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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   19736 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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Does anyone who is pro-trans want to steelman gender ideology for me and try to field questions? It's always seemed rather ridiculous to me (for example, the idea that someone with XY chromosomes, a penis, and the physical size of a man might actually be a woman) but I realized the other day that I haven't looked carefully at the details of pro-trans arguments.

I realize that this is something I could probably look up elsewhere online, but I would like to follow up with critical questions so that the whole argument is laid bare without any motte/bailey pivots.

To start things off, I understand that those who adhere to gender ideology draw a distinction between "sex" and "gender." "sex" refers to the markers such as male versus female genitalia; XX versus XY chromosome; etc. which have traditionally been used to distinguish between human males and human females. "Gender" (according to gender ideology) refers to a person's internal feelings in regards to their sex. So that a person who is of the male sex, might possibly be of female gender and vice versa. The purpose of sex reassignment procedures (hormones, surgery, etc.) is to align the disconnect between the person's sex and their gender. But even in the absence of such procedures, a person who is of the male sex and the female gender should be treated by society as a female (and vice versa). Even to the point where a another person's sexual preferences should go to the gender, not the sex, of a potential romantic partner. So that a straight man or a lesbian woman should be okay dating an individual who is of male sex but female gender, and if not they are a "transphobe."

Is that a fair summary of gender ideology? If not, what did I leave out? Or what did I include that's incorrect?

What do you mean by “gender ideology”? The mainstream progressive leftist/woke perspective on gender? Any pro-trans viewpoint? There’s tons of different variations and subcultures, including very unhealthy, sometimes fetishistic terminally online ones, to more academic gender studies type ideas. I don’t agree with many of those, so my pro-trans arguments will be very different and don’t rely on the gender/sex distinction.

As far as I know the term “gender ideology” is a term used only by some conservative/gender critical people to refer to a bunch of different LGBT and leftist/“woke” concepts - there’s no central ideology or agreed upon theory. Most academic “gender studies” doesn’t have anything to do with trans gender people and concerns itself more with feminism.

Even to the point where an another person's sexual preferences should go to the gender, not the sex, of a potential romantic partner. So that a straight man or a lesbian woman should be okay dating an individual who is of male sex but female gender, and if not they are a "transphobe."

Again there’s different viewpoints on this. Some will say that yes, the internal gender is all that matters, and some online trans spaces are pretty strident about it, but I believe it’s mostly cope/sour grapes rather than any coherent belief. Maybe it’s about the other person subconsciously feeling the internal aura?

The way I would steelman it is that human sexuality is more flexible than people assume, and a lesbian could be attracted to the feminine energy and vibe of a small, cute femboy, or a gay man to a buff butch, and feel conflicted about calling themselves bi because it feels more like an exception to the rule.

And when you add HRT/surgeries on top of that, someone of the female sex can look male enough that you don’t see them as a woman anymore.

But that’s not the same as an otherwise masculine male self-IDing as a woman and expecting sex with straight men/lesbians without changing anything. Being charitable, that sounds to me like someone taking advantage of progressives/pro-LGBT people having trouble not affirming or including absolutely everybody, even bad actors, and not wanting to be the gatekeepers who’s “actually” transgender or not.

The way I would steelman it is that human sexuality is more flexible than people assume, and a lesbian could be attracted to the feminine energy and vibe of a small, cute femboy, or a gay man to a buff butch, and feel conflicted about calling themselves bi because it feels more like an exception to the rule.

I don't think this is remotely universal. On the contrary being flex is pretty rare, as any gay man will tell you. I want to stress that straights, gays and lesbians actually exist and they're not lying when they say they're only aroused by one sex.

But also, yeah theres a reason everyone jokes about the "straight" guy into femboys.

I don't think this is remotely universal. On the contrary being flex is pretty rare, as any gay man will tell you.

I actually suspect it is more common than you think. Look at prison sexuality, Afghanistan's bacha bazi, and ancient Greek homosexuality.

What I think they all have in common, is that if you sex segregate a population, some men who aren't really "bi", and who would self identify as straight in most circumstances in a modern context, will have sex with smaller weaker men (often of the more effeminate variety, where they can be had.)

But I think this would be less common in less sex segregated places like the United States as a whole.

I don't think that sexuality can be partially a product of one's culture or coercive environment has much to do with the initial notion of how, e.g. a lesbian who doesn't find sex with a male who self-identifies as a woman is being transphobic, where we're using "transphobic" to mean something to be judged as irrational or morally negative or. If you ran an experiment of sticking one lesbian in prison with a bunch of trans women, I'm sure on at least a few of the trials, the lesbian would find sex with the trans women to be fine or even desirable, but the situation in real life that we're dealing with is where lesbians aren't so limited in their choice of partners.

Look at prison sexuality

Better yet, look at how much prison sexuality differs just between the different Anglo cultures. I’ve watched the occasional Ladbible / Insider interviews of British career criminals and several remarked that the ”watch out when picking up the soap” (while of course an obvious exaggeration) is an American thing and does not work the same in British prisons. Clearly the amount of flex is heavily affected by cultural factors.

I think pure orientations are more common than zoomer self-reports would indicate, but rarer than naive 5% statistics would indicate. And like most things there seems to be a spectrum.

That said, genital preference seems to be the strongest binary, with exceptions, which is important because hormones and self-care can change your secondary sex characteristics to a degree but not your junk. I’m familiar with the GAMPs, roughly ‘straight’ men with low genital preference and quite adjacent to your referenced femboy enjoyers, but I’m not familiar with women having a similar phenomenon (though given how situational women’s attraction is, who knows, and there are obvious… anatomical considerations that are relevant in that case).

a lesbian could be attracted to the feminine energy and vibe of a small, cute femboy, or a gay man to a buff butch, and feel conflicted about calling themselves bi because it feels more like an exception to the rule.

How would you describe them?

The mainstream progressive leftist/woke perspective on gender?

More or less, yes. The mainstream progressive leftist/woke perspective on transgenderism. If you are not versed in this perspective but consider yourself to be pro-trans, then we can go with that.

So the first question: Is my summary more or less fair? Is anything missing or wrong?

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