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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37943 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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Prelude: The Nashville school shooting is definitely peak toxoplasma, a day later: people cheering everyone who entered that school with a gun, both the shooter and the police. Aidan/Audrey’s acts are a near-perfect scissor statement.

The statement on the shooting by the Trans Resistance Network is particularly toxically tribal. It hearkens back to the days of trying to sympathize with the Columbine shooters, where the narrative is shaped solely by early reporting and people were asking “What made them do it?”

Tangent: drag shows. But the use of the word “genocide” in the TRN’s statement made me stop and ponder: the modern term “genocide” includes not only the actual killing of group X, but also the halting of cultural practices as a lead-in to the eventual rounding up and killing.

Here’s an odd little dynamic: halting drag activities in children's spaces is trans genocide for both sides, but in different ways!

  • For pro-trans activists, halting them is halting a ritual cultural activity, and hints at a wider cultural desire for eventual trans elimination through murders of the outed and the suicides of the closeted. It also removes an avenue for trans youths to discover their true gender and thus leaves them in a spiral of depression heading toward suicide.

  • For social-contagion theorists, halting the drag activities in children’s spaces is useful for preventing cis children from being memetically contaminated, and thus memetically sterilizing the trans community. Reasoning: since full transition includes sterilization (thus committing traditional genocide upon themselves rather effectively), trans people don’t breed genetically, but memetically.

I wrote off this story immediately after it broke, because mentally ill males commit school shootings two or three times a year in America. But now, over a day later, I just found out the shooter was biologically FEMALE. That makes it extremely different from other school shootings for reasons the media obviously won't comment on, and I'm extremely surprised I don't see any discussion of this aspect of the story online. Why is a biological female perpetrating this, when the trend has always been male? Could they have overdosed on testosterone?

Why would they need to have overdosed, isn't "someone with hormone profile of man exhibits behavior almost exclusively done by men" what we would expect? If men do 98% of mass shootings and trans-men have a similar "risk of mass shooting" and are 0.4% of the population we'd naively expect what ~1/250 mass shooters to be trans men? There are three trans shooters we know of (Alex McKinney, Snochia Moseley and the Tennessee shooter), all of them trans masc. There are only two cis-female mass shooters who acted without male partners, and two who did. It's clear that trans-men are more likely to do mass shootings than cis-women, but not clear if they have meaningfully different rates from cis-men.

Unless new information comes out I'm going to assume this woman was mainlining testosterone. It seems like the most plausible mechanism for this behavior.

Then that's what conservatives should be talking about! Instead they're, at best, focusing on the mental illness, and, at worst, focusing on the ideological aspect. (I'm basing this on lurking headlines and overhearing my dad listening to Ben Shapiro and talk radio stuff.)

You don't shoot up a religious school as a trans-man without the mental illness aspect and the ideological aspect. The fact the media is working over time to ignore the shooter's manifesto tells me everything I need to know about the situation. Yeah the backlash is gonna suck for other trans-people but them's the breaks. The rhetoric about "trans genocide" and the insane levels of intolerance can lead only to this. It only takes one person to buy the whole "we are being genocided" line too seriously for shit like this to happen.

TBH my take is isn't not really the test hormone levels that's at fault here. It's social rejection and ostracism mixed with toxic antagonistic narratives on both sides.

I completely agree with you, but women typically just don't do this sort of very violent thing, no matter how scared they are. It's of course possible—she could be way in the point of the tail of the distribution, but, ex-ante, this was much more likely to happen if she was indeed taking test.

Ben Shapiro is surprisingly careful in what he says. He's fiery and provocative but tries not to get over his skis, so to speak. He's probably waiting until he has evidence one way or another whether they were taking testosterone before commenting on it, since they're plenty of red meat left for him to chew on with this shooting regardless.

Yeah because Conservatives want to treat trans people as their sex at birth and the idea that HRT changes human behavior to be more in-line with the gender they identify with brings into question their preferred policy of putting trans-men on T in bathrooms with cis-women and trans-women with breasts in men's bathrooms.

Also if trans-men are dangerous because they're on T, then aren't cis men just as dangerous?

MtFs commit crimes at the same rate as other men (and sex crimes at 5-6 times the rate).

I'd rather be in a sketchy womens bathroom with any randomly chosen male rather than one that deliberately wanted to be there.

That is the quiet part being spoken out loud. Social conservatives, the religious and right-wingers tend to believe all men are inherently dangerous due to their testosterone levels (or the devil), and therefore assault by men is more on women to defend from than men to change, because they can’t. An argument I have heard commonly is cis men are indeed just as dangerous, and ideally, women need to be chaperoned by their brothers/fathers (who are the least likely to assault due to being repulsed by incest) to prevent a man from succumbing to his instincts, and if feminists would stop trying to put women next to men (aka potential assaulters), we’d find a lot less assault on women by men.

That is the quiet part being spoken out loud.

I don't think it's even the quiet part. From what I've seen, conservatives are perfectly open about saying that men and women are fundamentally different, including men having a greater tendency for violence and general aggression, and openly use this as justification for harsher penalties on men and greater protection for women around men.

I'm assuming people who have a lifetime of experience swimming in testosterone manage better than those who dose up later.

The levels of aggression and horniness seems to catch many FtM by surprise.

Yeah could be, I wonder if there's FTM crime data available.

There's three FTM mass shooters that we know of, trans people are ~0.4% of the population (though probably a larger share of young people who do mass shootings) so you'd expect 240 cis shooters per trans shooter. How many mass shootings we've had varies based on the casualty threshold you use. The Gun Violence Archive uses 'four or more people killed or injured' which means there's 300-700 mass shootings a year. Everytown only counts incidents where four people were killed excluding the shooter and finds 20-30 mass shootings a year.

I may be confused but it certainly doesn’t seem like many are defending the shooter. Feels like another awful school shooting situation and the sides have fallen in line with their gun talking points.

Hundreds of millions of people know about this shooting. If one in ten thousand of them of them posts online in favor of the shooter, then you have ten thousand online posts in favor of the shooter to cherry pick from.

Aidan/Audrey’s acts are a near-perfect scissor statement.

I don't think this is correct. A scissor statement (or act in this case) is basically one where one side thinks it is unambiguously correct, one person thinks it is unambiguously wrong and neither can understand how anyone could possibly hold the opposing view, because it is so CLEARLY true/false, right? I don't see anyone (maybe lizardman constant aside) really saying yeah shooting kids was absolutely the right thing to do, and how could you think otherwise?

Even in the TRN statement which seems to be the closest to defending the shooter, they basically say, yes the shooting was a tragedy, but don't forget it is also a tragedy for someone to feel this way to the point they murder and commit suicide by cop. Now they are a trans advocacy group so they are only making this statement because the shooter was trans, and likely wouldn't have said anything if the shooter was a cis-male but even they aren't saying yeah, it's a good thing more kids are dead right?

So I don't think this even comes close to being a scissor statement/act.

I think TRN's statement could be fairly glossed as "The primary cause of this shooting was the oppression that trans people face."

That has scissor potential.

Maybe, but then the scissor would be that statement not the shooter's actions as stated.

I hope this isn't against the rules, but you yourself did outline the idea of "memocide," and I also outlined a similar idea even earlier in relation to the "trans genocide" topic.

I think we can admit that trying to put brakes on the transgender memeplex probably does amount to cultural/memetic violence, but I take the view that memetic violence is better than things spiraling out of control and devolving into actual physical violence.

I can see where this logic is coming from, but if you accept this definition, then New Athiesm is clearly an attempt at memocide of (primarily) Christianity. I don't think such a broad definition of "trying to convince people they are wrong" is viable as unacceptable behavior. But I can also see a reasonable place in which badgering, say, the Amish, to part with their longstanding cultural practices is probably not acceptable either, even if you do think their kids deserve the freedom to live their lives.

Right before New Atheism turned into Woke New Atheism, a man came into our church on a Sunday morning, wearing a Flying Spaghetti Monster T-shirt, pretending to be a seeker Just Asking Questions.

I made sure to try to make friends with him right away, because I was familiar with the FSM. Well, after a week or two of attendance, he started trying to debate Sunday school teachers, and even the pastor, during classes and services. The pastor asked him to leave the building, and he said, “Why are you asking me to leave? I’m just asking questions. You should be able to give me answers, or your faith and scholarship mean nothing.” He left under threat of being charged with trespass.

I asked him if he wanted to meet after church somewhere. We chose a nearby café and had a fascinating conversation. He had been a Christian, or rather, he had been raised as a Christian. At one point, he took the “atheist challenge,” which was to not pray or think about God for six months. After that, he was an atheist. (

He started meeting one on one with members of our congregation, trying to convince them individually that God does not exist, Jesus does not save, and the Holy Spirit cannot move you to acts of kindness and generosity. His goal was memocide, to strip away our congregants’ faith.

Our pastor had to do some research and consult our lawyer in order to find a way to not only bar him from the premises, but to keep him from meeting with congregants off-premises. That was when we had to institute a an actual membership roll, so everyone who considers themselves a member of our church could be listed, and referred to as a body legally. During their legal research, that was also when we found out he is the head of the largest atheist activist group in this part of New Mexico.

There’s a difference between trying to convince people they are wrong because you love them and want the best for them, and trying to convince people they are wrong because you want to break their relationship with someone or some group who has hurt you. The first is kindness, the second is literally what Satan did to Eve.

Our pastor had to do some research and consult our lawyer in order to find a way to not only bar him from the premises, but to keep him from meeting with congregants off-premises.

This idea seems blatantly unconstitutional.

It sure might, given solely the perspective of two adults talking to each other. However, Orders of Protection/Restraining Orders have a place in law and a history of being ruled constitutional. Something as simple as a heated conversation between an abused woman and her abuser in the supermarket can trigger law enforcement actions; there, the imbalance of power is obvious, and thus the interest of the government.

It’s not as obvious that an atheist, chief of an atheist organization, armed with a Gish gallop of Biblical imperfections, contradictions, and fantastical elements, is a danger to congregants of my church. While our congregation’s various teaching leaders do attempt to prepare the flock for the slings and arrows of the enemy, these are mostly people who aren’t primarily in the faith because of the philosophical grounding and theological intricacies of their faith tradition. (I’m a rare exception.) Some are people who came out of drug or abuse environments, others were raised by their families in a community of people (smaller than the Dunbar number) always willing to help each other. Some enjoy the songs and potlucks, others enjoy being around other people who have “cooperate” and “forgive” as their social defaults.

They thought they were being invited to “talk about their faith” over lunch or coffee, but they were ambushed by a well-prepared inverse evangelist seeking to find the root of their faith and uproot it, in an environment away from the leaders they trust with their emotional life and who they could turn to for answers to the conundrums he posed. (Keep in mind, this was a time when we couldn’t search the Internet in our pockets at a finger’s flick.) Their consent was obtained by deception, and that was enough for the situation to be considered harassment.

They thought they were being invited to “talk about their faith” over lunch or coffee, but they were ambushed by a well-prepared inverse evangelist seeking to find the root of their faith and uproot it, in an environment away from the leaders they trust with their emotional life and who they could turn to for answers to the conundrums he posed.

I stand by my claim that the government restraining this sort of thing at the behest of a third party is blatantly unconstitutional, and only accepted because of a friendly judge.

I assume his nuisance harassment on private property, which escalated to our board-recognized authority figure requesting he leave our property due to unwelcome trespassing, was the foundation of anything which followed.

I’m not privy to the details or the document, but that, at least, should constitute grounds for a restraining order for harassment of our members whether we’re a church, a private nonprofit shooting range, or a Toastmasters speech club. But it did spur us to have an official member list so that we could, for example, be listed in a restraining order as a class.

It sure might, given solely the perspective of two adults talking to each other. However, Orders of Protection/Restraining Orders have a place in law and a history of being ruled constitutional.

I really doubt you can get restraining order against meeting whole class of hundreds of people, most of them you never met.

Most probably, the lawyer talked with this asshole, reminded him of possibility of legal action and it was sufficient to shut him down.

(the whole situation is surreal, what is the point of leaving Christianity and then doubling down on most stereotypically obnoxious Christian behavior - unwanted preaching, evangelizing and missionizing)

I’m guessing this means writing a restraining order such that any member is covered.

Say some loon had a bone to pick with a daycare. Would every employee need their own restraining order, or could you write it so that new employees are automatically covered?

Are anti-abortion protestors given restraining orders if they stay in front of the clinic, try to talk to the women to persuade them to keep the baby and scream "murderer!" at the employees?

I would expect every employee, otherwise the employer is effectively violating the free speech rights of both employee and loon. It's even worse when it's a church and you're implicating religion as well as speech. A prohibition on trying to convert congregants away from their religion is blatantly unconstitutional.

Exactly, I think it's a bit of an extreme conclusion to reason that "limiting memes = doing violence = always bad," but I can understand where trans people may be coming from with this. It's hard to say where the balancing point should be on this, because one (trans)man's "grooming" can easily be another (trans)man's "helping someone else out of the closet."

Agreed. I think calling something like this "memocide" or "memetic violence" just puts a different label on the basic concept of "arguing with words," which is no worse and no better for whatever label we put on it, even if it has "-cide" and "violence" on the label. I think it's akin to how "transphobia" has come to mean things like "believing that MTF transwomen are biological males," which don't gain some sort of irrational fear/hatred attached to it just because "phobia" is now part of the label, or how "racism" has come to mean things like "believing that differential racial outcomes aren't definitionally proof of bigotry," which don't gain some sort of bigotry attached to it just because "-ism" is now part of the label.

A rose by any other name and all that. And to quote another famous saying, this might not matter much, because the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent: the negative affect of these new labels could (and has) bulldoze plenty of plenty of innocent bystanders while the actual meaning of the terms flow through to all of society.

halting drag activities in children's spaces is trans genocide for both sides

Drag =/= transgender. Not even close.

If this was true, then you’d have legions of trans people aligning themselves with everybody else who is pointing out that drag shows for children is completely inappropriate.

But of course you don’t see that. Again with the revealed preference (I hate that I use this term twice, but IIWII). Trans people see drag performers and see themselves, which is why they can’t oppose them.

The question is not whether trans people support the right of people to perform drag shows, for children or not for children. That was not what OP said. Rather, OP equated drag performers with transgender persons, and that is empirically false.

@07mk (in the other reply to this post, and the thread following) indeed approximately caught my meaning. I’m starting from what I’ve seen on reddit, from leftists who take the time and effort to comment there. I’ve seen them saying that laws stopping “drag queen story hour”, the exemplar drag activity in children's spaces, would constitute genocide against trans people.

Now, I am pretty clear on the separation between trans and drag. The former is about living one’s felt identity and societal role. The latter is about performing/playing about identity/role, which makes it a form of clowning, like pro wrestling kayfabe, pulp SF, cosplay, fursuiting, and even religious ceremonies and televangelist preaching. (Osteen, looking at you.) I am familiar with this split from seeing it in my years in the furry fandom and two adjacent fandoms. I was even in theater growing up, and the similar-but-different onstage/backstage split behavior dynamic is always on my mind as a customer service rep at work and as an A/V tech at church.

Leftwards reddit has given me the impression they believe that children experiencing drag activities in public, and especially in children’s spaces, gives children awareness of gender realities they’ve been sheltered from by repressive churches, conservative schools, and uptight parents. I will take them at their word. I then connect that idea with their description of halting such activities as genocide.

That was not what OP said. Rather, OP equated drag performers with transgender persons, and that is empirically false.

I don't think that's what OP did. I think the relevant parts of the OP are (correct me if I missed something):

Here’s an odd little dynamic: halting drag activities in children's spaces is trans genocide for both sides, but in different ways!

For pro-trans activists, halting them is halting a ritual cultural activity, and hints at a wider cultural desire for eventual trans elimination through murders of the outed and the suicides of the closeted. It also removes an avenue for trans youths to discover their true gender and thus leaves them in a spiral of depression heading toward suicide.

I bolded the parts that I think are particularly relevant. The claim seems to be that "drag activities in children's spaces" is a form of "ritual cultural activity" for trans people. This could be taken to mean that "trans people have a ritual cultural activity of doing drag in children's spaces," but I don't think this necessarily means that. Rather, it could be taken to mean that having drag performers performing in children's spaces is a type of cultural activity for trans people. This is, in itself, suspect, and the most charitable way I could interpret it is that it's claiming that trans people value such subversion of traditional gender stereotypes for helping to enlighten potential trans kids of their innate trans-ness. Which I still find very suspect, to say the least. But it doesn't require an equality between drag performers and trans people.

I think it implicitly equates them, because drag performances are indeed a type of cultural activity for drag performers or perhaps for some gay men. So by saying that they are a type of cultural activity for trans people, isn't OP conflating them?

So by saying that they are a type of cultural activity for trans people, isn't OP conflating them?

I don't think the OP was saying that drag performances in general are a type of cultural activity for trans people; taken literally, the statement seems to be that drag performances for kids are a type of cultural activity for pro-trans activists (which, notably, is a different set of people from trans people, something I myself missed in my previous comment). Drag performances for kids (or, to use the OP's exact terms, drag activities in children's spaces) is a sufficiently specific and niche thing even among drag performances in general that it wouldn't even occur to most people to characterize it as a type of cultural activity for drag performers. I think the interpretation that the claim is "having drag activities in children's spaces is a type of cultural activity for pro-trans activists" makes at least as much sense as the interpretation that the claim is "performing drag activities in children's spaces is a type of cultural activity for trans people."

Which is itself a pretty suspect claim. Maybe it is a form of cultural activity for the activists who encourage and organize these performances - I haven't asked - but I feel like it's more of a "fuck you" to what they see as the conservative establishment and its oppressive gender norms. Which, to be fair, might be a form of cultural activity in itself, but then that gets into a more philosophical/definitional question of what is a "cultural activity" anyway?

I see your point, but it seems to me that OP's reference to genocide doesn't make sense under that interpretation.

Which one is the one cross dressing for sexual gratification?

Neither, as it happens.

It’s kind of interesting the extent to which trans and drag get lumped together.

Not by social conservatives- ‘it’s gay and super weird and a hot topic for no apparent reason’ is kind of our dominant thought process about both things, and it makes a lot of sense that we’d get confused between the two. But progressives seem like they should know better- to my understanding most drag queens are cis gay men, and progressives at least claim that is a very different thing from trans.

most drag queens are cis gay men, and progressives at least claim that is a very different thing from trans.

It may be different, but just the use of the term "LGBT" shows that progressives often think they belong together.

the extent to which trans and drag get lumped together

Maybe it's just that they share the same type of aesthetic unpleasantness for what would appear to be the same reasons? The vast majority of obvious MtFs are (trivially) either not trying to pass or stuck in the uncanny valley, and they know it. The unshaved body hair does it every time.

The ones that can reliably pull off acting white the appearance of the opposite gender, or just don't do it in public, have a higher chance of not being seen as a problem... or at least, that's my read on how "yes, I'm different, but from my appearance and mannerisms I'm also not going out of my way to intentionally alienate you" goes over.

and progressives at least claim that is a very different thing

I accept the claim that was made here some time ago that they're both womanface; it's just that one's a caricature of the appearance and the other's a caricature of the social role too. (The denial of a gender binary yet acceptance of transgender as a concept is not something I've ever seen a convincing answer for.) Forcing either at gunpoint is bad faith.

But at the end of the day, it's "I'm trying to have you believe that dressing in a way suggestive of forcing everyone else around me to make accommodations for me and my special brand of ugliness, and that ugliness shall not be questioned ever", or to be a bit plainer, "in the Prisoner's Dilemma, I come with the Defect button already pushed and am of the faction that wants to force you at gunpoint to hit Co-operate".

And... that's why I'm leery of this faction's weirdness. It's definitely benign on an object level/in a vacuum, but at the subject level it's a weapon, and the fact that it's a weapon is intentionally ignored by the people using it as one kind of makes me sympathetic to the side that will come and take their gun away, so to speak. Guess I'm not that great of a liberal, but the best weapon against liberals thought is the Paradox of Tolerance.

(The denial of a gender binary yet acceptance of transgender as a concept is not something I've ever seen a convincing answer for.)

There are many genders and a person can transition from their gender assigned at birth to any of them? I don't see any internal contradiction.

My own extremely fringe position that alienates every side in this discussion is that there are two genders and a person can transition from one to the other.

subject level

I believe the term you are looking for is "meta level".

and a person can transition from their gender assigned at birth to any of them

Trans is very specifically about claiming one's gender is directly opposite other biological sex; gender dysphoria isn't (yet) claimed to people becoming intersex even though that's the practical result of the hormone therapies.

My own extremely fringe position that alienates every side in this discussion is that there are two genders and a person can transition from one to the other.

I'll do you one better: the genders are "capital" (value-by-existence) and "labor" (value-by-doing). Men-presenting-as-woman are transcapital, so they're distrusted by both genders (as they're assuming privileges not provided by their biology); woman-presenting-as-man are translabor, so they're generally accepted (as they're ditching those privileges to compete against those that are biologically predisposed to succeed in labor).

To steelman, a lot of the trans community's objections to 'drag show' bans is that they seldom can cleanly distinguish between non-drag trans stuff (and seldom recognize non-prurient drag as a thing period). And, to be fair, the complexities of legal cases, pressures toward plea bargaining, and threats of prosecution without intent to follow through are all serious issues even if a statute was perfectly well-drafted, and most of them aren't.

In most cases, I don't think the statutes are that unclear : contrast here vs here, where like some of the Florida bare bookshelf stuff a lot of this is pretty clearly intentional showboating rather than just drawing a thick line around the law. But in turn there's been a number of bills that had to be revised pretty late in their readings (eg Texas) to keep to actual obscenity-or-harmful-to-minors stuff, and others that are poorly worded and depending on the courts to handle.

I agree that the statutes passed thus far are not unclear. The TN law, for example, only bars performances on public property or in a venue where minors could be present by "male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest." I have never been to a drag show, but as I understand it, classic drag shows are guys dressed as Marilyn Monroe singing show tunes. Maybe nowadays it is guys dressed as Beyonce singing pop songs. Neither appeals to the prurient interest, which is generally defined as "an appeal to a morbid, degrading, and unhealthy interest in sex, not just an ordinary interest." US v. McCoy, 937 F. Supp. 2d 1374 (Dist. Court, MD Georgia 2013); United States v. Isaacs, 565 F. App'x 637 (9th Cir. 2014). I suppose there might be grey areas, such as twerking, but the idea that the laws "ban" drag shows seems pretty dubious to me.

I have never been to a drag show, but as I understand it, classic drag shows are guys dressed as Marilyn Monroe singing show tunes.

Only time I was at a drag show was when I was getting shitfaced with my mates at DNA Lounge during a bachelor party, and suddenly, a bunch of drags went on stage and started squirting the crowd with milk from their huge-ass fake breasts.

Now, a night club like DNA Lounge is obviously not going to have children present, but drug shows appealing to prurient interest is very much not something of an exception: if you follow right wing Twitter accounts, you'll see sexually explicit clips of drag shows with children in audience on a regular basis.

drug shows appealing to prurient interest is very much not something of an exception

How do you know? But how representative of drag shows do you suppose are a set of clips curated by right wing Twitter accounts? I am sure that there are left wing accounts showing people opposing gender assignment surgery for kids while spewing homophobic invective, but I am 100% sure that they are the exception among those who worried about such surgery.

It seems pretty obvious that even the authors of the bills in question do not think that drag shows are typically prurient; if they did, they would ban kids from attending all of them.

Regardless, the point is that the bills that have been enacted don't ban drag shows, as is commonly claimed.

(But then, with maybe one exception, the "anti-CRT" laws that have been enacted don't ban the teaching of CRT or anything else, but activists and politicians on both sides have an interest in continuing to claim that they do. So perhaps it is a losing battle).

Yeah, they're definitely making a slippery slope argument, but elements of the conservative movement loudly proclaim how much they'd love to slide down that slope.

It'd be nice to have a term for this sort of recurring phenomenon where maybe you agree with your opponents about the first step in a certain direction, but elements of their movement keep proclaiming they want to take thirty, so then you refuse to take even one because you don't trust that you can stop the momentum once it starts.

You may find the concept of "yut" useful:

I’m simplifying, but I think there are meaningful distinctions between

  1. dismissing some phenomenon or event as having no moral significance,
  1. acknowledging the significance but keeping it contained to this particular case, and
  1. making that significance generalize to a much larger narrative.

Let us, then, take into account the actual facts of life, and not be misled into following any proposal for achieving the millennium, for recreating the golden age, until we have subjected it to hardheaded examination. On the other hand, it is foolish to reject a proposal merely because it is advanced by visionaries. If a given scheme is proposed, look at it on its merits, and, in considering it, disregard formulas. It does not matter in the least who proposes it, or why. If it seems good, try it. If it proves good, accept it; otherwise reject it. There are plenty of good men calling themselves Socialists with whom, up to a certain point, it is quite possible to work. If the next step is one which both we and they wish to take, why of course take it, without any regard to the fact that our views as to the tenth step may differ. But, on the other hand, keep clearly in mind that, though it has been worth while to take one step, this does not in the least mean that it may not be highly disadvantageous to take the next. It is just as foolish to refuse all progress because people demanding it desire at some points to go to absurd extremes, as it would be to go to these absurd extremes simply because some of the measures advocated by the extremists were wise.

Kind of the opposite of Teddy Roosevelt's thoughts on he matter, then.

Most "trans umbrella" diagrams include cross-dressing

No doubt most trans people dress in the garb of the sex opposite to that assigned at birth. But the vast majority of drag performers are not transgender, and indeed dress when on stage. They are very different phenomena.11

You're trying to distinguish between trans and drag, but it's all queer, it's all pride, it's all rainbow schlock and inclusion. It's all the same thing, it can clearly be seen as the same thing, it's all commonly lumped together as the same thing, and you're just splitting hairs.

I can understand why you say they're different. Can you understand why I say they are the same?

No, I am afraid I can't. You are simply saying that they belong to the same category. That does not mean they are the same for all purposes,and certainly not for OP's purposes. Drag queens are generally cis. So, by definition they arenot trans.

Yeah, which is the trans community nearly unanimously agrees that the desire to keep drag events out of schools is not an attack on the trans community itself.

Why might trans people be worried about people who don't recognize them as the gender they identify with banning cross-dressing?

If that's what they are afraid of, how does pushing a sexualized dance routine in front of a child audience help them?

Why wasn't it necessary to do so, say 10 years ago, when there was less trans acceptance?

Conservatives are mad about drag queen story hour and that's just reading a book not doing a dance. There's a lot of ambiguity in determining whether a performance is sexualized and it's reasonable not to trust a political movement that doesn't think you have a legitimate place in public life to draw those boundaries in a fair way.

Conservatives are mad about drag queen story hour and that's just reading a book not doing a dance.

What's this then? Or this?

it's reasonable not to trust a political movement that doesn't think you have a legitimate place in public life to draw those boundaries in a fair way.

Sure. Just as it's legitimate not to trust a political movement that demands access to your children to make important decisions about their life without informing you.

If conservatives are merely concerned about sexualized performances near/involving children, one might wonder why they don't have similar issues with, e.g. child beauty pageants, dance recitals, or cheerleading?

Uhhh dance recitals? what are you even talking about

Probably competition dancing that can include styles like this.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=82WwqXyyWXg

Child beauty pageants are Red Tribe but not particular conservative, and they're generally associated with those with no class ("trash").

If conservatives are merely concerned about sexualized performances near/involving children, one might wonder why they don't have similar issues with, e.g. child beauty pageants

Do schools sign up kids for beauty pageants behind their parents back? Do they invite kids from other schools to perform?

dance recitals, or cheerleading?

These aren't necessarily sexualized. And last I checked (and from what I remember growing up) conservatives do care about kids not dressing/acting sexually.

Because the people making the arguments are different.

The conservative (as in, liberal/labor) argument is "I'm trying to have you believe that dressing in a way suggestive of forcing everyone else around me to make accommodations for me and my special brand of ugliness, and that ugliness shall not be questioned ever", or to be a bit plainer, "in the Prisoner's Dilemma, I come with the Defect button already pushed and am of the faction that wants to force you at gunpoint to hit Co-operate". (That doesn't roll off the tongue as well as "we're coming for your children" does, though.)

The conservative (as in, traditionalist/capital) argument is just to complain at the object-level, but they do that about cheerleading and dancing already anyway. The current progressives complain about cheerleaders too, for roughly the same reasons- you're just more likely to see progressive complaining than (yesterday's progressive) complaining because the latter already lost the culture war over them.

Every political stripe complains about child beauty pageants being sexual. None of their arguments are convincing.

Cheerleading also has a safetyist attack given it's injury rate and lack of protective equipment.

just reading a book not doing a dance.

An odd way to describe a person in sexualized clothing reading a book. Drag queens rarely dress in a Hillary pantsuit or Barbara Bush style coat and skirt. The medium is inherently either sexual or offensive.

Yeah that's my point. Why would gay/trans people support bans on 'sexualized' drag performances when straight conservatives will get to decide which performances are sexualized and they think drag is inherently sexual.

I don't go to drag shows and don't really see the appeal but Andrew Sullivan, an old school non-woke gay, doesn't think they're inherently sexual.

https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/drag-queen-conservatism-eb1

His best picture is a person in heels reading a book that says, "its ok to be different?" Really reaching here.

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I suspect that this is sarcasm. While drags queens do have some overlap, the motivations aren't the same.

Technically. It's still raises the question why drag events are being pushed so hard, supposedly in the name of inclusivity.

Prelude: The Nashville school shooting is definitely peak toxoplasma, a day later: people cheering everyone who entered that school with a gun, both the shooter and the police. Aidan/Audrey’s acts are a near-perfect scissor statement.

On the contrary; spaces that are typically rabidly pro-trans are livid about the school shooting. Most media sources are geared towards stirring up outrage and are actively searching for the most inflammatory tweets and soundbytes to score points. The right will try to stir up outrage about mentally ill trans shooters/rapists, the left will make noises about assault weapons bans, normies will be disgusted by another school shooting and update diametrically away from everything the shooter claimed to stand for.

Like just about every other school shooting, this is a massive own-goal. Trans people look bad, Catholics and other religious folks are innocent victims and the cops undeniably come out looking like heroes.

Like just about every other school shooting, this is a massive own-goal. Trans people look bad, Catholics and other religious folks are innocent victims and the cops undeniably come out looking like heroes.

The cops didn't come out looking like heroes in the Uvalde shooting.

It didn’t involve trans or Catholic people either. The own-goal is the part that generalizes.

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They’re Calvinists. It’s gonna be a rough day for the religion teacher when classes resume (assuming anyone in a mainline Protestant denomination even believes that stuff anymore).

So, I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make. If it's "Calvinists believe in predestination, hence have no answer for the problem of evil", I have to say that's incorrect, to put it mildly. I mean, the first of the five points of Calvinism is "Total Depravity", essentially that man is so corrupted by original sin that he cannot choose any good apart from the grace of God.

If the point is "Religion claims that if you pray enough, bad things won't happen to you", I don't think that's a mainstream position among any Christian denominations.

If it’s “Calvinists believe in predestination, hence have no answer for the problem of evil”

Essentially this. “Total depravity” isn’t real answer to the problem of evil. It’s a fake answer. Why did God choose to make man totally depraved? To be fair, there is no monotheistic religion with a robust answer to the problem of evil, but the Catholic/Arminian “God decided that it was better to give mankind true free will, even if some men use it for evil,” answer could at least explain this. What are the Calvinists going to say? “Your friend Hallie died in a pool of her own blood so that God could demonstrate the need for his divine grace”?

Apparently Covenant Presbyterian Nashville is a PCA church, so they might actually teach some Calvinism. (The PCUSA is the "mainline" liberal demonination whose median member wouldn't know the first thing about predestination.)

In my experience it's not that they 'don't believe' it as much as they are not even familiar with concepts like predestination. Typically, they get angry and confused when you bring it up

Whoops.

Kavanaugh was peak scissors/toxoplasma because there was an object level dispute about what happened. This is the 'everyone agrees shooting kids is bad but the cause is the thing that supports our desired policy and definitely not the thing that supports your desired policy' that happens every mass shooting. Throw in a dash of 'your militant rhetoric led to this' that we got with the Buffalo shooter and immigration, Gabbie Giffords and posters with crosshairs, and the Republican caucus shooter. The structure is identical the content is novel because trans people seem to commit mass shootings in rough proportion to their very small share of the population so there aren't many of them.

Trans Resistance Network has 500 twitter followers and no links to any external organizations in their profile, do they speak for anyone significant? It's kind of frustrating that the decline of mass-membership organizations means that we don't have a trans NOW or NAACP to present some sort of 'official stance of the trans community' on a variety of issues.

Trans Resistance Network has 500 twitter followers and no links to any external organizations in their profile, do they speak for anyone significant? It's kind of frustrating that the decline of mass-membership organizations means that we don't have a trans NOW or NAACP to present some sort of 'official stance of the trans community' on a variety of issues.

This is definitely a big issue. People calling themselves pro-trans are in the habit of claiming to speak for all trans people despite having no actual evidence of significant backing by the "trans community," and the rest of us are demanded to just take their word for it. Given that, even some apparently tiny "organization" like this Trans Resistance Network can claim to speak for the "trans community," and the rest of us are conditioned to just take their word for it. If there were some sort of meaningful gatekeeping by such activists to authenticate who can actually speak for the "trans community" by numbers or whatever, we wouldn't be here, but, well, here we are.

I don’t think big, gatekeeping orgs like the ADL or NAACP have a great reputation among outsiders.

Hell, the NRA has tried its hardest to position as the authoritative signal of gun advocates, and it’s not gone so well.

I suppose there'll be trans activists digging up all sorts of 'evidence' that the adult victims and the parents/grandparents of the child victims were/are horrific transphobe garbage humans who ridiculed/harassed/mocked/tormented the shooter.

Do you mind adding a link to the TRN's statement?

Screenshot I could find:

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1640746882640011264

https://transresistancenetwork.wordpress.com

A very important and representative organization, I am sure.

Since when is importance and representativeness relevant to these conversations? Never heard about it during the Christchurch shooting.

Personally, I don't think it even matters how representative it is. What matters is that many in the movement don't call out their own for bad behavior like this. And this extends to every time someone in the trans movement has committed some form of bad behavior.

That sounds a lot like the bailey for asking politicians to disavow white supremacy.

Well they have, haven't they? At least people like Trump have, multiple times.

I'm sure I can find a twitter account with around 500 followers who has not disavowed white supremacy if I tried.

Would that be proof enough for you?

If now then why do we care so much about TRN? What's the difference?

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How's the meme go?

My rules applied fairly

Your rules applied fairly

Your rules applied unfairly

Not sure I follow. I think demanding that politicians disavow random assholes is a cheap rhetorical trick, one that shouldn’t usually be applied.

They have a whole 500 twitter followers!

I was about to ask the same. There are like 50 organizations containing some combo of “trans” “resistance” and “network,” usually with a couple other qualifiers or idpol groups. Which one does he have in mind?

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