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She's accurately identifying the state of play. The right isn't gonna accept trans people no matter what at this point, when you start calling people pedophiles the conversation is kind of over.
I don't think the tactics of trans activists matter that much electorally. Us political obsessives can fight all we want about trans people but electorally it's all gonna get swamped by abortion/inflation among normies.
When you openly and blatantly state your intent to convert people's children to an ideologically driven belief system backed by the power of the state, then no conversation is possible. Arguably it never started.
"We don't have to convince YOU of anything, we'll just teach your kids to hate your beliefs and we may convince a few of them to undergo invasive surgery to alter their very personal identity, against YOUR wishes."
Explain to me how there's any room for negotiation when such a position has been moved to the forefront of one side's platform?
Thats the default though. 60 years ago kids were being indoctrinated into an ideological system with the backing of the state, whether their parents liked it or not. And 40 years ago, and 20 years ago.
Arguably the issue with America right now is not that kids are being indoctrinated but that they are not all being indoctrinated the same way. Thats how you get a cohesive polity. Too many states, too many systems. Call it a civic religion, a shared mythos or whatever. The point is what you are complaining about is not new, every kid is getting indoctrinated into something.
The fight is over what. But the sholip on not having kids indoctrinated at all sailed a long time ago. But
60 years ago, our society was much more homogeneous than it is now. The social systems in contention now weren't set up to create that homogeneity, they were set up because the homogeneity allowed the public at large to see value in systems and structures that achieved common, (that is to say homogeneous) goals.
Now we are heterogenous, and the systems and structures become a weapon to fight over, in the endlessly spiraling series of escalations. You're describing it as though that fight was the norm previously, only it really, really wasn't. There would be no public school system if the population that established it had suffered the level of values-conflict we currently endure. Likely there would have been no nation either.
I think you're wrong. This homogeneity is a historical illusion. 60 years ago you had the civil rights era. Was that because everyone thought and was treated the same?
60 years before that it was womens suffrage you were divided over. With differing feelings and laws in different states.
60 years before that you're fighting over whether men who can't own land can vote. Plus you know the whole civil war.
The difference i would argue in each of these cases is that one side won convincingly each time. And that then trickled down to all states. You had some forced homogeneity for a time before the next division erupted. But only because there was victory. There were always weapons to fight over. You just don't see them because the battles were so convincingly won. And that changed landscape is the water you swim in.
Women not being able to vote being a niche idea in the US is because a cultural battle was fought and won over it. Thats why 98% of people don't question it.
If the right wins the trans "war" in 60 years people will look back and say how the right side won and how quickly everyone fell into line. They get broad strokes. And someone then will say thats because 2023 is more homogeneous in views than 2083. Not realising that battleground is why homogeneity emerged.
That's not going to happen. If the trans side loses the whole thing is getting memory holed. Best case scenario we'll be talking about it like we do about lobotomies as "bad thing crazy doctors were doing", not as something intimately connected to the progressive movement. Worst case scenario the whole thing is getting pinned on the right ("in Iran the government was forcing gay people to transition, and even in the west we had a movement trying to promote transition for gender non-conforming people") the same way eugenics is nowadays, and the only people knowing this is ass backwards will be a bunch of internet contrarians.
Might be naive, but I don't think things like that can get memory-holed.
The fucking President met with Dylan Mulvaney, on HD video, visible from the little clairvoyant in everyone's pocket. It's over.
To use an example that makes my side look bad, as somebody pro-trans.
How many people do you think knew about Donald Rumsfeld happily shaking hands with Saddam only about 15-20 years before treating him like the most dangerous man in the world? Probably not a lot. Or I'll put it more accurately if you put that picture in front of somebody who was pro-Iraq War, would their opinion have changed? Probably not.
90% of people don't put much thought into politics, 9% put only a little, another 0.9% put a lot, and the last 0.1% are weirdos like us.
If it turns out the gender-critical/anti-trans side is completely right, nobody is going to get punished, there will be no massive shift in societal or political views. We'll just move on to the next fight, and you'll move on to the next fight, trying to block us.
Wait, you're neocon? Or did you mean it was going to be an example where his side looks as bad as the pro-trans side? What makes you think the anti-gender side is not already overwhelmingly against the Iraq war, and would want to put the neocons on trial?
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