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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33039 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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I'd say that anybody who says the word transphobic seriously, is medicalizing a political ideology as well as hurting people with debilitating mental health conditions such as arachnophobia, claustrophobia and other types of real phobias, by implicitly insinuating that they may also be based on some personal choice or ideology, such as in the case of transphobia or homophobia.

Of course I am very much aware that this opinion of mine will make me a transphobe in eyes of certain radical groups who are pushing this term in the first place.

And would you likewise say that chemists who describe a molecule as "hydrophobic" are medicalizing a simple physical phenomenon as well as hurting people with debilitating phobias?

If it isn't clear, I am saying that a word with the suffix -phobic does not necessarily imply a phobia in the medical sense. No one is claiming homophobia or transphobia is a phobia, i.e. an irrational fear of those respective groups. That is a strawman.

It’s not a straw man, it’s something I’ve seen being claimed constantly - that right wingers are actually afraid of muslims, or gays, or trans people or immigrants or black people or whatever. Happens quite often in fact

Yea. "Why are you afraid of them?" is a frequently-posed rhetorical question.

Except that for instance in the case of homophobia according to this article it was coined by the Pschologist George Weinberg and then used by activists of the magazine Screw in late 60ies. Here is what Weinberg thought about the term

He suggested that those who harbor prejudice against homosexuals, and not homosexuals themselves, are suffering from a psychological malady, an irrational state of mind.

So no, this is not like hydrophobia.

And would you likewise say that chemists who describe a molecule as "hydrophobic" are medicalizing a simple physical phenomenon as well as hurting people with debilitating phobias?

People with rabies, in that particular case.

But no, chemists are just using the jargon of their field, which does not derive from medical phobias but from the original greek roots; "hydrophobic" is basically an anthropomorphism. The same does not apply to "transphobic" which is being used as a general term, and is definitely coined by analogy to "homophobic" which was used to denigrate those who were politically opposed to homosexual rights.

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