Ok, but most of the trans folks [and most of the genuine allies] who want JK Rowling or Joe Rogan to be “canceled” aren’t doing so for the sake of getting them cancelled. I don’t think that is their ultimate end goal. Their belief is that the opinions being expressed by Rowling and Rogan make it harder for the bigger political goals to be achieved.
I get the point that it is easier to get the elites to cave on things like language than it is to get them to cough up real money and power, but I also believe that language shapes the way we think about issues and what we see as politically possible. If two men getting married is a killer punchline in a mainstream sitcom, marriage equality is probably not happening in that society. Similarly, if you are living in a world where misgendering a trans individual is good for laughs or a “sick burn”, I’m guessing that that world is probably going to measure pretty poorly on more concrete measures of equality.
Having a weakness for consistency of thought is a weakness.
The same questions are being asked of NFL players who shat their jockey straps over Drew Brees, but who are silent wrt DeSean Jackson
OK but take Rogan. Most people would, I think, find his views on transgender women in women’s sports pretty reasonable. They are pretty reasonable. But the transgender advocates seem to respond not by actually responding to his arguments with arguments of their own but smearing him with a broad brush: Joe Rogan is a bigot, Joe Rogan is a transphobic piece of shit, Joe Rogan’s bigotry is killing trans people. Not here’s why Joe Rogan is wrong about transgender women in sports.
Not just this. I, as an ally, want them to CHANGE. Yeah, it may be a pipe dream, but I want to educate people and have them re-examine their views.
And I’ll tell you something right now: a person who gets canceled ain’t changing their views. They’re gonna dig in their heels and fight. This is my real issue with cancel culture. It doesn’t give people room to grow, change, or expand their viewpoint.
Not only that, in cases of people like simp, who don’t actively “care” about certain issues, it might actually do harm to cancel them…causing them to become radicalized against you.
I’ll lay it out like this: the left is not ever compromising on things like LGBQT rights. Anyone who tells you we need to stop advocating hard for LGBQT rights in order to pass M4A is concern trolling you. That’s just how solidarity works, no one gets tossed under the bus.
Joe Biden, the politician who famously said he was okay with gay marriage back when the Democratic Party was against it. Who endorsed Danica Roem. Yeah, maybe it’s all a long con, but maybe he does actually give a shit?
Right. That Kansas State student who achieved overnight notoriety because of a tweet about George Floyd.
The tweet was a tree falling in the woods until Kansas State football players with actual relevant platforms in Manhattan, Kansas began tweeting that the university must take action against McNeil. The tweets of the football players condemning McNeil extended the reach of McNeil’s tweet, caught the attention of the media and eventually turned McNeil into a cause celebre and martyr for free-speech advocates and critics of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Trans rights are human rights. Plain and simple.
Those that seek to divide us will always find a wedge. That at this moment trans people are being used as culture war fodder is not their fault.
A highly marginalized group of people who suffer outlier levels of violence and discrimination in our society has just recently found anything resembling an environment where they may have more allies than people hate on them, and when they ask people who are ostensibly left of center for solidarity(which is free, btw), to then respond with what about M4A or that’s not an important issue to me or what about how Joe Rogan was treated is…
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Fuck me, that’s what I’ve been trying to say this whole time but you hit the nail on the head.
It’s so clearly a glacial process. That’s why I get a tinge of doubt when pessimism wins my mood for a day.
Post more.
Fair points. I agree there is definite risk in “cancellation” as a tactic and it should be applied judiciously. I was just trying to reorient the conversation away from the false distinction between “real issues that matter” and “social issues.” As I said before, I think that this distinction minimizes the real life consequences that inequality plays in the lives of marginalized people. Also, frankly, I think the dichotomy is sometimes used by people who are good little leftists on economic issues to give themselves a pass for having less progressive views on other topics. I’m good on the stuff that really matters, so why should I have to interrogate my views on this other trivial stuff?
You define left how you like I guess. I would never advocate for anything other recognizing trans as they recognize themselves. And I’m fully in board M4A. I think you are the same. But, Rivaldo may not feel the same and may consider himself on the left. And skydiver might not feel the same and consider herself in the left. And there are concern trolls on both sides of that divide. Some people tell you to be quiet about M4A and some tell you to be quiet about trans issues.
My point was that Carl Rove et al, imo, would rather the election not be about health care.
And that doesn’t mean I think health care is more important than trans issues. I actually don’t. I’m pretty libertarian actually (in the original sense of the word). Individual liberty and dignity and power on things like civil lights, immigrant rights, LGBT rights are more motivating to me personally.
Exactly. I think @MysteryConman hit the nail on the head about this above. I got jumped on for inarticulately trying to voice this opinion back in the George Floyd thread, but you both have described it so much better than I did.
because it’s maybe uncomfortable to some people and seemingly ever-evolving?
most posters in this forum probably struggle to empathize with the burden that reconciliation of ideas like trans teens - and all that that involves - pose to the belief systems of others, as it’s almost immediately normalized by people with a live-and-let-live sensibility. There’s unfortunately no universality to that, and even if there were, the ubiquitous speech-monitoring would still seek to foil it.
Yeah, like one thing that bothers me about the “trans women are women” orthodoxy is enforced is that it gets used to circumvent debate on any of these more difficult issues. I’m fine with the idea that trans women are women, but redefining a word away from how it was traditionally used doesn’t mean you get to just update all past usages to the new meaning. Most obviously, as you pointed out earlier, I’ve always described myself as being romantically/sexually interested in women. It doesn’t logically follow that subscribing to “trans women are women” requires me to become interested in dating trans women. Rather, what I meant all along was that I am interested in cis women, it was just never a distinction which needed making before.
The division between women and men’s sports, especially at the professional level, doesn’t (or shouldn’t) exist because segregating genders is just an awesome thing that we love doing. It exists because there are biological differences between the sexes which have direct relevance to physical competition. It’s therefore reasonable to ask whether by “women’s sport” we really meant “women’s sport” or whether we meant “sport for people without the advantages conferred by masculine body development” or something like that. I don’t really have a strong opinion on the issue but I’m generally opposed to this idea that any and all historical references to women now have to be read as applying to trans women as well.
Nothing insightful to add except this discussion is really helping me rethink my behaviors and thinking patterns to be more inclusive and less of a jackass.
We all agree that futanari is awesome though right?
I, too, know what I want to be… until tomorrow.