Okay, cool.
Heh, yeah.
I wonder… I think our last few posts have been very long. We’ve stayed mostly within one broad topic (trans issues) but have branched a lot within that topic. I think we have a bunch of secondary arguments happening right now that aren’t all that related to the original aside that started this, right?
Do you think those tangents have all been good/necessary in order for us to discuss the topic? Or have some of them been a result of additional asides that were added in the midst of the discussion?
If they’re a result of asides, do you think one of us has done more branching with asides (that then get replied to), or do you think we are both doing them about equally?
Sincere questions, I have vague guesses but I don’t really know.
I’m not sure, but it does take 2 of us to branch usually unless a direct question is asked.
An Idea I had for streamlining things is a shortlist at the end of like ‘most valuable questions/topics’. Then like a minimal goal for a reply can just be those things. and we can surface earlier stuff as needed. Also allows for some level of parallelization.
Another idea I had that we could both probably do is using harmony of interests and/or similar ideas to reason through different situations. the truscum / tucute debate, or reasoning through situations built on the arguments from the debate. Hunter Schafer had some good things to say about that I think. I’m curious to hear how you’d reason through some of the things she brings up. Maybe you’d have ideas for similar situations that you think I should reason through?
BTW, I’m not requesting that you do this atm, just raising the idea. In part I’m not sure how much time I can realistically dedicate so don’t want to like ask for something I couldn’t/wouldn’t end up doing myself. But if you think it’s a good idea we could try that for a bit.
IDK. There’s an obvious answer that ofc some have not been useful or necessary. One thing atm is that I don’t think I’m really missing any arguments, at least not decisive ones. If that’s the case, any kind of progress probably requires chewing on the ideas a bit, which discussion helps with.
I haven’t seen those terms in years. This would be about transmedicalism, yeah? The idea that being trans is purely a medical condition and requires dysphoria?
Are there any specific arguments you’d like me to look at? Or are you asking my opinion of the topic in general?
Also just curious, were you not intending to reply to any of my most recent argument post above or is that just still in progress and this post was shorter/easier to get out?
Yeah, though I was wrong about Hunter Schafer. I misattributed something (search hunter schafer truscum and you’ll find it if you are curious).
No not really, but I am curious about your take on it generally.
And actually, what do you think I think about those things?
Just easier/quicker. I’m happy to prioritize responding to anything specific if you point it out.
I assume you mean this?
I understand the frustration being expressed, but I think it is misguided.
Just to establish terms for anyone else reading:
Transmedicalism (also called “truscum” on Tumblr in the 2010s) is the idea that being trans requires dysphoria and eventual medical transition. The opposing idea (called “tucute” on Tumblr in the 2010s) is that trans people do not necessarily experience dysphoria and could be trans for other reasons. Nonbinary people are often automatically placed in the latter camp.
Ultimately I think most transmedicalists are motivated by a couple of things. I would loosely summarize them as trying to seek the approval of, and to deflect the aggression of, heteronormative cisgendered society. There is other stuff as well but a lot of it can be reduced down to that; e.g. another motivation is the internalization of heteronormative cisgendered expectations and roles. But that’s kinda related to seeking approval.
Regarding that post that Hunter Schafer liked: First of all, the factual claims made are completely absurd. No, red states in the US do not agree with “tucutes” that being trans does not require dysphoria. You can go looking for evidence that this is the motivation behind those anti-trans bills, but you won’t find any. The idea that you might is kind of ridiculous. Broadly, “tucutes” are considered the more left, more extreme wing, and transmedicalists are the trans people that try to appeal to the right.
In reality I would bet money that literally zero of the legislators in red states that passed anti-trans legislation would have ever even heard of terms like truscum/tucute/transmedicalism. They are not motivated by nonbinary people delegitimizing trans people. They are motivated by anti-trans bigotry.
I think this is one of the most obvious things imaginable. Do you sincerely disagree? Please explain your reasoning if so.
The only possible way to blame nonbinary people for these laws is through a specific sort of victim blaming. Conservatives hate trans people of all types, and a major (and effective) tentpole of conservative propaganda in the past 5-10 years has been demonizing trans people and fearmongering about them. In that sense, nonbinary people are a more effective tool. But really, any non-passing trans person is an effective tool for that propaganda. The goal is just to paint trans people as dangerous predatory freaks (Kamala is for they/them, drag story hour, etc.) A very binary passing trans man or woman is less effective as a propaganda tool in this way.
So some transmedicalists engage in victim blaming of nonbinary people for this reason. I understand why, but it’s misdirecting anger from the perpetrators of harm onto other victims of that harm. It’s not a very wise or good thing to do, IMO.
More broadly, transmedicalists hope that if they conform strictly to a gender binary and don’t rock the boat then maybe transphobic conservative society will spare them. When the Hunter Schafer thing happened in 2022, I can maybe understand this self-serving behavior (though I still think it was misguided).
But I have the benefit of futuresight from a 2022 perspective, so I can see that none of that mattered. Now that conservatives are in power they are trying to eradicate all forms of transgenderism wherever they can. Transmedicalists are not actually being spared. They were never going to be spared. Transgender fearmongering is way too powerful a tool for firing up conservatives.
I explained some of this in my last long post, when I discussed nonbinary people, they/them pronouns, etc.
I think transmedicalists are wrong. And they are strict prescriptive gatekeepers, which is a good general sign that they’re wrong. But also specifically I think there are reasons they are wrong.
Exploring ones gender is a complex issue for many people. Including many cis people (who are the primary recipients of gender affirming care, as we’ve discussed in the past). Many transgender people start off simply by questioning their gender, considering themselves nonbinary, etc. Then they eventually feel comfortable enough to transition further.
Many nonbinary people do seek medical gender affirming care, too. Nonbinary AFAB people sometimes have masectomies. Nonbinary people of both sexes sometimes take low doses of T or E to induce small changes to their sex characteristics. Many more nonbinary people might do those things if they could but are too afraid of alienating friends/family, too poor, etc.
Dysphoria comes in many forms as do one’s own gender expression and feelings thereof. Trying to police who is and isn’t trans with psychiatric dysphoria diagnoses and medical treatment is just a form of gatekeeping that serves no one. As I said before, the primary reason transmedicalists do it is to try to appease heteronormative society by saying “look, I’m just a woman, not a FREAK like that they/them, please leave me alone.”
I understand emotionally why they might say/do that, but I don’t agree.
You asked, so I will answer honestly. Sorry if it is offensive.
I assume you support transmedicalists conditionally, the same way many transphobic conservatives do. Transmedicalists are more aligned with the heteronormative gender binary that you seem to prefer. They are opposed to they/them pronouns as well.
But fundamentally you still refer to trans women as imitators/artificial/etc. so like most conservatives that nominally agree with transmedicalists, you would not actually make a very good ally for them.
Also, you seem to think e.g. Tumblr posts from the 2010s represent mainstream transgenderism today, so my guess is you do sincerely think that nonbinary “tucutes” somehow managed to influence HRT policies in red states. But also I have a clue here because you already spoke positively about the statement in question. Without that info I might have guessed you would not go quite that far, I dunno.
That’s fine. I appreciate it.
Another question I thought of the other day but haven’t asked, I think you described me as radicalized somewhere above, what exactly do you think I’m radical about? Like which views are radical and why? (Note: the ‘why’ doesn’t have to be long.) Sorry for giving you another high effort question without responding in more detail to the other posts yet (not that the question was high effort, but that the answer might be). I do plan on responding more but also maybe there’s a better line to take (for the discussion) so I’m trying to like prep some useful stuff.
FWIW I looked into the instagram-post-hunter-schafer-story and feel that I should retract all my prior statements about it. Not that they aren’t like indicative, just that the accuracy of what I said is off. So like feel free to go off vibes but I wanted to say that much at least.
I don’t know much about red states specifically. My opinions are based more on western countries generally. I think broadly tucutes have influenced policy quite a bit (and opinion, too). Two years ago I asked my sister and grandmother ‘what is a woman?’ question and got back the circular answer (neither live in big cities fwiw). That’s the tucute answer, so yeah it’s spread pretty far, despite the obvious logical holes. I think these ideas wouldn’t have spread like they did without the culture of public (almost ritualistic) shaming/cancelling/etc (which I disagree with).
Also, I’m not sure where red states came from (mention of republicans and laws?)
Do you think there should be any limits? eg on who can be trans about what, what the state should pay for (including providing services just for trans people and not cis), etc. Those are two examples but different cases are welcome.
Edit: Forgot I was on the wrong computer when I wrote this post. I am actually @anonymous105.
By “the circular answer” do you mean “adult human female”? I know that is a common circular answer that Matt Walsh prefers, and he is the one who popularized that question as a gotcha.
The reason why more thoughtful people than Matt Walsh give less succinct answers to that question is because definitions like that can be tricky, actually.
What is a woman? Does your definition include all women and exclude all non-women? Can people reliably identify women with your definition?
What is a table? Does your definition include all tables and exclude all non-tables? Can people reliably identify tables with your definition?
Matt Walsh did not ask the question sincerely and he smugly laughed at people who tried to answer it sincerely. The idea that you are testing women in your life with the same gotcha is kind of gross, to be honest.
Uhhh…
I don’t mean to be rude, but… you brought this up and encouraged me to go find it and give my thoughts about it. And I posted the text anyway just so everyone would be on the same page who had not read it recently.
So I have to admit I find this question kind of frustrating.
The premise of the post is that bigoted right wing lawmakers in US “red states” (which means rural conservative states) have decided enbies (nonbinary people) are right, and are passing laws labeling HRT as not medically necessary (because tucutes say you don’t need surgery to be trans? It doesn’t even really make sense as an argument, in addition to being completely absurd).
I responded directly to the content of that post.
I think you exist in a very powerful echo chamber that reinforces the idea that all logical people believe what you believe. I think you get fed a stream of right wing slop that makes you think all trans people are like 2010 era teenage tumblrites and all immigrants are like whatever immigrant most recently got caught on camera doing something bad.
I think you think you’re smart enough to not fall for that sort of thing, and that bigotry is a Dumb Person problem. I think you are mistaken.
I consider your views on immigration to be quite radical. From an American perspective, your view on immigration would have been seen as heartlessly radical by both mainstream parties only 20ish years ago, and were relegated to fringe nationalist/racist factions. As I said, Keynesians and Austrians would come together to criticize your views on immigration for being protectionist and xenophobic.
I consider your view of trans people to be an example of radicalization. Again, IMO the American view of trans people in the public discourse was actually kinder a couple decades ago, until trans people thought maybe their time for demanding better rights in a highly visible way had come, they turned out to be wrong, and the right wing discovered how valuable they were as a propaganda weapon.
I consider your view of women and dating to be radical, too. It is heavily informed by manosphere pseudointellectualism.
Unfortunately most of the American Right has been radicalized in a similar fashion to you on these issues. There aren’t many coherent policy arguments anymore between left and right, at least in America or on American-dominated social media. Right wingers are no longer capable of engaging in them. It’s really sad and disappointing. And anyone who strongly identifies with the modern right in 2026 and finds their non-arguments to be the persuasive rational ones is already giving big red flags for radicalism.
I live in the US where trans people are struggling to even be allowed to get gender affirming care at all. Even on their own dime. We do not have socialized healthcare here outside of specialized services for the poor and elderly.
But broadly no, if the state is going to pay for medical procedures I don’t see why they wouldn’t pay for trans healthcare too.
And the whole transmedicalist premise is that nonbinary and “tucute” people don’t even seek medical care, that’s what makes them so offensive to transmedicalists. So definitionally, if they seek it, they aren’t a tucute, so they should get it even under a transmedicalist perspective.
We don’t have to keep discussing if it bothers you.
If you do want to keep discussing, the next question for you is:
In my discussing this (feminism, transgenderism, immigration issues, etc), what do you think my goals are? Why am I doing it?
I’m interested particularly in your general/broad answer, though narrower answers are fine too.
No, I mean the one about identification that uses the word in the definition. That definition (“a woman is someone who identifies as a woman”) is clearly circular and “adult human female” is not. I assume you’re being facetious.
In general it would be nice if you could not personally attack me based on your own head-canon of what happened. You have no knowledge about the context, what took place, or why besides the few sentences that I told you.
I could use this as more evidence of leftists being judgmental assholes that think they know everything about everyone even though they can’t answer simple questions properly, but I hope you’re just having an emotional reaction and we can move on to more productive discussion.
Okay, so you didn’t quite answer the question I was intending. I also wanted you to say what you thought my views were. eg following the form: I think your view on X is Y and that view is radical because Z.
I’ve prepared my own answers to these questions (but vice versa) too.
That definition doesnt seem so clearly circular. What makes it clearly circular to you? What does circular mean to you? If it was clear and anon saw tht def then she would’ve understood already. Did she?
Edit: by “anon” i meant @anonymous119
Edit 2: I thought @anonymous119 was @anonymous105 so i said she. I dont know so ill say they
Yeah @anonymous119 is me, I accidentally posted from a different PC that has a different anon number.
I am not sure if I have actually specified my gender so far (I might have in an older comment), but it is also irrelevant. I’m fine with she/he/they whatever seems right to you.
I don’t think you have. Or not that I recall at least. There was a green anon who did (she).
You say you “could” use tht as more evidence but are you? Why not just say ‘this is evidence of such a thing?’ Seems like u disagree with urself. I think it would be good if you analyze what another user is saying more. Ure probably running into many misunderstandings not doing tht.
In the sense that I knew what you meant and chose a wrong interpretation because you weren’t clear in your post, yes. In the sense that I don’t believe what I said, no. I do think that definition is circular and I asked you some questions to help illustrate some issues with it.
Yeah, that’s why I said “the idea” of it was kind of gross. I don’t know the full context but you did give some context, right? I extrapolated an idea from that context. If my idea is totally off that’s fine, then I might not find reality gross. It’s also possible that you are assuming that my extrapolation is more extreme than it is. Maybe my guess about what you did is actually correct but you would strongly disagree with me about what counts as “testing” and you don’t find it gross even though I do.
There are multiple possibilities. We could disagree in a few different ways. I’m not really trying to attack you.
You could, sure. That would be an effective way to resolve any frustration or cognitive dissonance you might be experiencing, and then you wouldn’t feel bad about all of the arguments and questions I’ve put to you that are still unanswered. You could safely just chalk that all up to me being a judgmental asshole and forget about it
Brief aside: My experience with predecessor communities to CF (TCS, etc.) in the past was that being a judgmental asshole was encouraged. I would say that I am actually a lot less judgmental than I used to be the last time I was involved in this sphere of communities.
Anyway, I don’t think I feel particularly emotional. I am however being more blunt/honest, which it seemed you were fine with. As I think I’ve mentioned, “being honest” can also lead to being hurtful. Often intentionally but also sometimes unintentionally.
Do you genuinely think I can’t answer questions properly? At a guess, which of us currently has more unanswered questions pending from the other?
I think I answered you fine. Here is what you said:
I think I answered this question with three examples. I intentionally chose topics we have discussed either recently (immigration), or extensively (misogyny), or both (trans issues).
You did not phrase the question above like this:
I think your view on X is Y and that view is radical because Z
If you had, maybe I would have used that format. But I did reference views you have and I tried to give some indication of why I thought they were radical. I gave the shortest reasoning (which you said was fine) for the topic we discussed the longest ago. If you wanted more detail you could always ask.
Are you asking me to rephrase my previous answers in that format?
As in you’ve followed your XYZ format above for views of mine that you consider radical? Feel free to share if you want to.
Circularity refers to cycles in a graph of meanings or arguments. In a sense everything is kind of circular unless you try to base stuff off of axioms. However, it’s normal to recognize that there are multiple types of cycles. There are at least: big ones, where meaning is not obscured (so there is meaning in the relationships), and small ones, where meaning is obscured (so despite the relationships, we end up learning nothing). We don’t worry too much about the big ones, or the sole big one, depending on how you see humanity’s knowledge graph. We’d got nowhere if we did that. But we commonly recognize the small ones as problematic for making any serious argument. For example:
- God says the bible is correct.
- The bible says God is correct.
- Therefore, God and the bible are both correct.
This is pretty obviously nonsense, in part because I can replace god with me and the bible with my napkin. If anyone says that god is different because he’s X, Y, or Z, I can just point to my napkin which says that I’m X, Y, or Z. So without additional grounding, we have learned nothing.
Any rational person, Christians (or jews or muslims or whatever) included, should be able to agree that the argument is facetious and without any merit.
If you are looking for the meaning behind a word, it’s common to look it up in the dictionary. Some definitions might have other words that you don’t know, so you look those up next. A simple example might be:
- antidisastablishmentarianism → against disastablishmentarianism
- disastablishmentarianism → a movement advocating for separation of church and state [wiki]
This is not circular because there are no cycles (in the branch we examined, at least).
There is actually a common thing I think people go through at some stage if they rely on a dictionary a lot (so like middle-school maybe when people started reading more seriously) where people complain about the dictionary being too circular. It’s not uncommon to once in a while find a word, read the definition, see another word, read that definition, and see the first word again. That’s obviously a little frustrating.
An example:
- flargvein n. – processed hergwoot.
- hergwoot n. – the primary raw ingredient of flargvein.
With real-world dictionary entries they usually aren’t this egregious. But this should demonstrate that while we know something about flargvein and hergwoot (namely that they can be processed and made, respectively), we don’t actually know anything about what they are. Is hergwoot a grain? a mineral? a chemical eg for fertilizer? With a bit of a metaphorical lens it could even be like anti-static memes and propaganda. So while we have some kind of abstract relationships between F and H, this little graph is not grounded to anything in a meaningful way.
Now let us try with woman. First, let’s look at the Cambridge International Dictionary of English, 1995 (p 1674), and over the page too
So we have a graph starting:
- woman → adult
- woman → female
- woman → human
- woman → being
None of these on their own capture the idea of woman. They are all other general terms, and it is only their combination that gives us the definition of woman.
Maybe I’m wrong and ‘female’ is circular (p512):
Nope, that’s not circular, turns out female is about sex. Unless we count the misogynistic use which is now somewhat commonplace (unfortunately, I think). It’s obviously not clear cut – flowers for example are pretty different, but it’s somewhat obvious that when we learnt about flowers and pollination we realized this was basically sexual reproduction and used the names we already had for genders in animals. It’s also not entirely clear cut for animals – male seahorses are the ones that fall pregnant and give birth. The female seahorses are the ones that produce eggs (aka ovum aka large gametes).
a woman is someone who identifies as a woman
Now let’s compare that to the modern (circular) definition:
- woman → someone
- woman → identifies
- woman → woman
So we have learned almost nothing. All that we learned from the definition is that it has something to do with self-identification.
Given this, what is the difference between a woman and a man? (assuming man has the identifies-as circular definition, too)
- man → someone
- man → identifies
- man → man
Hmm, using these definitions we don’t even have a basis for claiming that men and women are different.
That’s the problem with circular definitions, and that’s why it’s nonsense. Just as much nonsense as the god argument, just as much nonsense as flargvein.
(You can, of course, take this to even more absurd extremes, but this is plenty to demonstrate the point.)
Yes I decided not to respond to that yet.
Actually you didn’t say what you thought i thought. So while some of your comments are interesting, they’re not really relevant.
I didn’t want to prime or distract you, or let you get away with not engaging in good faith (not that you’ve done that, but if I post mine and don’t get your answers I’d consider that bad faith unless you explicitly said you wouldn’t, which might also be an issue but would be preferable to bad faith).
The issue is, you only asked me that in your mind. You did not type “what do you think I think?”
Again, you asked:
We’ve discussed your views on immigration. So if I say “the views you recently expressed on immigration are radical because they are more regressive and nationalist than any mainstream American political movement would have endorsed 20 years ago” in response, that is an answer. I am referring to the views we talked about recently.
I was specific in that I named your views on some specific topics. It sounds like you want me to be more specific, and delineate more granular views within those topics that I think are radical. I can do that, but I reject the framing that my previous answers were not answering the question that you asked.
You’re right. I did not expressly ask that.
Can you please do that? Tell me what you think I think?
I didn’t say that or frame it like that. I said:
Which is specifically not claiming that you didn’t answer the question, but was specifically pointing out that my intention and the outcome didn’t line up. Could I have been more clear? Yes absolutely. Am I enjoying this rabbit hole of make-the-other-person-say-it and other social games? Not really.
By the way, I understand that my original question could be viewed as technically problematic, and I’m intentionally being somewhat spiteful in the above paragraph for the purpose of rhetoric, but I don’t like it. It’s not an honest evaluation of what was actually said and where the communication broke down. I think you know that too.
Now, we could go on, and I’ll keep matching your energy and point out that correctly answering the question why? needs to specifically connect the idea of radical to my views and you didn’t do that. And you can retort back with whatever the next logical thing is, but, we could also acknowledge that we’re both human, imperfect, and sometimes don’t write exactly the right words, and try to get back to a discussion where some progress might actually be made.
I vote the latter.