site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

This is possibly true, and while you may find it offensive, the belief that trans social contagion is a real phenomenon and that many troubled girls today are embracing trans identity as a way of escaping what they perceive to be an unpleasant existence as a female, and that other kids adopt it because it's "cool" and trendy and rebellious, is one I share.

I mean, when I was eleven and going through unexpected puberty (it took my mother by surprise because she thought it would happen later, as it did for her, so she had never had any kind of The Talk with me to explain it and prepare me for it), I was very distressed by the weird changes my body was going through. I hadn't consented to any of this! I didn't like it! Why couldn't my body stay the same as it had been?

And yeah, I was thinking "boys have it easier" because suddenly there seemed to be a lot of restrictions on what I could now do and couldn't do that hadn't been there before, and a lot of the explanations I got were along the lines of "because you're becoming a young woman now".

I also had interests that differed from the run of the other girls in school, and looking back with hindsight, the family tendency to autism spectrum behaviour may have influenced me there as regards social development, inclination to science, etc. and 'male-brained' interests.

If trans ideology had been in full flow in schools back then, I do honestly think there's a good chance some over-enthusiastic supporter, in all good faith, would have steered me along the "consider that maybe you're a trans boy" path.

EDIT: I was never a 'girly-girl' and part of what annoys me about trans narratives, even as I can see that they're grappling with how to express their feelings in childhood and this is an easy way to signal their departure from expected gender norms, is that they're are all about "well I never liked typical boy things, I was always more interested in playing with the toy kitchen and pink and fluffy bunnies" stuff. That annoys me since "if that is what makes you a girl, then I was never a girl, because I had and have no interest in pink fluffiness". But I'm pretty darn sure I am a girl. The worst part of the whole trans debate has been the slamming down of rigid gender roles once more, this time as arbiters of "how do I know if my kid is a boy or a girl?", when I thought we'd finally gotten over the "pink for girls, blue for boys, the woman is the nurse, the man is the doctor" shit.