Social Justice Transgender and gender identity discussion
- Thread starter Draven26
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2011
- Messages
- 25,641
Well for one, I'm sure slurs and truly awful stuff has been edited out by the modteam, but in general there is plenty of blowback against 'all this lgbt shit'. You can word something politely while still ultimately drawing unflattering conclusions with your points. Similarly to how people who see themselves as 'color blind' feel they are enlightened, while missing the point about racism entirely. Critical opinions are not inherently problematic, but a lot of times people engage with these topics in bad faith.
There is a push for trans rights, but there is just as much negativity directed towards trans people. This should be self evident.
Don't be obtuse. You know how immature people are. They make light of this shit constantly and always spin negative yarns about trans people.
Just because famous people get in "trouble" for saying ignorant things, doesn't mean there isn't still wide acceptance of the ignorance pointed at trans people. Especially in certain workplaces and internet communities. Again, this is self evident and I don't know what to say if you don't see it.
I'm not arguing that there hasn't been real progress, just that it comes with plenty of pushback.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
While it is true that there is a reasonably strong LGBTQI-phobic contingent amongst our members, in my view this thread has set a high water mark for the sophisticated and sensitive discussion of a very hot-button topic.
In the main, those who don’t buy the transwomen are women argument or even the pronoun protocols have made their points in a way that has acknowledged the humanity of transpeople and been respectful towards them. Same goes for people who have an argument that pathologises some trans people in a medical sense.
I haven’t seen a huge number of reported posts (there have been some) so I don’t feel that the modteam has had to do a great deal to keep things sensible, rational and polite.
In my view, when people like @SKL elevate the debate a lot of the cretins and trolls stay away for fear of looking like the cranks and fools that they are. Credit where credit is due.
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2011
- Messages
- 25,641
For the record, I am speaking generally and not necessarily about this thread.
I do think that a majority of the posts I've seen have had plenty of nuance and been well studied. I don't think @SKL and I ultimately agree on much, but I admire his thoughtful posts, even if I disagree with some of his conclusions.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
It would be very boring if we all agreed on everything. And it would be sad if were not sometimes able to change each other’s minds with well-reasoned arguments.
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2011
- Messages
- 25,641
It's important to be willing to be flexible with your views and open to learning things, while staying faithful to your beliefs. If that isn't the case then you are simply practicing dogma instead of rational intelligence. We will have no success if we can't rely on each other to teach us new things.
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2011
- Messages
- 25,641
I meant to post this in my original reply but forgot. According to this study, the data used to study this type of stuff has some major flaws in accounting for trans people. Something else I pulled outlining some of these flaws:
"These totals
represent only the known victims;
there may very well be countless
other victims of fatal anti-transgender
violence whose deaths we will never
know about because police, the press
or family members have consistently
misidentified them based on their
assigned sex and name at birth. Even
in many of the known cases, local
media reports misgendered the victims
and used their birth names. The local
media also further stigmatized some
of these women by highlighting arrest
records and using mugshots instead of
personal photos.
While awareness about violence
against the transgender community
is improving, there are still major
barriers to data collection and
reporting. Following the passage of
the Matthew Shepard and James
Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention
Act in 2009, the FBI began tracking
bias-motivated crimes based on the
victim’s actual or perceived gender
identity. While this data is incredibly
valuable, it does not paint a complete
picture of hate crimes against LGBT
Americans because the vast majority
of jurisdictions either fail to report
their data or inaccurately report that
they have had no hate crimes in their
jurisdiction."
I mean that one study I linked above seemed to indicate that transgender and cisgender people had an equal chance of being murdered, if you don't factor in the problems I listed above with the data. Also acknowledging that the murder rate for young transgender women of color is absolutely higher.
The number of murders absolutely increased and no one is "manufacturing" grievance.
cduggles
Bluelight Crew
It’s been a great discussion to follow, but it has been a lot of information to process and mod!
I think there’s a lot of food for thought here, and I think @SKL is correct that the research and selection for funding is highly politicized, and it shouldn’t be. Following the data is obviously my preference. It’s difficult to do in the current climate. I’ve been part of the funding process in a major city, so I have personal experience in this arena.
However, I do have concerns about the iceberg effect, where on the clinical side and online you are looking at quite select populations.
Clinical research is usually based on studying pathology rather than looking at a population as a whole. And those who engage in online communication are self selected. (I’ve expressed my reservations in this regard, but I appreciate the level of debate in the thread.)
I do wish we had openly transsexual individuals who would like to discuss either their experience and/or ideas here. But alas it seems we do not. Yet!
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
Atelier3 said:
Not sure I agree with you on that one.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
I would think of a person who repeatedly and deliberately misgenders people in much the same way I think of a man who constantly refers to women as ‘bitches’ or ‘cunts’.
Both such people would just have no place in my sphere of social influence because I’d find being in their company equally distasteful. I think most decent educated Australians would respond similarly. That is, not make a fuss but steer clear of the rudeness or coarseness.
Maybe not the yobs and the yahoos, but certainly anyone brought up decently. It’s just part and parcel of being polite and getting along in the world. It doesn’t mean people need to buy into the whole ideology - as I’ve posted above I certainly don’t.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
Atelier3 said:
The truth is: it's easier for some people (to be progressive) than it is for others.
If grow up in a shitty area of Johannesburg, you might find it harder than being someone who grows up in Melbourne. Similarly, I think, it's easier for younger generations... It's easier for young people to not be homophobic, racist and sexist.
People who are like 100 years old grew up in a different world.
It's harder for a hardcore Christian to accept transgenderism than it is for people brought up in an atheist family with trans relatives. Most of us exist somewhere between those two points. Everything is a spectrum.
I don't believe in free will, so I disagree (on principal) with blaming people for their actions.
I understand that you're selective about who you want to spend your time with. Everybody's selective.
But, misgendering people is not the same as being proactively abusive.
Don't socialize with people who refuse to misgender people. That's fine.
But, why call them something they are not?
The problem with speech being dictated like this is: it only works in one direction.
The first group tells the second group what to say. The second group has no power in this situation, because they have an unpopular opinion. It's not an uncommon opinion. Just unpopular.
Society is alive. It adapts and it evolves. There are some crazy BL members here who don't believe in order, but most us know that it is a necessary thing. Domestic cats don't like being domesticated, but they don't want to be wild either.
We should have learned from history.
It is dangerous to fuck with the fabric of society.
If you can't see what's wrong with allowing language to be dictated, you aren't looking.
This is an offensive idea, apparently, but (in my opinion) it depends on how well people "pass" as the other gender. If a male friend of mine says they're trans and they don't change their appearance at all, I'm going to have a harder time calling them a woman.
I don't care if people misgender me. I couldn't give a rat's ass.
I spent a lot of time in various states of oblivion and I've spent a fair amount of time breaking down the idea of gender because I deconstructed everything repeatedly until I couldn't put the pieces back together.
When I deconstruct my gender, I'm left mostly without a gender.
Clothes and make-up and the length of hair and whether or not you shave your legs. None of that has to do with the way I perceive gender. People throughout history have expressed gender in different ways across countless cultures and civilizations. This is not gender. It is all superficial and interchangeable. There are deeper more profound differences between men and women that are not superficial or interchangeable.
If you take a lot of acid, you can deconstruct something incorrectly and end up having a distorted perception of it. People get traumatized by bad trips. The transgender movement is society having a bad trip and falsely deconstructing gender.
I understand why people are rejecting their given/dictated gender, but the solution is not to oppose it.
We should discard the idea of gender and just be.
It doesn't matter if a woman is a "woman" or a man is a "man" in the same way that it doesn't matter if a black man is black or a white man is white.
People need to stop focusing on the superficial.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
@birdup.snaildown
I agree that it is difficult for some people to be progressive. You’ll note my problem is with people who wilfully misgender people (or refer to women in sexist ways) after having been exposed to changing social norms and having had the opportunity to understand why it is offensive.
My 80 year old hard-core Catholic parents both make an effort to refer to people with their preferred pronouns - because it’s polite. But at the same time they campaigned and voted against gay marriage. They both still think anything with a penis is a male.
They would not think they have been forced or compelled to act as they do by any language police. They just believe it’s important to do what you can to put other people at ease, especially if it is at no significant cost to oneself.
I agree that it is difficult for some people to be progressive. You’ll note my problem is with people who wilfully misgender people (or refer to women in sexist ways) after having been exposed to changing social norms and having had the opportunity to understand why it is offensive.
My 80 year old hard-core Catholic parents both make an effort to refer to people with their preferred pronouns - because it’s polite. But at the same time they campaigned and voted against gay marriage. They both still think anything with a penis is a male.
They would not think they have been forced or compelled to act as they do by any language police. They just believe it’s important to do what you can to put other people at ease, especially if it is at no significant cost to oneself.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
To further clarify:
I wager that a very substantial percentage of the planet's population falls into the category you described.
People on the left often make quite extreme comments about the majority of the human population.
I found the same thing when Trump was elected. So many so-called progressive and equality-driven Americans were happy to describe half of the country as every bad word under the sun.
I don't see this with Biden, much.
Conservatives generally (don't bother posting exceptions) are more respectful. That is my experience.
There's hardly anyone on BL who constantly shit on Biden or the people that voted for him.
Crucifixion for not accepting the dictates of transgenderism is another example of how ruthless and powerful the left-wing has become. It is a relatively small group of extremists. If it keeps going in this direction, a time will come when people have had enough.
I wager that a very substantial percentage of the planet's population falls into the category you described.
Atelier3 said:
People on the left often make quite extreme comments about the majority of the human population.
I found the same thing when Trump was elected. So many so-called progressive and equality-driven Americans were happy to describe half of the country as every bad word under the sun.
I don't see this with Biden, much.
Conservatives generally (don't bother posting exceptions) are more respectful. That is my experience.
There's hardly anyone on BL who constantly shit on Biden or the people that voted for him.
Crucifixion for not accepting the dictates of transgenderism is another example of how ruthless and powerful the left-wing has become. It is a relatively small group of extremists. If it keeps going in this direction, a time will come when people have had enough.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
Atelier3 said:
So do I.
Atelier3 said:
The cost varies from person to person.
For you, it is not significant.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
Atelier3 said:
What if I was to say I don't want people to insist that I misgender them?
I'm happy enough to do it, because (like you) the cost isn't substantial.
It's harder for my (deceased) grandfather.
And what about religious people?
What about Islam?
Would you not socialize with an Islamic person because of politics?
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
To the extent that I have friends, I’d say 80 % of them are Muslims (from Asia, not the Middle East). Almost all of them would go with politeness. Many have up close experience of transgender people in their home countries.
But once any of these friends got attracted to Salafist or Wahabist bigotry I’d shun them 100 %. However, my measure would be how they speak and behave rather than what they think or I presume they think - because who can ever really know what’s in a person’s heart.
I do agree with you though that traditional conservatives tend to be more polite than other political actors.
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2011
- Messages
- 25,641
Ah, so there is something we can agree on.
I think Atelier is correct about willfully misgendering someone. It's kinda like calling someone by a different name. No, it's not a heinous crime to call them something else, but if someone says they prefer to go by such and such, it's really just polite to call them by the name they'd like to go by. I don't think that's unreasonable, it isn't fucking with the fabric of society to address people how they'd like to be addressed.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
It doesn't surprise me that Muslims (or Christians) pretend to be accepting in this climate, but polling shows pretty clearly that religious types remain extremely conservative. Most Christians who are homophobic aren't going to openly be homophobic in their workplace because they know they can't get away with it.
I have also hung out with Muslims. The first time I drank alcohol with an Islamic guy, I was like WTF. My perception is not limited to stereotypes. But, Islamic people are more conservative than Christians. That's why I chose them as an example.
Islam is a radically right-wing ideology that is defended by the left.
I have also hung out with Muslims. The first time I drank alcohol with an Islamic guy, I was like WTF. My perception is not limited to stereotypes. But, Islamic people are more conservative than Christians. That's why I chose them as an example.
Islam is a radically right-wing ideology that is defended by the left.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
deficiT said:
It is polite, but I've always despised etiquette. I choose to try not to be impolite (to anyone) in the same way I chose to call people by their preferred pronouns.
It isn't unreasonable. The reason it fucks with the fabric of society is: free speech needs to be fundamental, unless you are advocating violence. Citizens in America naively want to keep hold of their guns so they can somehow "beat" the most powerful military force on the planet... Speech is a much better weapon and they are taking it away from us.
Like I said, we need to learn from history.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
I agree with this. However it is important to remember that always and in all cases* people have private schema through which they interpret and engage with the world and a public persona they present to that world. Those things are very rarely in perfect alignment and everybody* moderates their social selves to conform to social norms that are themselves always and everywhere in flux. That’s not an example of repression or of anything particularly insidious. It’s just the fact that individual norms and social norms can often be in conflict through time as they influence each other.
I suspect that you want an existence where your private self and your public presentation can be in perfect alignment. Perhaps you understand this as being ‘true to yourself’ - and i get the attractiveness of that. But you would be a very ‘privileged’ person if you could lead such a life. Few people can.
*except maybe some Aspergers/neuro-diverse type people.