US 2024 Presidential Election

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Phoenixmgs

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I suspect trans people care about it.
Nobody as in at least an 80/20 issue where 80+% don't care, not literally nobody. Nobody cares about the earth being flat, but there are flat-earthers.

Because they're so spineless that they allowed Republicans to completely hijack the conversation. Republicans made it this huge culture war while Democrats sat back and did nothing.

But even if that's not the case, we'd never have gotten shit like Equal Rights for Minorities or Women Voting if all politicians waited until doing the right thing was popular. Once you start picking and choosing who gets rights, it's only a matter of time before a group you actually do care about gets put on the chopping block because they're not big enough to matter.
Pronouns isn't a rights issue...

Republicans care lots about it. Obsessed with it even
But republicans are at least in step with what people want, you know, in a democracy. Both parties are obsessed with social issues that are just distractions so the important stuff just stays the same without people noticing/caring. Why do DNC speeches lead with land acknowledgements?
 
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tippy2k2

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Pronouns isn't a rights issue...
First, yes it absolutely is. People deserve basic fucking dignity.

Second, even if you say that it's not, there are plenty of other Trans Issues that The Right is against (namely them...you know...existing, which feels VERY much like a rights issue).
 

Phoenixmgs

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First, yes it absolutely is. People deserve basic fucking dignity.

Second, even if you say that it's not, there are plenty of other Trans Issues that The Right is against (namely them...you know...existing, which feels VERY much like a rights issue).
Pronouns aren't basic dignity... People can use pronouns in reference to sex, not gender, since that is the main and very valid definition.

What right do trans people not have?
 

tippy2k2

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Pronouns aren't basic dignity... People can use pronouns in reference to sex, not gender, since that is the main and very valid definition.

What right do trans people not have?
Plenty of states are passing (or trying to pass) bills that stop Transgender people from getting the health care that they want.


States that don't want to educate people about Transgender people. States that are stopping Transgender people from getting the healthcare they want to get. States trying to keep Transgender people from using the fucking bathroom (in both directions where people are required to use the bathroom of their "birth gender" but have had all of the surgeries and looks and voice training and whatnot where you'd never know they were transgender if they didn't tell you so demanding a woman go into the men's bathroom because they were born a man but look for all intents and purposes like a woman but bills like this would require her to go to the Men's Room).

and even if some of these bills are failing, everyone said Roe v Wade would never fall...until it did


So even with bills like this one failing currently, people are actively trying to make it fucking illegal to be trans. You can say all you want "Well these bills are failing so we're good" but as we've seen this past year and change, a LOT of shit we thought was pretty damn untouchable is very much touchable.
 

Satinavian

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Well, yes, but are the Dems suddenly going to make meaningful change in regards to those if they abandon trans issues?
Well the chances are higher than when they don't even campaign on it.

Which of course would also be true for the trans issues. Fighting over priorities in parties is normal.
 

tstorm823

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You put down an argument which amounts to "Trans people are just depressed and if we sort that depression out they'll not want to change gender".

So, what's your scientific basis for that argument?

You don't need to answer that: because we all know you don't have one. You just magicked it up out of prejudice: that's what prejudice is and does.
No, I did not argue that.

There isn't going to be a scientific argument for why gender isn't an objective reality any more than there is a scientific argument for why Clifford the Big Red Dog isn't real. There's no science to be done on imagined concepts.

There's plenty of science to be done on the real effects downstream of the imagined concept of gender, and they aren't good, but you can't even consider them, because you magicked out the idea that gender is a objective biological fact.
This is, in essence, what you're saying. You're saying nobody actually experiences that disconnect. The rationalisation you've based this on is immaterial; you're nonetheless claiming the group does not exist.
That is not what I'm saying. The feeling of disconnect is valid, it's the thing they feel disconnected from that we don't need. Cut out the thing, and nobody can feel disconnected from it.

Like, if everyone around you has something in common that you don't, you can feel justifiably excluded even if the thing bringing them together is completely made up. We have to ask, when ideas are tearing people apart, why have those ideas in the first place? In this instance, what is the upside of gender identities that makes it worth causing people this misery?
 

Phoenixmgs

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Plenty of states are passing (or trying to pass) bills that stop Transgender people from getting the health care that they want.


States that don't want to educate people about Transgender people. States that are stopping Transgender people from getting the healthcare they want to get. States trying to keep Transgender people from using the fucking bathroom (in both directions where people are required to use the bathroom of their "birth gender" but have had all of the surgeries and looks and voice training and whatnot where you'd never know they were transgender if they didn't tell you so demanding a woman go into the men's bathroom because they were born a man but look for all intents and purposes like a woman but bills like this would require her to go to the Men's Room).

and even if some of these bills are failing, everyone said Roe v Wade would never fall...until it did


So even with bills like this one failing currently, people are actively trying to make it fucking illegal to be trans. You can say all you want "Well these bills are failing so we're good" but as we've seen this past year and change, a LOT of shit we thought was pretty damn untouchable is very much touchable.
All the healthcare bills refer to minors AFAIK and that is perfectly fine and what other peer and more progressive countries already have in place.

And basically everyone wants bathrooms to be sex-based.

Roe was bound to get overturned, I don't know who told you that it wouldn't.

Again, what can't trans people do that John or Jane Doe can do?
 

Silvanus

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That is not what I'm saying. The feeling of disconnect is valid, it's the thing they feel disconnected from that we don't need. Cut out the thing, and nobody can feel disconnected from it.
It's the biological sex they feel disconnected from. That's not what you're arguing we "don't need". It is in fact what you've been arguing people should be obligated to maintain.

Like, if everyone around you has something in common that you don't, you can feel justifiably excluded even if the thing bringing them together is completely made up. We have to ask, when ideas are tearing people apart, why have those ideas in the first place? In this instance, what is the upside of gender identities that makes it worth causing people this misery?
"Why have those ideas"? They arise unbidden; nobody voluntarily develops dysphoria.

This is like asking, "When the idea of depression is making people miserable, why believe in depression? Don't believe in it! Then nobody will be depressed!" It's just facile rationalisation from somebody with-- I repeat-- zero relevant experience with the actual community you're discussing.
 

tstorm823

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"Why have those ideas"? They arise unbidden; nobody voluntarily develops dysphoria.
Yes, to be absolutely clear, I am not saying people should just get over it. An individual living in a culture that imposes the concept of gender identity on them is not going to unilaterally remove themself from it.

It is all of you elevating these gendered concepts that are causing them the dysphoria. You have created caricatures of the culture in which people have to act a certain way, fixated on these toxic strawmen, and convinced a generation that they shouldn't want to be a part of the system you've imagined that never really existed, and when they don't, that they must identify as different in kind from other people. No one person is responsible for existing in that paradigm, and the distress they are caused in it is perfectly valid, that paradigm needs to go away.
 

tippy2k2

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All the healthcare bills refer to minors AFAIK and that is perfectly fine and what other peer and more progressive countries already have in place.

And basically everyone wants bathrooms to be sex-based.

Roe was bound to get overturned, I don't know who told you that it wouldn't.

Again, what can't trans people do that John or Jane Doe can do?
"They all have the same rights as everyone else as long as I just ignore all of the examples given to me"

You're not worth spending any more time talking to (and unlike everyone else who also says this but for some reason still engages you, I'm not going to waste my time anymore).
 

Phoenixmgs

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"They all have the same rights as everyone else as long as I just ignore all of the examples given to me"

You're not worth spending any more time talking to (and unlike everyone else who also says this but for some reason still engages you, I'm not going to waste my time anymore).
ALL people don't have to right to get any operation they want...
 

Silvanus

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It is all of you elevating these gendered concepts that are causing them the dysphoria. You have created caricatures of the culture in which people have to act a certain way, fixated on these toxic strawmen, and convinced a generation that they shouldn't want to be a part of the system you've imagined that never really existed, and when they don't, that they must identify as different in kind from other people. No one person is responsible for existing in that paradigm, and the distress they are caused in it is perfectly valid, that paradigm needs to go away.
All rationalisation. Zero interaction, listening, or experience.

Nobody is telling people they must identify as a gender at odds with their sex. That is a right-wing canard. In truth, there is overwhelming societal pressure to conform to one's birth sex, then there are people who say you don't have to. It is you, here, who are the only one acting proscriptively towards how other people act and feel.

And nor is it based on stereotypical gendered behaviours-- the "toxic caricatures" you mention above. Trans and queer people tend to be the ones who adhere least to expected gendered behaviours: who care least about how men and women "should" present, and who value fluidity and androgyny.

If you took any time at all to actually interact with the people about whom you're talking, you'd see how weak and inapplicable your mental caricature is. Its all just rationalisation.
 

Seanchaidh

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Yes, to be absolutely clear, I am not saying people should just get over it. An individual living in a culture that imposes the concept of gender identity on them is not going to unilaterally remove themself from it.

It is all of you elevating these gendered concepts that are causing them the dysphoria. You have created caricatures of the culture in which people have to act a certain way, fixated on these toxic strawmen, and convinced a generation that they shouldn't want to be a part of the system you've imagined that never really existed, and when they don't, that they must identify as different in kind from other people. No one person is responsible for existing in that paradigm, and the distress they are caused in it is perfectly valid, that paradigm needs to go away.
OK, but that's orders of magnitude more difficult than what they're asking for.
 

tstorm823

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OK, but that's orders of magnitude more difficult than what they're asking for.
It is, truly, much easier to make the world suck. That is correct.
Nobody is telling people they must identify as a gender at odds with their sex. That is a right-wing canard. In truth, there is overwhelming societal pressure to conform to one's birth sex, then there are people who say you don't have to. It is you, here, who are the only one acting proscriptively towards how other people act and feel.

And nor is it based on stereotypical gendered behaviours-- the "toxic caricatures" you mention above. Trans and queer people tend to be the ones who adhere least to expected gendered behaviours: who care least about how men and women "should" present, and who value fluidity and androgyny.
You're doing it right now. You're espousing the exact problematic paradigm twice in this post.

I won't say that nobody tells people they have to conform to the gender norms of their sex, some people do that, but it isn't most people. Even the most fervent traditionalists are unlikely to say that people have to conform to gender roles. There's always going to be some pressure towards many gendered things because there is value in them, because they give people joy and lead to procreation, and people want other people to be happy and have kids, but that isn't the image of the world you are espousing. You see stodgy conservatives pushing arbitrary rules at best, and then you see yourself as part of the good guys that will let people be free, and that's not reality, that's caricature. Just about everyone (at least in our two countries) will tell people they don't have to conform to gender roles. But I'm not going to tell someone that they are different in kind from other people because they choose to do so.

Then you say "trans and queer people adhere least to expected gendered behaviors". Entertain me for a second and imagine that trans and queer are not intrinsic biological features, and reconsider that sentence. You think being trans leads people from adhering to expected gender behaviors. I would say that not wanting to adhere to expected gendered behaviors leads people to identify as trans. We agree on the correlation, just not on the cause and effect. Defining your identity based on not conforming to gender norms is still defining your identity based on gender norms. Doing things you wouldn't otherwise do just to buck the trends is just as toxic as doing things you wouldn't do to follow the trends.

Telling people that gender is an immutable and defining characteristic within themselves changes the way that they see themselves. It changes the way that they behave around others. It changes the way they present. Not just trans people, but all people, are increasingly pressured by your paradigm to act specific ways just to feel like the people around them can recognize them for who they are. You can't be so silly as to think that something biological makes so many queer women die their hair crazy colors and fill their nose with piercings, many do that as a social message of their identity, they want people to see and recognize their identity. The opposite is also happening, people who don't identify as queer or trans are going to increasingly avoid any behavior associated with those things. Movements of hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity are not symptomatic of a sudden rise in conservative values, they are people playing out the consequences of the gender paradigm you cling onto. But they don't have to do that, neither trans nor cis, gender isn't who they are, it's just a description of things that people made up. The sooner people can understand that, the happier society will be as a result.
 

Silvanus

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You're doing it right now. You're espousing the exact problematic paradigm twice in this post.

I won't say that nobody tells people they have to conform to the gender norms of their sex, some people do that, but it isn't most people. Even the most fervent traditionalists are unlikely to say that people have to conform to gender roles.
Not quite the same thing as what i was saying. I said there is overwhelming societal pressure to conform to one's biological sex. That is not solely in behaviour, but in identification. Society overwhelmingly-- often violently-- impresses upon us that we must identify with our biological sex and cannot deviate how we identify.

Then you say "trans and queer people adhere least to expected gendered behaviors". Entertain me for a second and imagine that trans and queer are not intrinsic biological features, and reconsider that sentence.You think being trans leads people from adhering to expected gender behaviors.
? No i don't. Being trans doesn't prompt someone to adhere to the societal expected behaviours of their identified gender. Some might, others don't.

I would say that not wanting to adhere to expected gendered behaviors leads people to identify as trans.
A speculative psychology you've come to without any interaction or experience with such people.

Defining your identity based on not conforming to gender norms is still defining your identity based on gender norms. Doing things you wouldn't otherwise do just to buck the trends is just as toxic as doing things you wouldn't do to follow the trends.
Hence why that's not what its about at all. Its not about defining oneself based on not conforming to gender normative behaviour.

You have made this conflation because you believe there's no difference between gender identity and gendered behavioural norms. You can believe what you want. But you cannot impose this presumption on others when talking about how they self-identify. They don't share your view that there's nothing more to gender than stereotypical behaviours: their self-identification isn't about behaviour, and its you that thinks its all the same, not them.

You can't be so silly as to think that something biological makes so many queer women die their hair crazy colors and fill their nose with piercings, many do that as a social message of their identity [...]
And now we get into the prejudiced stereotyping.

This stuff is not inherent to trans identity and is irrelevant to our discussion. What it does show is how your hostility ultimately rests on puerile dislike for the 'other'.
 
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thebobmaster

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Just to make a point, I'm going to put up pictures of 3 queer women. All of them at least somewhat famous celebrities. Look at these queer woman, being so flamboyant. In order from left to right: Portia de Rossi (former model/actress, wife of Ellen DeGeneres, lesbian), Megan Fox (actress, self-identified bisexual), Jena Malone (actress/model, self-identified pansexual and polyamory practitioner).

1772115060416.png1772115103411.png1772115237095.png
 

Agema

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No, I did not argue that.
Oh but you did, implicitly.

There isn't going to be a scientific argument for why gender isn't an objective reality any more than there is a scientific argument for why Clifford the Big Red Dog isn't real. There's no science to be done on imagined concepts.
Last time I checked there is a scientific discipline which examines the nature of thought and behaviour: it's called psychology. Then most directly related, biology (neuroscience), and sociology. Sex is a thing, objectively. People believe things based on sex, objectively. Scientifically measurably, they believe things about themselves and others, which influence their actions and feelings in ways we can examine, analyse and draw conclusions from.

And every time we come across people like you who refuse to even look at how others think and why, I think it's worth asking what you're afraid of.
 

tstorm823

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They don't share your view that there's nothing more to gender
What more is there? What is gender to you? If not behavioral, is it physiological? Genetic? What is it? Cause you're low on options that aren't "completely arbitrary".
Oh but you did, implicitly.
Your inferences being wrong is not a point against me.
And every time we come across people like you who refuse to even look at how others think and why, I think it's worth asking what you're afraid of.
...because you have no idea how to process disagreement, and can only assume there is always an ulterior motive.
What they're asking for would make the world better.
The people killing themselves demonstrate quite the opposite.