever met or interacted with (and there have been plenty) has ever been the least bit shy about telling me why they disagree with gender ideology, and why they don't want to share intimate spaces with male people. But for some reason you insist that gender-critical people have some secret ulterior motive for wanting to know strangers' sexes which they're refusing to disclose. It's bizarre. I genuinely don't know how you arrived at this conclusion.
If you really, honest to goodness, think that I need to see someone's full medical history in order to accurately tell whether they are male or female, I really don't know how we're expected to proceed with this conversation. Are you blind? Are you composing these comments using text-to-speech?
As an aside: I pointed out to you last time that some other aspects of a person's medical history simply can be inferred just by looking at them. If you're obese, myopic or using a motorised wheelchair, it's meaningless to complain that your right to medical privacy has been violated when people notice this just from looking at you. Likewise, certain mental illnesses. If I get on a train and there's a homeless person who obviously hasn't bathed in days and is loudly talking to himself, you're damn right I'm going to infer that he's probably psychotic and try to stay out of his way on that basis. I'd hazard a guess that you'd do the same.
In your worldview, is this behaviour "ableist"? I would prefer to characterise it as "capable of basic self-preservation".
Also, why would my manager have access to my colleagues' full medical charts? Even your counterfactual reductio ad absurdum makes no sense on its own terms.
I am not equating the sides in sexual deviance, so much as pointing out that accusations of sexual deviance were not first levied by the pro-trans faction.
I believe that a cis-woman uncomfortable changing in front of a trans-woman deserves the same accommodations as a white woman uncomfortable changing in front of a black woman, or an Englishman uncomfortable changing in front of an Irishman; namely, it is reasonable to ask for one-person changing areas to avoid having to change in front of anyone one doesn't know; it is not, in my opinion, any more reasonable to demand a 'cis-women only' facility (or an 'officially people born with female parts only facility', but I doubt trans-men will be welcomed) than it is to demand a 'whites only' or a 'no dogs or Irish' facility.
Is it still an 'intimate space' if four billion strangers are potentially allowed to walk in willy-nilly?
Plenty of cis-women look just as ridiculous.
Yes, there are trans people who are perverts, just as there are cardiologists who are murderers and Chinese people who are robbers. That does not make all trans individuals perverts.
It is not necessarily born of sexual deviance, but that does not change the fact that those parts, and other people's bodies in general, are none of your business. If Alice wants to know the precise dimensions of my private parts out of carnal desire, Bob wants to know for statistical purposes, and Carol wants to know because she thinks she can predict the future by the bodily measurements of a randomly selected person, I am equally entitled to tell all of them to bog off.
I don't agree with your assertion that transness is a perversion.
If Dana averts her eyes because she is uncomfortable seeing Erin's nether regions, or undresses behind a curtain because she is uncomfortable with Erin seeing hers, she has not acted wrongly toward Erin. If Dana demands that Erin not be permitted to use the same facilities, Erin is justified in complaining. This applies if Erin is a cis-woman, and it also applies if Erin is trans.
No, they want to be allowed to do the same things as cis individuals are allowed to do.
No, we don't. I legitimately disagree with you.
I said that before you explained your reasoning.
In the hypothetical, I am referring to someone who wants to know things other than 'was this person born with male- or female- associated biology'. Philosophy Bear's concept of 'inadmissible knowledge' gives the example of someone whose father is a murderer.
You can make educated guesses about someone's medical history by observation, but you are not entitled to know whether your guesses are correct; nor are you justified in declaring what is permitted to one to be forbidden to another based on it, unless you have a very, very, very, very good reason, well beyond the correlations associated with biological sex characteristics.
Maybe I'm terminally Quaker-brained, but I don't think it's generally right for what someone is and isn't allowed to do to vary based on accidents of birth.
Yet those accusations are the bread and butter of the pro-trans faction. "Why do you want to know about their genitals?" [intended with this implication] is kind of the standard pro-trans canard; hell, you're actively using it yourself.
I'll start taking that seriously when [the set of people who are overwhelmingly likely to be pro-trans] stop blood libelling me for being part of the murder gender (and conversely, granting themselves extra privileges for being the should-protect-from-murder gender). Granted, this isn't directly the argument you're making, but it does point to the pro/anti-trans thing being more who/whom, and the actual "gender euphoria" is arguably just as much about ramming your ideology down everyone's throat (remember when 2010s atheists used to say that? Guess that aged poorly) than it is the psychological effects, or personal benefits, of dressing as the opposite gender in public.
Ok, so what about kleptomania or pedophilia (in the "older man hits on your 5 year old daughter" sense- not something that would raise 'consent' issues)?
I'd give you points for being consistent and accepting both on its face (after all, how could mere speech be harmful?)... but if you don't, well, now we're just haggling over the degree of "is and isn't allowed based on real or imagined harms to the participating parties, willing or not".
I'm not interested in the pretense that it isn't a sexual deviance. It pretty clearly is, on its face in fact- what we're actually debating is to what degree that should matter, and who should be forced to accept what.
Which is why the motte of the anti-trans argument centers around "they are completely unwilling to accommodate for anyone else"- something you yourself acknowledge. The bailey is stupid and absurd, but then again, the bailey of the pro-trans argument is "they should be forced at literal gunpoint to accommodate for me" and not merely "they want to be allowed to do the same things as cis individuals are allowed to do".
As [for the purpose of this argument] a cis-person, I don't have the right to summon the State to beat someone into submission should they call me a woman. That is, very literally, what trans-people insist on (or rather what their loudest advocates insist on; trans-people don't actually have a critical mass and most of the fight is an intra-woman conflict, but that's out of scope at the moment.)
I do not condone that, either. An individual ought to be judged by their own actions, not by the actions of an arbitrarily-defined group of people who are of a similar demographic.
A kleptomaniac forbidden from pilfering my personal possessions and a paedophile forbidden from soliciting my five-year old daughter are not being forbidden from things other people are allowed to do, they are being forbidden from things that are forbidden to everyone else.
And what is your definition of 'sexual deviance'? To me, 'it harms people' is a necessary qualification for membership in that category. If one has a 'frowned upon by the local curtain-twitchers' definition, then two men in a lifelong monogamous relationship would have been considered 'sexually deviant' in the 1950s, and a man devoted to his wife and not interested in relations with other men would have been considered 'sexually deviant' in Classical Athens. If one has a 'goes against the Natural Law' definition, we don't have access to a set of tablets on which the True Natural Law is inscribed, and Natural-Law arguments tend to turn into just-so stories about why the Natural Law forbids exactly and only the things that the local curtain-twitchers don't like.
And what accommodation are they not making that they ought to make?
If it is 'allowing people who do not believe that Trans-Women Are Women to continue in their employment', per the initial incident pushing J. K. Rowling towards public TERFism, then you might have a point.
If it is 'they insist that society apply the same rules to trans-woman as cis-women, the same way the Civil Rights marches insisted that black people be allowed everything white people were allowed, and wouldn't/won't let the majority have a little discrimination as a treat', then I do not believe that it is reasonable to expect them to accommodate, just as, if Alice wants Bob to stop bullying her, and Bob wants to continue bullying Alice, Miss Take is completely out of line if she expects Alice to compromise.
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