site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There have been a surprisingly large number of "creatures of fantasy" convicted and imprisoned for rape by deception.

A, Chinese robbers. B, neither of the two articles you link really pattern-matched to the "trap" archetype. Watkin was a social transitioner who frankly looks so clocky that I'm very much inclined to believe her defense that it didn't cross her mind that the guy might not have realized. Which is maybe not best practice, but we're a long way away from the sultry queen who suddenly whips out a penis. As for Newland, I honestly can't tell if she even identifies as male? It sounds like this could genuinely just be a lesbian who engaged in an improbable deception to get in a straight woman's pants. The article never claims that she identified as trans, it merely draws a possible legal analogy from how her case was judged to how this may reflect on trans cases. And either way, we're dealing here with someone who went by a wholly fake name and invented a fake backstory about an accident; the deceit goes well beyond a lack of disclosure even if Newland was indeed a trans man.

I feel absolutely confident that all my trans friends' judgement on these cases would be, respectively, "Watkin was not actually trying to deceive anyone", and "Newland was obviously trying to deceive the victim and the way she did so would constitute rape-by-deception regardless of the genders angle".

Watkin was a social transitioner who frankly looks so clocky that I'm very much inclined to believe her defense that it didn't cross her mind that the guy might not have realized... I feel absolutely confident that all my trans friends' judgement on these cases would be, respectively, "Watkin was not actually trying to deceive anyone",

Well, your trans friends would be wrong:

Watkin, who was referred to in court by female pronouns, told the man she was on her period to stop him touching her below the waist, the court heard.

Why would a male person (who, by definition, cannot menstruate) falsely claim to be menstruating? Dare I say it's because he was trying to deceive someone?

My mistake on skimming and missing that bit. (Though I'm wondering about the impersonal "the court heard". From who? Does Watkin deny saying it?)

"Watkin had admitted lying". So I doubt it.

A, Chinese robbers

I have to say: you've been spamming this line a lot, and at this point I don't think you know what it means.

I will remind you that I was responding to your claim that rape-by-deception trans people are "creatures of fantasy" i.e. that nothing like this ever happens. I never claimed that these two cases indicate that trans people commit rape by deception more often than average. I claimed that these two cases indicate that the number of trans people who have committed rape by deception is greater than 0 i.e. more than the amount you claimed.

When you claim that something never happens, and someone provides you with evidence that it does, in fact, happen, the appropriate response is "oh, my bad, I wasn't aware of that, thanks for letting me know". The appropriate response is not to dismiss me using a two-word rebuttal of a claim I never made.

It's really obnoxious for you to jump directly from "Group X never does this!" to "you have not presented compelling evidence that Group X does this more frequently than the typical rate in the general population" without even acknowledging that conceding the second point means that your first point was wrong.

your claim that rape-by-deception trans people are "creatures of fantasy" i.e. that nothing like this ever happens

I never said that; I said it was "largely a creature of fantasy", i.e. it might happen very occasionally but in statistically insignificant numbers.

Even if that's what you intended with your maximally weaselly choice of words, I will reiterate that at no point did I claim trans people are more likely to commit rape by deception than the average person, so your dismissive "Chinese robbers" was unwarranted.