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 -
Okay yeah, you're right, and my statement was worded too strongly. It does not follow with logical certaintly that psychological issues must be solved solely within psychology, and there are plenty of counterexamples. But it should be the first thing to try. Plenty of "trans" people have other psychological issues and comorbidities that cause distress, and the trans thing is a red herring, a panacea they've been sold to solve all of their problems. And if they transition those issues still exist but now their one panacea has been tried and they think their problems will never go away. and they have a mutilated body.
And even for someone with actual gender dysphoria as their primary problem. Maaaybe it's an objective desire, analogous to your body building issue, where they inherently wish they had a certain body type, and getting that body type solves their issue. But maybe it's relative: grass is greener. Maybe part of their brain perpetually and irrationally insists that they are ugly and disgusting despite being perfectly health and attractive (a lot of teenage girls have body image issues like this). They just don't want their current body, whatever it happens to be. And no matter what it changes to, that part of their brain doesn't stop telling them that they're disgusting, because it's broken in some psychological way, not actually grounded in their physical body. Transitioning will not help with this latter case, and will in fact make it worse (and does, when this happens in real life).
Yes, if we had a 100% perfect and reversible gender transition, then there would be a lower cost to just trying it and seeing if it works, so I would have much fewer objections to moving it earlier on the list of things to try. (There are still potential social issues, like letting creeps and rapists into women's safe spaces, or having people lie about their original sex to sexual partners who care about their partner's origins not just their current body, but those are a separate issue, and don't apply to good-faith actors who are genuinely seeking help.) But given the irreversible and mutilating brutality of current transition technology, I think it should be an absolute last resort after all interventions and even non-intervention have been attempted and the only alternative is suicide. Maybe in a few decades if technology has advanced we can reconsider transitioning as a viable treatment mechanism. Not today.
More options
Context Copy link