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Notes -
New Aella survey post on child sexual assault just dropped: https://aella.substack.com/p/a-whole-lot-of-csa-data
I think her analysis is generally unobjectionable, but do find it notable that she buries the lead on the "non-cis" sexual assault findings. I didn't dig into the crosstabs, but non-cis people are plausibly getting sexually assaulted even before they become openly non-cis. And while there's plausibly causation in the direction of abnormal pre-egg-breaking/transition behavior being more likely to attract sexually assault, the data re: non-cis people reporting more CSA still very much supports the hypothesis that either:
It might be that these hypothesis are both correct, but for different population subsets. For example, nonbinary people might be disproportionately motivated by a desire to escape a concept they associate with their assault, while transgender people are the ones afflicted by a root factor. (Or vica-versa, either explanation would be possible.)
I would personally bet on the second hypothesis predominating, though. And in particular, the associations re: social class/parental age/trauma are suggestive of some specifically anxiety-related problem. Working hypothesis: If you grow up poor or insecure or to young parents or female you become anxious and depressed, which leads you to be more likely to suffer sexual assault, more likely to interpret past events as sexual assault, more likely to start identifying yourself as non-cis (because of body image issues? Data is obviously underspecified and outside the scope of aella's post), and more likely to be negatively affected long-term by sexual assault when it does happen.
...So if you have kids, and want to maximize their chances of identifying as cisgender into adulthood, your top priority should be reducing their opportunities for anxiety. Openly worrying about drag queen story hour and queer books would be ironically counterproductive.
Ideological disclaimer: as a catholic I believe there are only two genders, fixed at birth, but as a transhumanist also I'm in favor of letting anyone, including children, do whatever they want to their own bodies. (I accept some nuance re: having to get psychologists/a judge to sign off that someone is truly acting in their own uncoerced self-interest, with increasing scrutiny in proportion to the danger posed by the modification and the mental irresponsibility of the requestor.)
I would have thought that an obvious "common factor" in both identifying as a CSA survivor and identifying as non-cis would be "being left-wing".
Becoming left or right wing is downstream of other life experiences. It's more plausible that whatever common factor causes the other two things also causes the left-wing-ness.
I remember someone once describing the birth of an ideology as something that begins as a “pre-analytic cognitive act.” What that means in the political realm is that the former acts as the mental architecture and framework of understanding that emotionally colors and interprets particular experiences, which is independent of how experiences act back on us to form our views. Experiences no doubt shape other opinions and attitudes we have, but whether we’re left or right is rooted in something more fundamental, or perhaps the earliest life experiences we have as children. That’s certainly been true in my case.
My emotional disposition towards things and my political beliefs were formed far before I ever had a political awakening or became more learned as an adult. Everything since has been just backing into it after the fact with evidence and logical arguments to support my conclusions. There’s things I’ve ’learned’ over the years. Not things I’ve ‘changed’ though. Even when I really think I am earnest trying to understand others and am willing to be persuaded by their opinions, I’m mostly just not. That’s how I interpret the findings in cognitive psychology.
I can personally attest that my values/principles have been largely unchanged. What has changed has been my understanding of situations and how applying (or misapplying, given leftist theory!) those principles work. It's no secret the reason that leftist ideology sells/fails to be snuffed out so well is that the basic ideas seem so basically right. Looking at the way they were applied, however, completely changed my positions on many things. Some small examples of principle:
And how they were implemented:
These are simple examples, but they're good examples of how the world has changed around my principles.
Which is entirely the above thesis. It’s what we all do.
The root of the disagreement people have when statements like this are made depends entirely on what you think human beings are. When you hear things like “people should be free to do what they want,” an average person may here things like:
Same-sex marriage
Live wherever I want to
Drink alcohol
Smoke weed
Etc. When ‘I’ hear something like that, here’s what I think of:
Commit theft
Murder people
Sexually assault others
Vandalize property
Etc. Civilization isn’t a spontaneous creation that emerges naturally out of simple and uncoerced economic exchanges. Socioeconomic libertarianism isn’t enough to get you there. Constrained liberty is the best you can hope it. Small governments that only enforces contracts have a very short half life. In Basketball the ref’s have to be more powerful than the players otherwise what incentive is there for them to listen to them? Same applies with market participants and governments. Civil society requires enormous amounts of collective investment to build and uphold it. Leftism in theory nor in practice (which I’ll give them considerable ground in certain ways, I’m not a priori opposed to it) just has never worked to me, no matter how I examine it.
That's why I posted; I agree with you!
I'll clarify "in their personal lives with the consent of others". I'll stand by that as far as support for gay marriage.
I agree with your agreement!
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