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> The current push for anti-trans legislation in multiple states is also being driven by tribalism. Keeping trans people out of bathrooms and sports didn't sudd

• danShumway 5y ago
  This doesn't match the experience I have when I try talking to people who are anti-trans. They don't argue that people using the wrong bathroom was always a threat and that they're more aware of it now. They argue as if it's a new problem. So in my opinion awareness is not a good enough explanation on its own to describe why they're talking about the issue now. Boy and girl sports leagues reinforce this conclusion for me. I'm watching people who I know have never once argued about the integrity of girls' sports in any capacity suddenly tell me that this is a pressing issue that is reducing safe spaces for women. It's hard to explain that shift without tribalism. Maybe it's just ignorance of what's going on, maybe they don't actually realize that trans athletes aren't a brand new thing, maybe they believe this is a novel situation. Or maybe some of this is fueled by reactionary rhetoric from leaders and new sources, both of which really shouldn't be able to believably claim ignorance as an excuse. It's not universal, I don't claim that tribalism explains everything. But you can at least in theory point to environmental issues and argue about them using actual data in the real world. We can point to statistics about, say, incarceration and show that it was a problem before awareness went up. We can point to environmental issues and believably say, "species were always going extinct and we would like it to stop." In contrast, there's no objective reason to argue that transgender athletes are more dangerous today than they would have been in the past. And importantly, there's very little to point to as evidence that anybody was getting hurt because of transgender athletes in the past. It's not just a 1st-world problem that people suddenly have bandwidth to argue about, it's a debate that's almost entirely defined by opposition to a social trend rather any kind of data or visible problem. I do think at some point it makes sense to call that a reactionary movement. And of course, this isn't necessarily Republican-exclusive, I do also see Democrats who call themselves allies but have done very little research about what problems trans people face or how trans communities talk about these issues. And I do think there's a little bit of tribalism there where a subset of the Democratic party has picked a side in this debate based pretty much entirely on their party identity, not because they understand what's going on or because they've done any research. However, in my opinion there's comparatively very little real-world harm from clueless allies, so I spend more time focusing on the Republican side because laws that restrict medical care for children are just obviously a more harmful, dangerous result for the trans community than a tone-deaf message from a company or a poorly phrased Facebook post is.
  • mam3 5y ago
    > They argue as if it's a new problem Independently of how i feel about it, It IS new to care about the feelings of minority groups that much.. we moved up the "maslow" scale of problems to adress as a society.
    • danShumway 5y ago
      > It IS new to care about the feelings of minority groups that much.. I think you're making the mistake of conflating the motivations behind people who are fighting for trans rights and the motivations behind people who are fighting against trans rights. But the motivations between those two groups are not going to be identical. I buy that Maslow's hierarchy of needs might maybe offer some explanation why we're finally getting around to addressing problems affecting the trans community, but is not sufficient to explain why it would be a brand new priority for Republicans to regress trans rights. Tribalism/reactionism however does go a long way towards explaining why the GOP would not just oppose new legislation helping trans communities, but actually go so far as to pass new laws restricting their rights, as if trans people were never using bathrooms before 2018 or if there's some kind of brand new problem that requires blocking medical care for them. It makes a lot more sense to look at the opposition through the lenses of reactionary politics and polarization -- that the GOP is lashing out against trans people in anger over the progress they have made and because their rights have become a polarizing issue.
      • mam3 5y ago
        >> but is not sufficient to explain why it would be a brand new priority for Republicans to regress trans rights. Because 1/ adressing some issues means not adressing other.. the public debate cannot handle so many things at once and 2/ from the point of view of a french person america is particularly confrontational when defending pretty much... anything. In practical terms, republicans feel for 1/ that if you defend trans rights, you are going to forget more important fights such as the obesity crisis, the opioid crisis, the absurdity of your healthcare system, the economy. And for 2/, that they are going to be shamed if they disagree with the actual issues such as letting men compete in women categories.. so yeah i have 0 problems with trans people but understand the republicans motivation. Im rather left but i feel the left has too much moved to defend minorities issues, wich is a shame because historically left wing movements were workers rights which were more about the mass vs the few "elite". Thats why, in france at least, a lot of the working class now vote extreme right, and in usa, trump.