No. I think this is a pretty bad guess, overall.
I have an issue with this framing.
I think you mean this in the sense of some kind of philosophical ideology, like wokeism. If so, I don’t accept that premise and basically reject this entire entry. If you mean it only as literally synonymous with “people being transgender” then that’s fine. I’ll proceed assuming the latter even though my guess is you meant the former. But even in that case I think this guess isn’t very good, there’s some more specific language I find very questionable.
I think being transgender definitely has significant negative consequences to people and society.
For “people” examples, being transgender often comes along with a lot of fear, anxiety, and dysphoria. Medical transition is expensive and can have significant negative physical consequences. Inability to medically transition can cause even more severe mental consequences.
Also, bigotry is quite high right now so initiating the process of a transition can also expose one to tons of social risk and physical danger.
For “society” examples, fascist and nationalist forces in the world have recognized that they can amplify non-passing trans people and present them as an uncomfortable mascot towards otherwise indifferent regular people. They’ve had a lot of success demonizing trans people as a nefarious other. So in that sense, transgender people existing and being visible has negative consequences for society. I wouldn’t blame them for that though, since they are the primary victims. Also, historically, fascists and nationalists are pretty good at finding people to turn into a nefarious other, so if transgender people weren’t the target of the moment maybe there would be a different one. But maybe not, IDK.
I don’t agree with this at all. I don’t think it’s “obviously okay” — it’s a strange unfamiliar issue for many people. I think lots of normal people who have never encountered a trans person and know nothing about it could find the idea weird and off-putting. And because the right and alt media have done such a great job of demonizing them, such ignorant normal people could hold a variety of bigoted views in good faith without realizing how bigoted the views are.
I don’t really consider such people bigots or idiots. Are they holding some bigoted views? Yes. Do I consider them to be ignorant and uninformed, or like biased and uncurious? Sure. But IMO labeling someone a bigot or an idiot takes more than that.
If someone investigates the issue a lot, spends a lot of time thinking about it and consuming propaganda, fails to understand (or perhaps engage with?) any of the best opposing arguments, advocates loudly to strip people of their rights, etc… then that person might be more fairly labeled a bigot/idiot.
This is such a caricature that it’s kind of comical and/or offensive. I am not actually offended, but this seems to just be a standard boilerplate summary of the conservative conception of the “woke” perspective with no real thought given to our actual discussions, as far as I can tell.
I think your view on gender identity is that it’s valid, without limitation,
I don’t really know what this means. I mean, I can guess what you think it means – I identify as an attack helicopter, as space gender, as otherkin, etc. etc.
But I don’t think that stuff has any real relevance to this discussion. That’s like teenage 2010 tumblr stuff, for the most part. I am familiar with multiple trans communities, online and in person, and familiar with most of the trans-related attempts at legislation that have occurred in the US. None of them ever have anything to do with otherkin or whatever. That stuff is mostly silly.
On the other hand, if this just means “accepts various interpretations of nonbinary gender identities and nonbinary neopronouns as valid” then sure, I agree.
This is largely a reiteration of your confused claim on the previous point, so I’d refer you to my answer there.
This is more caricaturizing. This is the standard new (and quite effective) conservative framing, where “the woke left” has a uniform ironclad stranglehold on the culture and any form of dissent is brutally crushed. I don’t think that’s realistic or an accurate portrayal of culture, much less of my own views. People can and do question aspects of transgenderism constantly for years, and consistently find it difficult to understand, without being labeled bigots.
Though making “loud and/or public statements” does imply they are not at the “good faith questioning” stage and are at the “activism in opposition stage” most of the time, sure.
Nope. It’s the part where they go from disagreeing to actively trying to harm trans people and strip away their rights where I think they have bad reasons. If they don’t get to that stage, then I don’t think they necessarily have bad reasons.
And the idea that all people who approach a given topic in good faith would “universally end up agreeing” is kinda ridiculous, especially in a CF context. Why would I agree with that?
This one is a bit more difficult.
I don’t really think you understand “sex” very well, since e.g. you have mostly avoided answering any of my questions trying to get at the distinctions between sex, sex characteristics, gender identity, and how transition might or might not change things.
In general, the idea that sex is “trumped” by gender identity doesn’t make much sense to me. What would “trumped” even mean in this context? I don’t think I agree, but I might agree in some contexts. I think your framing around this kind of topic is a bit confused so it makes discussion difficult. I think you imagine roughly 2 categories per gender, something like:
“Real women” are cis women, who have the woman gender identity and are the female sex. Everyone can obviously tell these details.
“Artificial women” are trans women, who claim the woman gender identity and are the male sex. Whether or not one can obviously tell they are the male sex varies, but it’s usually obvious.
I’m open to being wrong about this, but you’ve said things along these lines numerous times. Assuming this is an accurate guess, I think the view expressed is not very accurate and leads to confusion/misunderstandings.
But I can try to answer some aspects anyway. For example, yes, sex assigned at birth is an important aspect of medical history that should be disclosed to doctors.
It also might be a good idea to care about sex characteristics (which often correlate heavily to assigned sex at birth, but not exclusively) in many situations, not just medical ones. For example, if you are sexually interested in female sex characteristics, you might want to exclusively have sex with people who have breasts and a vulva. If you want to have children, you might seek people who have a currently functional uterus and ovaries (with eggs) instead of adopting. Etc.
Gender identity and sex characteristics and sex assigned at birth can all be relevant factors in a variety of situations, but it is highly dependent on context.
I don’t endorse this statement. Once again, I think this statement is basically misconceived… I don’t agree, and I reject the premise.
The idea that we need to “get used” to it is already confused. Trans people have been using the bathrooms of their gender identity for at least like… almost 100 years? I believe the earliest sex reassignment surgeries were in the 1930s, but I may be off by a decade or two.
“We” as a society were already used to this. We haven’t been forcing bathroom users to submit to genital inspections or present birth certificates or anything like that. And we don’t have any notable increase in sexual assault instances due to that.
So like I said, the premise doesn’t really make sense. In general, the framing of “this is a big change that will result in sexual assaults but we’ll just have to get used to it” is mostly just a conservative fantasy, detached from reality.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s any logical issues there. Your framing here might imply some, but my perspective is that your framing is confused.
I disagree that there is no coherent principled argument in favor of it.
I think it’s fine that you disagree with me, but I do find it a bit questionable to assert this given our context. You currently have lots of pending arguments on this topic that you haven’t addressed. Yet you are confident in asserting not only that your ideas are right, but there are no coherent principled arguments in opposition to your ideas. So I guess your position is that all of the arguments I’ve made are incoherent and unprincipled and presumably can be dismissed without specific rebuttal?
That seems very biased and arrogant to me. Am I misunderstanding something?
Also, I dispute that the implied changes are as impactful and far reaching as you think. Again, I’ve already discussed that topic some above.
This is false. I would say that it is sufficiently false that it’s a bit disconcerting and surprising. Presumably as a consequence of you being inundated with anti-trans right wing propaganda?
Again… trans women have been using women’s’ restrooms for many decades without issue. In pop culture, trans women were in some ways more accepted 20 or 30 years ago and are more targeted and persecuted today. There was still plenty of anti-trans bigotry in the 90s and early 00s, but a lot more of it was more along the lines of finding trans people weird outliers, not understanding them too well, and making jokes about them. A lot less of it was about explicitly targeting them for persecution, being directly cruel to them, etc.
Here is an example from 20 years ago about trans people and a specific piece of trans media:
https://www.advocate.com/news/2006/06/01/does-transamerica-transcend-its-problems
Some of the language is outdated but the perspective is less hostile than many people today. Also there is some mention of how trans people tended to operate if you go further back than 20+ years ago, which is “stealth” – moving to a new location and living as their preferred gender identity once they’ve transitioned enough to pass. What bathrooms do you suppose such trans people would typically use?
In the 90s there was a trans character on a few episodes of Friends who was the butt of a lot of jokes but was also portrayed by a cis woman and generally “passed” to people who were not related to her (she was a main character’s father). In 1977 there was an episode of the Jeffersons that featured a trans person in a sympathetic light.
In the 90s there was also a movie called To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (it released in theaters, and starred Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes during high points in their careers, along with John Leguizamo). The movie was about drag queens but at least one person (John Leguizamo’s character) was clearly implied to be a trans girl, just without that language since it was not as widely known. In any case, all three of them live as women for most of the movie while stranded in a small rural town. At the end it turns out at least one of the sympathetic women in town was able to clock them as AMAB, but she still treated them as women out of kindness and respect.
In general, things were less progressive then. There were lots of jokes that might be viewed as transphobic today. And yet even in those cases the jokes were often more trans-inclusive in certain ways than the standard right wing positions today.
For example, a common transphobic punchline in those days, designed to elicit trans panic, would be a phrase like “She used to be a man.” Many trans people today might find that offensive. But fundamentally, it is more trans-inclusive than the standard anti-trans rhetoric of today. e.g. “No matter how he mutilates himself, he’ll never be a woman”. See the difference?
I disagree, I don’t think that’s the main argument against these ideas being radical.
I don’t disagree with this. However, it is a bit odd in light of one of your explanations for why you think my positions are radical…
These views are treated as principled despite there being no coherent principled argument in favor of it, and despite the implied changes having considerable impact and being far reaching.
This seems strictly like a bad thing, and it would make any view highly suspect. Now, I am not sure anything in this quote actually is a reason to call a view radical. But you said it was, so I’m a bit confused about your own views. Do you think the stuff on your list like the Enlightenment had no coherent principled argument in favor of it? Or is that a criteria for calling something radical that you only apply intermittently?
Abstractly, sure. I wouldn’t say that is my primary goal though. I enjoy discussing this sort of thing because I think the discussions are interesting and I find value in getting more chances to flesh out my ability to articulate them. IDK if you would consider that under the “entertainment/recreation” header or not.
Secondary goals could include changing your mind, though I think that’s usually not too likely and not something I typically worry about. I generally think my arguments are more likely to be persuasive to more neutral observers, which would be another secondary goal and reason for having these arguments in a public forum.
I don’t think this is a conscious goal, but of course it could be an unconscious one. Though it is worth noting that if I consistently felt this way then I probably would not have changed my own mind as much as I have on some of these issues. My views haven’t been particularly static, and I have been persuaded by arguments.
Would you like me to go through some of your recent posts and explicitly call out stuff that I agree with/would concede to you? Would that provide some specific value to you?