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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31619 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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I love etymology too but thinking that because trans activists use the term "deadnaming" it means that they actually think that transition is like death is kind of like thinking that when a guy says "what's up, motherfuckers!" to his friends, he is implying that they fuck mothers.

The psychology of how and why people use words is often very little connected to those words' etymology.

There is a danger in getting so deep into etymology that one turns it almost into a form of numerology or astrology, believing that it explains more than it actually does because one can always come up with a plausible theory for any given supposed connection. Same with evolutionary psychology, I guess.

And yet a pro-transition perspective

A transgender person may decide to no longer use their birth or legal name. Instead, they’ll choose a name that better aligns with their identity. When someone uses their old name after being asked not to, that is what we call ‘deadnaming.’ The person who they once were is dead, but the new person is alive, so their current name should be used.

Emphasis mine.

It's like the scene you get in movies when tarot readings are involved. The Death card comes up. The reader says something like "It also means change". Invariably turns out it means death.

Not very different from rhetoric around being born again, or simply accepting Christ: "God's solution to the problem of my sinful self is to get rid of my old self and make me a new person in Christ." But if anyone posted here equating that with physical death, they would quite properly laughed off the stage.

Arguably trans activists play fast and loose with the figurative/literal meaning of death for political footing. It's one thing for your opponents to disagree with you, but for them to genocide you (sic) gets a bit more attention. I do not doubt many using these terms imagine they are being very sincere and good-faith.

Edit： After reading further here I see that nothing I have written here adds anything new.

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