I don't do Reddit. It's mostly captured by genderist moderators and admins, and life is too short to be navigating an enormous patchwork of fiefdoms. The very bedrock of it, the upvoting/downvoting, doesn't appeal. If a link points there, fine. Somehow I ended up
here, because of course I would:
The way in which we deal with some of the concerns in the trans debate says a lot about our ability as a society (and that of media institutions) to be honest, draw appropriate boundaries, and stand against an angry, fraudulent, self-righteous movement.
A troubling aspect of it, outside of "They're genociding kids!!!!" Twitter hysteria, is that this stuff is an offshoot of post-modernist academic gender theory. If you accept the concept of genderswapping, then it's a tacit acceptance of gender theory, which I find incompatible with living a reality filled with observable, material concerns. It sets a bad precedent, because:
- It obfuscates the commonly understood meanings of words. Forget "what is a woman?", what is sex? Now we have biological sex, chromosomal sex, natal sex, hormonal sex (X years on HRT, as defined by some sports organizations), assigned sex, reassigned sex (for those who have changed their secondary sexual characteristics), legal sex, and identified sex.
- It divorces sex from gender. It emphasizes gender as more important.
- It erases same-sex attraction and turns gays into homogenderuals, as if gays were being tossed off buildings because they liked another person who inhabited the same social role as their own.
- It creates the concept of "genital preference". Then you have a situation where a straight man who likes vagina is not allowed to reject a date whom he discovers has a neovagina, or else he's 'phobic. It promotes the idea that required "disclosing" is problematic and unnecessary for consent.
- It is intolerant of non-conforming behaviors and interests. When gender exists on a Barbie to GI Joe spectrum, Billy Elliot isn't allowed to like ballet and still be a boy. Sandy Cheeks isn't allowed to be a rootin', tootin' astronaut and cowgirl.
- It denies material reality, and demands people deny the evidence of their own eyes for the sake of the woo, and suppress their own boundaries. When an expectant mother in a maternity ward sees a large, broad-shouldered figure wandering around the hallways, obviously not dressed like a staff member, she is supposed to feel bad because her natural instincts told her to be wary and made her "assume someone's gender" and intentions. No physical traits or biological processes are in any way correlated to the authentic soul self, and in this brave new world, a "mother" can be anyone who identifies as one.
- It allows NB and xenogenders to flourish. In our reality, society and institutions are structured around the accommodation of physical needs when it comes to providing healthcare, collecting demographic data, earmarking funds and creating policies to address crime and safety, life expectancy, working hours, employment, parental leave, child benefits, education, and housing. When official census data is bloated with self-reported gender feelings, it becomes nigh impossible to develop policy meant to alleviate disparities between material conditions. But I guess you can say the men's mental health crisis is solved if all the men have converted to frogselves!
Personally I think some
"They're genociding kids!!!!" hysteria is called for. Nevertheless I very quickly got hooked on
Franzera, and there went the evening…
It’s such an intellectual sinkhole. I can’t believe this but I’ve been following it closely for over 2 years even though it doesn’t affect me personally at all.
I’ve just never seen a mass psychosis like this so it’s really hard not to be fascinated but I have made myself cut down now and then.
It's pretty much the proxy for a large set of ideological battles and if you engage on any one of them you end up mired in trans stuff.