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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32828 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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This is just debating the meaning of the word exist. Sherlock Holmes does not exist, because he is made up fictional character. On the other hand Sherlock Holmes does exist as a made up fictional character with his own books, movies and TV shows and centuries long impact on culture.

So in the end I think you and OP want to convey the same thing. Trans people exist as a social construct, as a manifestation of certain cultural process. Of course you can debate impact trans people have on culture and so forth, but OP does not think it merits deeper discussion about the nature of trans as a real category. Another analogy would be debating existence of God - it is one thing to accept it as a social construct and studying impact of this cultural meme on real history. And it is another thing to seriously debate true nature of god as if he is real in the same sense as you are real and if he is one person or three persons in reality etc. This could be considered a category error given that many people have premise that god does not exist in that way.

I feel it's perfectly valid to say that Gender Dysphoria exists as a medical diagnosis and yet trans people exist as a social construct aimed at addressing/ameliorating said social construct.

I feel it's perfectly valid to say that Gender Dysphoria exists as a medical diagnosis and yet trans people exist as a social construct aimed at addressing/ameliorating said social construct.

I agree. To use another analogy: "Bob thinks he is Jesus Christ" can be grounds for valid medical diagnosis of "personality dysphoria" or whatnot. However debating the nature of Jesus Christ in this context is useless.

Are Jesus Bob and his disciples going to insist we call him Lord and accept his divinity?

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