Culture Wars: The ever-increasing dangers of a progressive shift

[antaeus]

There are several different conversations here bubbling along, and conflating them is making the conversation confusing and unproductive, and creating a forced binary for the lot of them.

1. Are titillating stage shows appropriate for all audiences?

2. What is the scientific definition of gender?

3. Can/should we be able to modify the outward appearance of our gender to match the inward choice of what we feel it should be?

4. If we modify our gender's outward appearance, should we expect society to treat us with dignity and respect?

5. What defines that dignity and respect, and how might we expect society as a whole to apply/enforce it?

These are different questions and the answers shouldn't be conflated.

[mishkin]

None of them can actually complet it, every trans person is stuck in different phases of their transition but a complete transition is an unachievable goal.
Must be depressing for them to realise this eventually.

Gender surgery improves quality of life

[Muizer]

There are several different conversations here bubbling along, and conflating them is making the conversation confusing and unproductive, and creating a forced binary for the lot of them.

1. Are titillating stage shows appropriate for all audiences?

2. What is the scientific definition of gender?

3. Can/should we be able to modify the outward appearance of our gender to match the inward choice of what we feel it should be?

4. If we modify our gender's outward appearance, should we expect society to treat us with dignity and respect?

5. What defines that dignity and respect, and how might we expect society as a whole to apply/enforce it?

These are different questions and the answers shouldn't be conflated.

6. is this my personal opinion concerning an individual freedom, or is there case for imposing it on everyone else by means of majority rule?

[Lord Thesaurian]

1: According to the clear majority of the public, no.
2-5: irrelevant, since the individual choice to identify as xyz gender has never been predicated on science, definitions or public consensus, and drag queen larp even less so. The liberal establishment has designated a new group as the latest oppressed minority, and the majority can only comply with their demands, or face the economic, social and political consequences.
6: There would be no kids at drag shows and no controversy caused by banning kids from drag shows if this were a matter of majority opinion or consensus. The controversy is caused by an extreme minority which claims their right to market obscene performances to kids is being infringed upon by the bigoted majority.

[antaeus]

2-5: irrelevant, since the individual choice to identify as xyz gender has never been predicated on science, definitions or public consensus, and drag queen larp even less so. The liberal establishment has designated a new group as the latest oppressed minority, and the majority can only comply with their demands, or face the economic, social and political consequences.

Aren't you a libertarian? Shouldn't people be free to choose how they present themselves, to the fullest extent of the tools they have available to them? And as you are doing now, shouldn't they be able to make representations to wider society that they should be free to choose to represent however they please?

[Lord Thesaurian]

Aren't you a libertarian? Shouldn't people be free to choose how they present themselves, to the fullest extent of the tools they have available to them? And as you are doing now, shouldn't they be able to make representations to wider society that they should be free to choose to represent however they please?

No. I’m a libertarian warmonger. Please don’t misgender me. Anyway, weak bait. Adults expressing themselves as individuals is unrelated to kids attending obscene performances, unless the individuals in question are pedophiles. So I’m giving said individuals the benefit of the doubt and respecting their individual choices by dismissing questions 2-5 as irrelevant, rather than assuming doing drag shows for kids is a core aspect of these individuals’ identity which they need to express. As far as transgenderism in society is concerned, the reason questions 2-5 are irrelevant is because those demands have never been based on scientific or sociopolitical consensus. If those contexts were relevant, odds are you would never have heard of such a thing as transgenderism.

[Septentrionalis]

I am just disappointed to read that you value your feelings, or the feelings of groups you want to defend (which in itself is commendable) more than the fundamental right of people to express their thoughts and opinions. Many consider that the right to have an opinion and say it aloud is the liberty from which all other liberties ultimately derive from.

I don't think there exists any kind of authoritarian regime on this Earth in which you cannot express opinion that is in line with the opinions of those who have seized the right to mandate the correct opinion. The very idea of free speech means freedom to say things that others do not approve of. And no, I am not promoting libel of private people or anything of the like. But there cannot be a truly free society in which Galilei is silenced for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun, a position that was highly insulting to the church that had invested its credibility in teaching that the opposite is true.

I really wish you would consider that. You clearly want to be on the good side (a defender of minorities among other things), but I think you are not unless you revisit your views. With your present demands, you are on the side of the of the Inquisition that placed Galilei in a house arrest to keep him from spreading harmful ideas.

I think it is in your interest to side with the fundamental liberties crowd anyways. If you want to suppress those who say that gender is a biological thing, somewhere down the line there might be a different popular movement or a regime that maintains that gender dysphoria is a sign of insanity and that trans people should be placed in mental asylums and prevented from spreading their harmful ideas. Us free speech people would be there protesting, demanding that a person should not be punished for saying that they do not feel like being of the gender they were physically born into.

[Cyclops]

Just noting in my own family the two trans men are both much happier on hormones and with top surgery. They can't get phalloplasty in Australia, and whether they do or not is none of my business (it wouldn't be paid for by the public purse). The suicide attempts and self-harm episodes have stopped (at least for now) and they are both fine young men living constructive lives, paying taxes etc.

My strong feeling is one of them would be dead now if he hadn't transitioned. The other would likely be on welfare. The process was many months long, it's been a two year journey overall for the shorter transition once they came out to the family.

Just adding this because whenever I see idiot posts and "funny" memes about the subject there's a huge amount of lies, about pipelines and rapid transitions and kids getting hustled into mutilation, and that's a complete lie from and Australian PoV, and I suspect in the US too. Cute talking points like "it seems like...' and "here's an example, and IF its true then you should be furious" are to me the work of cruel and vicious propagandists out to cause harm, and repeated by sadists and useful idiots. Just the facts ma'am.

...somewhere down the line there might be a different popular movement or a regime that maintains that gender dysphoria is a sign of insanity and that trans people should be placed in mental asylums and prevented from spreading their harmful ideas...

Indeed we have emerged from a long period where anything deviating from a very narrow cookie cutter view of sexuality was literally demonized, and a period where they were placed in bedlams. A few trans people have peeped into the light because society isn't reacting to them like they are human cancer, except a few obnoxious yellers want to go back to demonizing them.

...Us free speech people would be there protesting, demanding that a person should not be punished for saying that they do not feel like being of the gender they were physically born into.

My impression is you are a genuine free speech person and you would be there. You're a true Scotsman though as the saying goes.

There are also somewhat less true Scotsmen, "free speech absolutists" like Musk buying social media platforms to allow the use of the N word (FREEEDUMB!) but also censoring anything irritating to them personally ("muh feelings").

The Westboro Baptist school of offensive attention seeking exploitation of free speech is also an issue here. There's always some foul mouthed scum looking to stir up hate, often for profit. That scum Alex Jones is an example, demonizing the parents of kids shot at Sandy Hook. Seems excessive to fine a journalist for exercising "free speech", but I am 100% behind the decision, Alex Jones can GAGF.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Just adding this because whenever I see idiot posts and "funny" memes about the subject there's a huge amount of lies, about pipelines and rapid transitions and kids getting hustled into mutilation, and that's a complete lie from and Australian PoV, and i suspect in the US too. Cute talking pojnts like "it seems like...' and "here's an example, and IF its true then you should be furious".

“It’s not happening and if it is that’s good because my buddy Eric is a headcase who can barely function” sure seems like a self-refuting argument even if the premise weren’t nonsensical and Eric were a totally real, not at all made up person.

[mishkin]

So you confirm that you would want dissenters to be silenced. Thank you for your honesty.

You would also call dissenters homophobes, racists, xenophobes... pedophiles, misogynists declaring that women are inferior beings and arguing that they are possessions of men. Where do you draw the line ? I'm going to answer you: in what you don't give a damn about.

[Coughdrop addict]

“It’s not happening and if it is that’s good because my buddy Eric is a headcase who can barely function” sure seems like a self-refuting argument even if the premise weren’t nonsensical and Eric were a totally real, not at all made up person.

"Bigotry towards minorities is okay when I personally despise them for existing."

Say it were up to you and no one could stop you, what would you do to every trans person?

[alhoon]

You would also call dissenters homophobes, racists, xenophobes... pedophiles, misogynists declaring that women are inferior beings and arguing that they are possessions of men. Where do you draw the line ? I'm going to answer you: in what you don't give a damn about.

That's the same for the other side too, buddy. Both sides want dissenters to be silenced. Conservatives with their book burnings, Progressives with the cancel culture.

Which reminds me of this:
__________________________________________________________________________

New York Times or Wikipedia

A professor lost her job in a university because she showed (didn't draw, showed) paintings of Mohammed. She had warned snowflakes about it and told them they didn't have to come if it offended their sensibilities. Regardless, progressives called her an Islamophobe and caused her to be fired because many progressives are intolerant people.
Nevermind that some Muslim Scholars don't agree that viewing paintings of Mohammed is iconolatry.

So, here you have it folks: Not bending backwards to accommodate a religious minority is bad for some progressives. I wonder if the people that got the professor fired would feel the same outrage if she had lectures about how Christians killed Witches for the laughs and giggles in the 17th century.

[Muizer]

Regardless, progressives called her an Islamophobe and caused her to be fired because many progressives are intolerant people.

Is the evidence for this cited in the NY times? It's behind a paywall / requires a subscription. The other source the wiki page cites and the wiki article itself only mention objections from the Uni's Muslim Student Association and some administrator that apparently agreed with them.

[mishkin]

That's the same for the other side too, buddy. Both sides want dissenters to be silenced. Conservatives with their book burnings, Progressives with the cancel culture.

Which reminds me of this:

you might want to update your opening post again to include this story and whatever it might mean in the debate

[Abdülmecid I]

Thread seems tired and in dire need of a nap. Perhaps a permanent one.