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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 30, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Zooey Zephyr, a Montana State Representative has been censured for comments made regarding a bill state policy on gender transition services. Zephyr is now suing, as reported by the AP. There's much that could be discussed here, but this is the small-scale thread, and I want to do a quick survey on the aesthetics presented by Zephyr in this photo that seems intended to be iconic for Zephyr's supporters. What do you see? What feeling does that photo summon for you?

I'll be blunt - I see a ridiculous man, a parody of someone playing dress-up as a woman, attempting to evoke the imagery of the Civil Rights movement, but succeeding only in creating a repellant and somewhat pitiable facsimile thereof. I suspect that my ideological opponents on this are intended to see a brave woman, standing up to the bullies on the other side of the aisle. Do they see that? Sincerely and honestly? I don't know how I would ever be able to determine if they honestly see that or if they've just conditioned themselves to say that this is what they see.

This probably doesn't rise to the level of being a scissor image, but it's in that direction, not just polarizing due to different views, but having people literally processing the image differently.

Edit: Let's add another interesting piece of optics that I see going viral. I continue to be surprised that my opponents are embracing people that I think make them look maximally weird.

I agree. I see a masculine man, with masculine face musculature, with masculine hands. This is one of the counterarguments about the TQ: those who are less masculine, or more “intersex” and androgynous, do not appear more likely to be transgender. It may even be the opposite. Which means all the same hormones that lead to men being just men are also surging through the MTF, causing the same brain changes and so on. So what is the magic physical change that makes an M claim to be F, apart from a feeling? How can this feeling at all he explicated — what does it even mean to feel like a woman except to want to be woman-like? My younger cousin may watch Andrew Tate and decide to act like Andrew Tate, but no one would treat him with the same masculine “stature”. We see that he simply wants to be Andrew Tate, is imitating him. The Left is ordinarily hyper-aware of people wanting to be someone else and criticizes the imposter ruthlessly. Consider the criticism against Cole Sprouse: how dare this non-rugged and non-masculine guy pretend to be a cool, rugged cigarette smoker?

I don't think Blanchard typology is necessarily scientific and it definitely doesn't cover all cases, but I do think it provides a perspective that is more consistent with observed reality than the "girl born in a man's body" model of transgenderism.

Absolutely, I am cognitively biased, but so many of these men scream playing at being a woman to me, or just not really a woman at all but there for complicated reasons.

Also it's fashionable and can advance your career, just look at all the shameless athletes wanting to shine in glory they were never able to get before. Contrapoints has interesting and thoughtful videos with great production ideas. But even with his creative takedown of Jordan Peterson (everyone loves the JP click train) he wouldn't have been nearly as successful as a regular guy. He captured the zeitgeist perfectly and it's his entire shtick really.