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Wellness Wednesday for February 22, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

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I have some trans friends (who I love dearly) and they are offended by some of J.K. Rowling's remarks and beliefs. When they see Harry Potter content (including streams and clips of the new Harry Potter game), it can be offensive and threatening for them.

Growing up, I had a fondness for Harry Potter. I read all the books, watched all the movies, and to this day I have a deep nostalgic attachment to the franchise. I don't personally have an issue with Harry Potter, and all I have seen in terms of criticism of J.K. Rowling was Dave Chapelle's stand-up special (not particularly critical) and a blog post about an inflammatory tweet J.K. Rowling made about a male rapist transitioning and asking for internment in a women's prison (this seems like the edgiest of all edge cases and only useful as an inflammatory wedge).

I believe that my trans friends should be able to browse the internet without seeing content they deem hateful/disturbing (like harry potter content). But I also sympathize with people who want to play the new Harry Potter game or watch their favorite streamer play the new game.

Furthermore, there's an issue where if a streamer has trans viewers (I'd imagine most of the top 100 streamers have at least a couple, and the top 10 streamers in any channel have many trans viewers), by playing the new Harry Potter game the streamer is knowingly streaming content that will offend (some of) those trans viewers (admittedly not all trans people will be offended by the Harry Potter stuff).

My current position is that I hope the hubbub and streamer playthroughs of the game will subside in a week or two and we can just forget the whole thing. But I think this kind of tension will come up a lot. Like the next time Dave Chappelle releases a special. I will want to watch it.

How can I support my trans friends while also being okay with people enjoying the new Harry Potter game?

How should I feel about streamers who choose to play the new Harry Potter game on stream? In some sense they have disregarded my friends' feelings and excluded them from their community!

Any response is much appreciated.

I believe that my trans friends should be able to browse the internet without seeing content they deem hateful/disturbing

Looking at your friends' social media, do they treat other people with this level of respect? Because my experience with that sort of person is that demands for comfort are often combined with constant bullying intended to make other people uncomfortable. Pic related.

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In fact the demands for comfort are often part of that strategy: forcing "friends and allies" to constantly debase themselves obsequiously following every new demand without question. Not to mention isolating "friends" by forcing them to cut ties with anyone outside the radicalized community. That is cult behavior.

At some point you will have to choose between obedience and self-respect.

Looking at your friends' social media, do they treat other people with this level of respect?

Good question, to be honest I exclusively interact with them in private spheres. I would hope my friends treat others with respect, and I'd be willing to forgive some transgressions.

https://www.themotte.org/images/16772206303844404.webp

I don't quite get this one-- is the post quoting an extreme tweet and then providing commentary? I read this as "I'm going to go annoy some people who don't really deserve it," which sounds annoying. Maybe in some contexts that sentiment would be justified (though not necessarily the action), like if they were implying "some people annoyed me, so I'm going to go annoy them back." Not saying that's what's happening there, just a little confused at what that post is saying.

In fact the demands for comfort are often part of that strategy: forcing "friends and allies" to constantly debase themselves obsequiously following every new demand without question.

That's an interesting tweet-- in a vacuum (without the culture-war context) that would be the perfect algorithm for updating prior beliefs, if the last step included some wiggle room for the alternative conclusion. That said, most would read that tweet within the culture-war context, in which it's arguably kind of offensive, because it assumes the poster is always right.

At some point you will have to choose between obedience and self-respect.

I appreciate the advice, I will consider this.

Edit: punctuation

I don't quite get this one-- is the post quoting an extreme tweet and then providing commentary?

Yes, that's exactly it. I have personally left (and feel driven out of) many hobbyist spaces thanks to coordinated groups of queer people of some type or other showing up and being aggressively sexual. I don't want to hear about how their hormones make them feel euphoric, I don't want to hear about "lol sex act joke", I want to go back to talking about X.

Ahhh, they are actually talking about ham radio-- I thought that was a euphemism. That's hilarious, imagine spamming ham radio with queer propoganda! There is additional irony because in the US AM radio (admittedly different from ham radio) is considered to be almost exclusively "Red Tribe" or US right-wing. I've heard US left-wing people complain about it.

The behavior you're describing (talking/being sexual) isn't limited to trans (or even queer) people, I've been in all-male workplaces where talking about sex and sex acts was commonplace (there were porno magazines in the break room). That isn't to say that the behavior is appropriate, though.

It seems like what you're describing is the same thing my trans friends are describing with regard to Harry Potter content? Am I wrong there? Like you don't want to see/hear offensive content in those hobbyist spaces and want to filter it? Thankfully the internet can maybe one day provide this functionality in a way that ham radio cannot.

That's hilarious, imagine spamming ham radio with queer propoganda!

This is exactly what the linked twitter post is pointing at: thinking it not just funny, but hilarious, to have another political tribe turn up and run roughshod over existing members and culture. I imagine that you don't really see the existing members as "people" if you think it's that funny. Potential further reading: Status 451 on Social Gentrification.

I've been in all-male workplaces where talking about sex and sex acts was commonplace (there were porno magazines in the break room).

Me too, but not to that level. And yes, it's just as inappropriate and I don't like it.

It seems like what you're describing is the same thing my trans friends are describing with regard to Harry Potter content? Am I wrong there?

No, I see important differences:

  • It's an explicit attempt to take over and change norms of a group and amp up the sexual content therein. A topic ban doesn't fix that.

  • Video game streamers are expected to talk about the latest video game. People are expected to avoid movie forums if they're trying to see the latest blockbuster without spoilers. They don't get to demand the entire internet censors itself for their sensibilities. Same principle here.

  • It is Not Allowed to push back against trans anything, and saying "please stop turning this technical discussion space into your transition support group" reliably gets one accused of being hateful or phobic.

This is exactly what the linked twitter post is pointing at: thinking it not just funny, but hilarious, to have another political tribe turn up and run roughshod over existing members and culture.

Right, right, it's obviously offensive, but you have to admit there's a joke there, the stereotype of ham radio is super-nerdy/technical which is a stark contrast to the (stereotypical) queer propoganda.

Sure, to be fair to you it sounds like you have had some bad experiences before, and that sucks, honestly. And it sounds like the strategy you used was to withdraw from those communities. If you had a second chance, would you do the same thing again?

What would you say to my trans friends if you were having lunch with them and they brought up the Harry Potter issue?

edit: clarification

I would gently but seriously encourage them to see a psychologist, because that level of fragility is not healthy,

It seems like what you're describing is the same thing my trans friends are describing with regard to Harry Potter content?

Did the developers of the Harry Potter game deliberately set out to find a niche of the trans community, to spam it with JK Rowling content, in order to make trans people as uncomfortable as possible?

If your reaction to that tweet is "that's hilarious", shouldn't making trans people uncomfortable also be hilarious?

The tweet about spamming ham radio with queer chatter is not a productive analogy. It's funny but clearly inflammatory and uncivil.

I think the better analogy is queer people talking about queer things in the context of a hobbyist space that isn't coded queer. The queer people didn't seek to make anyone uncomfortable, but KingOfTheBailey was offended, threatened, and ended up being excluded as a result. That is a different scenario than what I described but a better analogue.

Yeah, 100%, but the asymmetry in the provided examples is the entire issue. If we lived in the world where your analogy was more representative of right-wing complaints, we could find a compromise "I won't talk about X, if you won't talk about Y", or "how about we cut all the talk around sex, whether it's straight or queer, and just focus on our love for the hobby we've gathered around", but if one side gets to demand offensive content be taken down, while actively plotting to offend others, there's not going to be a way forward.

I think we're getting a little bit off-track here, I am sympathetic to the idea that demanding to take down objectionable content only leads to taking down other less-objectionable content in the long-run. For the sake of argument let's say my trans friends aren't planning on harassing anyone (I believe this to be true, but could be wrong).

Imagine you had a friend who was upset about getting served Harry Potter content and one of their favorite streamers had streamed the new game despite it being clear that some of the trans folks in her community were against it. What would you say to them? Would you avoid the subject?

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