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An interesting tweet from Elon Musk: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1671370284102819841
My initial reaction to this was that "well, aren't you already allowing slurs on Twitter, Elon?" But then I realized that there's a distinction here - slurs may be allowed, but harassment is not. After all, he used the words "cis" and "cisgender" without any censorship, much like many would censor a typical slur such as "nigger" as "n*gger" or "n-word". You may be allowed to use "cis", but you're not allowed to directly call someone "cis" on the platform.
More to the point, I think it's very valid to describe "cis" and "cisgender" as a slur, insofar as a slur is something you call a group of people who don't want to be called that (similar to the "'TERF' is a slur" debate). Certainly, "cissy" is definitely a slur (which the person Elon Musk was replying to was called). So why don't people want to be called "cis"?
I think it's because labeling the vast majority of the population (something like 99%) and making them have to use a qualifier to describe themselves is a systematic effort to make them seem more different from the norm than they really are. For the vast majority of human existence, a woman would be described as "a woman", until suddenly (around the late 2010s or so), she would now have to be described as "a cis woman", to distinguish her from "a trans woman". The implied argument seems to be that "a woman" is now suddenly ambiguous and one does not know whether one is referring to a woman in the classical sense, or a trans woman.
I would agree with this, except that I still see many instances of "women" being used when it's really being used to refer to trans women. If a qualifier is needed now, why not just keep saying "trans women" all the way through? So the "cis" terminology seems to just be a ploy to redefine "woman" to by default mean "trans woman", thus making the "cis" qualifier necessary to refer to a woman in the classical sense. But this would seem to contradict one of the supposed goals of the trans movement, that trans people should be treated the same as non-trans people. Why not refer to trans women and "cis" women equally, without the qualifier?
And it's not like it's impossible to refer to non-trans people either. I've seen many terminologies used that are much more acceptable, such as "biological women", or "non-trans" as I've been using. There's also "assigned female at birth", but I feel like that's much more of a misnomer, as it implies that gender/sex is something you're "assigned" rather than a fundamental property that is immutable (at least with today's primitive technology).
Because normal people object to being called something other than normal? Trans people having so much support in the media skews how truly abnormal almost everyone thinks they are. Its a bizarre scene whenever a trans person enters any not-LGBTQ (on and on) place and starts trying to fit in. So they often don't even try, they just start being bizzare and demanding respect. Some FTM people can moderately pass as really weak looking soyboys. But they seem much less even a part of the project. Those are mostly very depressed people who's depression continues so brazenly through transition they are lucky to ever see people as they can often not exit their abode. Contrasted with the never passing loud MTFs that so often represent the movement, and well, the abnormality is so stark that calling something that is not that anything but normal is simply a bizarre turn of vocabulary.
I've never understood how people who are, essentially, less than 0.01% of the population have gained a comparatively much higher proportion when it comes to their representation in the popular conscience. Trans rights activists don't like the 0.01% argument, which is fine - but then they turn around and use it themselves by saying that a people that is 0.01% of the population is harmless. Which, besides being not how things work in any capacity, is having it both ways.
My uncharitable mental model of it is that liberals ran out of ways to paint conservatives as bigots.
Its important to the liberal worldview that they're the tolerant ones, and conservatives are the intolerant ones.
For a long time this was not a problem, because conservative had fairly negative views around gays, and to a lesser but still real extent non-martial sex.
Liberals won around those topics, the standard issue conservative now knows they're supposed to be respectful toward gays, and for the most part, they publicly at least, largely are.
They can be a little freer about complaining about non-martial sex, but they're very little they can actually do.
Liberals can't declare victory and go home though, its a forever culture war, so they need to find something that conservatives aren't yet tolerant of, so trans issues it is.
I have to admit- I just think everyone deserves support and I suspect the fight will keep going forever or until conservatives kill all the abnormal people or stop trying to bully people who want to surgically alter themselves into giant spiders out of existence.
It's not going to end because um... why should it end exactly? I have this feeling of an underlying premise that there is an amount of weird that is... too weird. And... I just... don't have that premise. If something has pragmatic issues that prevent it from being pragmatic for society to support it, my first thought is "what technological advancements will cause support of this to be viable" not "lets suppress it forever."
But some people seem to see "technical advancements have caused support for this to be viable" and go into moral panic mode. Why?
Why are some people unhappy seeing the boundaries of the human condition expand? Why does it make some people uncomfortable?
What is wrong with your brains? Or is it me? What's wrong with my brain? Something is clearly wrong with someone's brain here.
Part of it isn't even moral, it's frustration that the majority of Team Progress is nowhere near as forthright as you are, and are swearing up and down that the giant spider thing is never going to happen.
As to the rest, it's a bit hard to explain when our moral worldviews are so different, but in a nutshell your approach to life would render it pointless to us, and it's equally weird to me that you can't grok at all where we're coming from. When you see people hiking up a mountain, do you also think "those fucking morons could have taken the cable car!"?
No. I think enjoying the hike is neat. I also think enjoying the cable car is neat. I also think enjoying the experience of being a fly and laying eggs in a carcass would be neat.
If the concern is that your way of life will be eradicated, that's understandable, but if your concern is that your children might not choose the same way of life as you if given the choice...
Well... I guess... I sortof get that? It's just... It feels like the empire of Mankind in 40k. Treating everything that isn't human like a resource or an enemy or an infection. Being proud to be human isn't bad but- does that have to mean you have to prevent others from choosing to be a fly? Do some people just find... such an inherent lack of meaning in anything else to the point of wanting to treat it like atoms that could be used to make more humans? Like all humans are just bodies for holding their culture? Or like their children are just bodies for holding their culture? Are some people really just humanclippers? christianclippers?
I can understand the premise. I have a primal, echoing understanding of the premise. I just don't want to assume something so totalizing. I don't think most conservatives feel like that. It's just... a primal terror. The thought that most people might actually be such totalizing existences that they would leave the cosmos just as empty as it is today. Merely tiled with the same thing over and over.
What do you value?
Diversity and exploration. Curiosity bordering on aspirations of omniscience.
Ease of dancing through state-space. Mapping qualiaspace. Intimacy with the Other.
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