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 -
The state of Minnesota has passed a trans refuge bill.
From my reading of this (not a lawyer, obvs): previously if a child ran away from home, and was found, the child would be returned to the child's parents. Now, however, if a child runs away from home, and claims a "transgender identity" the state will use its powers to keep the child from its parents.
This seems: absolutely pants-shittingly insane to me? Like I'm sortof reeling from disbelief at this and am still trying to figure out what I'm missing. This also seems to imply that if a child runs away to Minnesota, that the child will be kept in Minnesota away from his or her parents.
Can anybody help me understand this? This goes so far beyond anything that I had even considered in the realm of possibility that I'm sure I must be misunderstanding this.
As a related side note: I am reaching a point where reading things on this topic is becoming incredibly difficult. There seems to be so many seemingly double/triple/quadruple entendre words that its hard to follow.
I ask this earnestly and seriously: I’m about to have a son. What specific things should I do to protect him from what seems to me like an obviously predatory movement. I’m not really interested in hashing out whether this is predatory or how to fix it on a social level. I want to know what specific things I, as a soon to be parent, can do.
I'm not sure there's a good answer here.
One big problem is - being 'smart, intellectually independent, and aggressive in figuring things out yourself' is a trait the best people have, and if your kid is one of those that's great. But when you figure things out yourself, you can make mistakes. So that teenager - just like that kind of adult - might learn about being trans on the internet, along with being shaped by all of modernity, decide to be trans for more complex, authentic reasons, and less for trend-following reasons. Not that it's easy to separate the two, but clearly there were many trend-setting trans women who did it before it was mainstream.
And there aren't many good options for preventing that. Not allow them to use the internet, or only under supervision, until age 17? I think it would help a lot. Both preventing exposure to the idea, not seeing the cute anime girls or porn, decontextualized images the will takes up for lack of anything more compelling. But - You've taken away the best avenue for learning and understanding - and the place the child'll probably make his living - along with the main method of social interaction for people that age. And if the tradeoff is (2% chance trans) vs (10% reduced life-experience), not that numbers mean much here - picking the latter is life-denying, causing general harm to slightly reduce the chance of some other harm? Cutting off a limb because it might get cancer?
I'm also not sure what to do with a more 'normal' kid who goes trans because of dumb random kid reasons (which is more common). But it's in principle a much easier problem. Just raising them as right-wing, in a right-wing community, is a reasonable move. Even without 'values', maybe watch their discord/reddit/[other platform] use and keep them out of trans-adjacent communities? I think that'd work in some cases, but not in others, and sometimes backfire.
The teachers thing is just a red herring, trans comes from the internet and social peers. And being a Wholesome Dad Chungus 100 won't do too much either, plenty of trans people had good parents.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link