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 -
An interesting "false flag" in the transgender culture war: a mystery group is impersonating a transgender group and sending texts and flyers to the wrong people:
https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/texans-receive-texts-impersonating-transgender-advocacy-group/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/trans-student-mailers-hit-texas-210015782.html
As far as I can tell, of course, the transgender groups in question have no disagreement with the contents in these messages, but they have been sent to the wrong people. They want this content to stay on the down low and for parents not to know about it. As on twitter poster put it "The trans people wouldn’t be stupid enough to send this out right before midterms unless they thought you were trans" (emphasis added). The pages on the websites that the pamphlets and texts linked to have been taken down, though archive links show they had content on them previously: https://web.archive.org/web/20261005063417/https://transtexas.org/trans-texas-takeover-tour/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260807023304/https://transtexas.org/resources/ which is a very interesting thing to do for a group that presumably wants people to attend their tour and have access to some resources.
This does reinforce the idea that the trans project is both unpopular and/or secretly transing kids without their parents knowing, as they reacting with horror that parents are being exposed to their message.
This hiding behavior is certainly not standard among all groups. Most groups would be thrilled to get free publicity pointed to their website, even if the messages are coming from an anonymous benefactor (assuming it doesn't get them on a spam shitlist or something). Nevertheless, it does seem like democrat ideology mandates that they support the maximalist trans movement, and their solution is to distance from it.
It's not a difficult mystery at all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_propaganda
The Republican midterm strategy has been to repeatedly yell transgender and immigration over and over and over again at voters like the 9/11 family guy skit, hoping to get people to look past the financial disaster/corruption/etc.
We have motive. We have means. We have opportunity. They seem to be targeting right wing families in particular.
And we have evidence of it being a psyop already given the supposed group has no previous history and the only existing organization it has any attachment to has said it's an unauthorized usage of their name.
Black propaganda is disinformation. The things being sent here are actually beliefs of the groups being "impersonated"--they are just being sent to a hostile audience.
The organization isn't a serious one, it was created for the explicit purpose of doing something real activists weren't doing, sending out flyers to students.
The whole thing is a literal psyop.
The flyers accurately depicted the beliefs of the real organization. They did not misrepresent the organization's beliefs. The organization didn't authorize the mailings, but a misrepresentation normally means a substantial one, not just any old one. Lying about who sent the flyers, but accurately depicting their beliefs in the flyers, is not a substantial misrepresentation even though in some autistically literal way it's not true.
It's still black propaganda per basically every definition I found.
I suspect you'd have no problems with a Democrat false-flag organization sending people to the Project 2025 Website and acting as though it was an official campaign pledge from Republicans.
Nobody wanted to send anyone to the actual project 2025, it's a 900 page policy document full of standard republican priorities scripted out in boring detail. The project 2025 scaremongering relied on people not reading the document, which was easy, because it was long and boring.
Yeah but it also relied on 'The Republicans are full-send on implementing every single thing in the 900 page policy document' when there's plenty in there that even with unlimited power the current Republican body wouldn't actually do.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There's no good argument against "I made up something in my head to get mad about", given you've already proven you'll just make up stuff in your head.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The organization is real and serious, it was created for the explicit purpose of trans advocacy. The OP contains an archive link dated prior to any of this drama, with statements proving that the texts were an accurate representation of their beliefs. The current version of the website contains cope about the texts, has removed any of the previously proudly shared resources, again indicating that the organization is real and pro-trans, rather than a false flag.
What specific evidence do you have of this?
TENT ("Transgender Education Network of Texas) is real, the "Texas Transgender Student Union" (the ones supposedly behind the letter) is not real outside of an LLC set up last month.
TENT has publicly stated that the TTSU is not an authorized representative.
The TTSU is a fake activist organization.
And? How is that relevant to the issue at all? How does being unauthorized make anything they said untrue?
You said
But TTSU the ones who sent the flyers are not real and serious.
If you reread my comment
I am clearly speaking about TTSU, the flyer sending organization, which is a not real and serious organization.
You confused TTSU with TENT, which is a real organization but did not send the flyers.
Not relevant, "the fake group said true things while pretending to represent a real group" doesn't make them a real organization. The TTSU is fake and was created last month https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/transgender-mailers-22485877.php
Even Republican politicians acknowledge it's not real!
I'm sorry, I guess I was steelmanning your argument. TTSU being fake is not relevant to the conversation, so I didn't expect you were actually trying to deflect the conversation there.
It does make TTSU being fake completely irrelevant though.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Nefarious politics to MagicalKitty appears to be repeating true things the other side does that are highly unpopular.
In my view this is just well-run politics and normal.
I’m basically a 1-issue immigration voter now. So yes remind voters of Dems awful immigration policies.
If I had a second issue it’s boosting fertility. And transitioning people and trans culture is bad for fertility.
Budgetary stuff is unimportant compared to demographics. Money is fake. The Jews created Israel in 80 years with great demographics.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link