The Republican War on Transgender People, Drag Queens, and Queerness in General

[sus]

I feel like both the right and the left get in these life or death panic modes that causes them to mutually over react to each other. I know this isn't your stance, fair enough; it's mine

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Is this true!? The right always says that parents standing in kids way can get reported to CPS

basically everything they say on this is untrue

that's part of what's so intense about it

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

and in re life or death panic modes consider this

last week at CPAC - the biggest annual conservative conference - a wannabe Carlson named Michael Knowles said this

“There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It is all or nothing. If transgenderism is true, if men can become women, then it’s true for everybody of all ages,” he said. “If it is false, then for the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology.”

I mean, no hyperbole, he literally sounds like a fucking Nazi

and the entire conference was more or less one long howling attack on trans people from usual suspects like Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Trump

in addition to the, as noted, innumerable laws or proposed laws limiting gender-affirming care, outlawing drag performances, etc

and the endless onslaught of invective

so it's hard not to feel life or death right now

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I mean it's getting so grim over here that I half-expect some WH40K guy to pop up and be all "sorry yall, too grim for me, I'm going back to the grim darkness of the far future where there's only war"

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

like the fact that these people are touting drag queens - drag queens! - as a threat to America's children

it beggars belief

the actual greatest threat? that's right, gun violence, the leading cause of death for American children.

of course hell would freeze over before the people banning drag performances would do anything about that

 

[sus]

Yes these people are gross I agree

Do you believe in the abstract that there is a thing called social contagion, memes that are harmful to encounter? This is sorta vaguely related to Raskolnikov and Nietzsche, or Denethor and despair, or infohazard/antimemetic containment fanfic. Separate from whether or not trans stuff has any hint of this dynamic. Let's just provisionally agree it doesn't have any of those valences or that the extent to which those valences exist arent significant

I've been thinking about this a lot totally separate from any of this

 

[sus]

My friend thinks this doesn't exist. That there isn't any idea floating around which, if encountered, could ruin your life. But I'm not convinced yet

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Do you believe in the abstract that there is a thing called social contagion, memes that are harmful to encounter? This is sorta vaguely related to Raskolnikov and Nietzsche, or Denethor and despair, or infohazard/antimemetic containment fanfic.

not really, no

or rather, I think "social contagion" is just a way labeling of ideas you don't like

every idea you come across in life is an idea that might influence you, and potentially "ruin your life"

the idea of crypto, to take one example, has probably ruined quite a few lives. I wouldn't call it social contagion, just a stupid idea and/or grift.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I also think it's impossible to separate in most cases external influence from internal motivation

I know you said we're leaving trans issues out here to consider social contagion, but consider:

undoubtedly acceptance of trans people has lead to more people transitioning in some capacity, and will continue to do so

but since it was extremely difficult to transition - and often not recognized as transitioning - until quite recently, it's also very difficult to say whether there are actually more trans and gender nonconforming now than there were say, 50 years ago

certainly there are more people living openly, but how many people would have transitioned etc if it was more feasible

this gets back to what I mentioned above - as friction, both physical and (hopefully) social, decreases and perhaps also as it becomes possible to live in different kinds of altered or artificial bodies, how many people will choose to do that?

I don't claim to have the philosophy background that you or some other people here do, but I think this is some of what Donna Haraway was getting at in A Cyborg Manifesto - that these categories and boundaries are likely to eventually become on some level obsolete. probably the minute someone can figure out a way to make money making them obsolete.

That shouldn't mean that people who want to remain within those categories can't do so, tbc, which seems like the ultimate fear of TERFs

 

[sus]

It does seem like Trumpism was a bit of a contagion but

 

[sus]

All these people gone totally insane about hypothetical politics they watch on FOX that have zero relation to their lives

 

[sus]

Look if you live in a town where the social institutions are overrun with immigrants and there are no minimum wage jobs left, I get being mad, even if I support moving toward open borders. But it's wild how much of these politics are just fantasy worlds lived out through media

 

[sus]

But I think it's fair enough to be skeptical that infohazard exist. Hmm. I guess you could say the anger predates FOX rage which is just a focusing point

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

It does seem like Trumpism was a bit of a contagion but

it's like anything. you could call it a contagion.

or you could say that's it in large part a byproduct of identifiable historical forces - globalization, American political elites of both parties abandoning working-class people and issues, the culture war as backlash to greater social equality and corresponding loss of white/male privilege, etc

undoubtedly perpetuated by the howling maw of right-wing media and the toxic echo chambers of the internet

but human history is chock full of hysteria driven by bad and often unscrupulous purveyors of information

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I don't believe in social contagion in the literal mimetic, Burroughs language virus sense, even if it can be fun in speculative fiction

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I guess you could say the anger predates FOX rage which is just a focusing point

I've been on about this for years

some of it I noticed at the time, some only retrospectively

the wild rage of people showing up to Obama era town hall meetings to discuss healthcare reform and yelling about "losing my America etc" was a big touchstone. the toxic elements of late 90s/early 00s gaming culture filtered and refined thru 4chan and spilled out into the irony of the alt right. the post-Waco paranoia about black helicopters and the New World Order that spawned Alex Jones combined with the lineage of racist domestic terrorism from McVeigh on thru to Dylann Roof and Payton Gendron.

undoubtedly FOX and its even nastier descendants like OAN and Newsmax, as well as Breitbart etc, concentrated and fanned that rage to a roaring blaze, but they didn't create something out of nothing

 

[DannyL]

All these people gone totally insane about hypothetical politics they watch on FOX that have zero relation to their lives

That's well put. The bathroom issue strikes me as one such issue. I'm aware it has a history - I think dating back to women's only alternative music festivals in the 90s? - but people currently citing it like Benny above are responding to an entirely imaginary discourse.

Its interesting to try and distinguish "organic" ground up protests and campaigns from those driven entirely by media hysteria. I guess you could argue that some of the original 2nd wave feminist concerns about the boundaries of what a women is are the former not the latter, maybe. Not sure about that.

 

[boxedjoy]

If someone is determined to commit a sexual assault a sign on the bathroom door isn't going to stop them.

If I was to play Serena in a game of tennis I very much doubt I would win even though I'm a man.

We ask teenagers to make major decisions that will affect their lives forever - what they want to study, the career path they want to follow - at a point in their lives when they have minimal experience of living it, I think a teenager has a far better grasp of their own identity than the world of work/money/career, and I think if they do make decisions they regret then so be it. You could not have convinced me of anything I didn't believe in when I was 15 anyway.

 

[subvert47]

If someone is determined to commit a sexual assault a sign on the bathroom door isn't going to stop them.

If I was to play Serena in a game of tennis I very much doubt I would win even though I'm a man.

We ask teenagers to make major decisions that will affect their lives forever - what they want to study, the career path they want to follow - at a point in their lives when they have minimal experience of living it, I think a teenager has a far better grasp of their own identity than the world of work/money/career, and I think if they do make decisions they regret then so be it. You could not have convinced me of anything I didn't believe in when I was 15 anyway.

1. True. The whole thing is just bathroom panic and people promoting/exploiting that to their own ends.

2. True again. Equally, when someone asked Serena about playing a match with Andy Murray, she just laughed at them, saying she'd obviously be thrashed. I'd certainly have expected her to wipe the floor with Renee Richards though.

3. In the UK we have this thing called "Gillick competence", which allows under-16s to make medical decisions for themselves without the need for parental permission or even knowledge. This is mostly useful for young women regarding reproduction: abortion, contraception, and suchlike. Technically it also allows young trans people to make decisions about hormone blockers, prescribed hormones or whatever. But the waiting lists are so long even for first consultation that it's pretty much academic there.

3b. "You could not have convinced me of anything I didn't believe in when I was 15 anyway." Benny is still at that age. But respect to padraig for trying.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Yep, Ive worked with people who have done medical research on congenital health issues, inbreeding, consanguinity etc. the list of genetic disorders created or exacerbated by incest is insane and the topic has been exhaustively researched. Incest isn't illegal and taboo because of deviance, its illegal because of the devastating effects it has on the gene pool and the appalling individual effects on children born of incestuous relationships. Its an idiotic and offensive argument.

'Devestating effects...on the gene pool' sounds eugenicky...use birth control/abortion?? (also eugenicky)