“I’m a little out of date in that regard. I have virtually no social media use. Half the reason I frequent unstuck is so I can hear about the crazy things people post on social media.”
The internet is a terrifying place for transgender people. Basically no where is safe from transphobia. Any article you read there will be comments about how awful transgender people are like it just appears when you least expect it. The hate that people have for transgender people is terrifying.
Well said. It’s also a completely baffling hate. I can’t understand at all what it’s source is either.
I’m not sure how you came about this community but in case you didn’t know, the people on here have been interacting since long before this site founded. It’s generally a liberal community empathetic to the plight of marginalized communities. That said I’ve been pretty surprised by some people’s responses itt, as I’d expect them to jump to the defense of trans people and worry about the minor details (like sports) later.
I don’t have much personal experience with trans people but my instinct is to always treat people with dignity, respect, and empathy (when appropriate), until and individual or group shows that they don’t deserve it, mostly because they refuse to treat others that same way(I.e. bigots).
From one of the best video essayists, and a trans woman, these are worth watching and on point.
This.
@Melkerson this is your context. Its like coming into a room where nazis are shouting n#%&%# at a black kid and the first thing you do is start talking about broken windows at a BLM protest.
I think that because of the context and where this discussion is taking place, many people here (myself included) felt we had already done the defense of trans people part in other convos and other threads over the years, so they’re just jumping ahead to the “minor details” part as you put it.
I don’t think that is the context at all. Anyone who posts here regularly knows there are approximately zero transphobes here.
In fact even in this thread (and I may be wrong, because I’m not going to go back and read everything) not a single person has said unequivocally that trans women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports. And I’m even more sure no one thinks there should be a federal law on that issue.
Most of the stuff that may seem transphobic is people just asking questions. And by that I don’t mean JAQing off here. I mean good faith questions. There are just things that they genuinely want to know in order to be able to wrap their head around what they (and even you) feel is a complex topic.
There are more than zero transphobes in the last 50 posts let alone this whole forum.
Well, I suppose, that depends on how you define it.
Let’s just say you’re not getting anyone here mixed up with those facebook people you were alluding to.
Generally i agree this is a different space, which is why i engage differently.
However it is not a totally safe space now, and you cant assume it will always stay relatively safe.
More generally. The situation in society is kids in cages level bad. Discussion on the minor complexities of immigration law do have a place, but lets get the kids out of the cages first.
The context is there is a renewed push by Republicans going on right now to marginalize trans people. They are trying out a new line of attack - think of the poor cis-women sports players. It’s not a good faith argument from them, so I think in that context, people should be very careful of not helping to normalize their argument.
But who here agrees with that Republican amendment that was proposed? If you find a single reg, I’d be shocked. We all think it is shit. And everyone here knows this. So, that’s the context.
Even if you don’t agree with it, my concern is saying that they are raising some valid point about women’s sports helps to normalize their position as not being extreme. It’s the standard R tactic to shift the Overton window to the right. They start with the extreme view that all trans women should be banned from sports, so that they can pretend to compromise by allowing some very narrow exceptions to the ban.
Raising questions about how far along in your transition you need to be in order to play women’s sports helps their goals.
If the understood definition of racism includes things that advance racist thinking and racist systems, then the definition of transphobia includes things that advance transphobic thinking and transphobic systems.
I am not under the impression that I’m 0% racist, or 0% transphobic. My goal is 0% and I will never get there. But if I say to myself “I’m at 0%” I will never make progress again. I’m getting an "I’m at 0%” vibe from some folks.
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JT is just trying to get you all to underestimate him. Don’t be fooled.
It sounds like the solution you would prefer is to either not discuss it at all or to not discuss it honestly and fully. That seems odd.
That is one way to look at it. Another way is to look at is that it was an attempt to get people to clarify what they’re talking about. I do think that posting these things on unstuck is different from having the discussion in another forum. In a different space and in a situation where a lot of idiots are involved (which is a lot of them), I would be a lot more careful for the reasons you suggest. Most likely I would just not engage.
I know the people on this forum are different and that’s why I feel safe enough posting here but you are basically “just asking” the same questions that the bad people ask.
I’m fine discussing it. My biggest issue are the people who do the just asking questions rather than discussing the topic.
edit: daisy made this point better than I could.
It’s clear you are not being transphobic on purpose as I’ve been posting with you long enough to know you are a good person.
You are however centring the wrong group of people in this discussion. The debate is not about the minor hypothetical harm that might come to cis women in some unknown future. It’s about the most marginalized group of people in America and the undisputed and well documented harm this group is subject to every day. Cantering cis women in this discussion is unintentionally transphobic and causes real harm.
It’s ok for people to admit they don’t have experience with trans people and they want to understand them more. However, this enquiring should only be in the context of centring trans rights. It’s the rhetorical version of punching up.