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Anecdotally, in the startup where I worked there was one summer in 2017 when 3 white women (a significant percent of the women in the office at the time) all su
by jurassic 5y ago
Anecdotally, in the startup where I worked there was one summer in 2017 when 3 white women (a significant percent of the women in the office at the time) all suddenly came out as non-binary and asked to be called they/them. If that's not some kind of freaky bandwagon thing going on then I don't know what is. It was like a competition to see who could get the most oppression points or something. Now I'm in a different company, with a lot of folks who are pretty clearly biologically female claiming the non-binary identity. Most confusing of all to me are the non-binary people who still self-describe as lesbians. Do they think gender is a thing or not?
I'm expecting a pretty harsh backlash against all this gender politics at some point. I'm not sure when or how it will manifest, but even some of my LGB friends privately tell me they think it's gone too far. For the most part, though, they are too afraid to say anything in public because they don't want to get attacked and possibly lose their jobs over it. It's clear that the gender radicals have wielded online bully tactics to gain full control over the range of acceptable discourse.
LGBT are often portrayed as some kind of monolithic entity in mainstream media, but the reality is that there's a lot of ideological tension in the mix between the cis and trans people. The only place I see these tensions spilling into the open is in the UK, where the LGB Alliance and Stonewall organizations are at odds. Wondering when the same will happen in the US.
Let me lay out the tension for those who may not be familiar. On the one side you have LGB people who mostly say their sexuality is immutable and based on attraction to specific sexes. "Baby, I was born this way" in the words of Lady Gaga. As an example, maybe you're a lesbian which means a woman who is attracted to other women; for most of history this was understood to mean a person of the female sex attracted to another person of the female sex. Meanwhile you have trans activists trying to stretch the meaning of words like "man" and "woman" to the point that they don't really mean anything anymore. Anybody can be a woman if that's how they identify today, which has the effect of broadening what it means to be a lesbian in a way that some lesbians may not agree with. The status quo today is that if you're a lesbian and not willing to include the "female penis" in your sexual orientation, you're at risk of being called a TERF/transphobe. This seems like an irreconcilable difference of views.
Despite what you might think if you've read this far, I do not hate trans people. I have sympathy for them and whatever lack of self-acceptance has led them into their current path. I make an effort to use preferred pronouns and be respectful to those I work with. But I'm also extremely concerned about what the collateral damage to LGB people will be when Republicans capitalize on woke extremism at the ballot box.
- joconde 5y ago> Anecdotally, in the startup where I worked there was one summer in 2017 when 3 white women (a significant percent of the women in the office at the time) all suddenly came out as non-binary and asked to be called they/them. If that's not some kind of freaky bandwagon thing going on then I don't know what is. Have you considered that they may have been talking about it privately, and decided to come out at the same time to reduce the risk of being singled out for it? I don't see how the timing implies a "bandwagon". It seems obvious that doing that together is less scary than alone.
- orwin 5y agoInteresting, i think the same is happening in France, a schism between cis and trans of the LGBTQ community. For what it's worth, i think the gender fight in the media is not worth it for anybody. I dont see an end anytime soon, and i'd rather have gay marriage settle, add counseling in schools for kids who need it, and then maybe the LGBTQ+ community can start fighting this gender fight. Transversal fights are surely worth it (as Fred Hampton and the BPP proved), but i think this one we might want to avoid until we fix the rest.
- howinteresting 5y agoThe LGB alliance, and transphobic feminism more generally, is a hate movement with far-right, antisemitic ties. https://transsafety.network/posts/gcs-and-the-right/ https://transsafety.network/posts/gcs-and-the-right/ I am a trans person and quite frankly your suggestion to wait in line is deeply insulting.
- spaniard89277 5y agoIn Spain this thing is not quite of the same dimension (even though there's a lot of propaganda being pumped by leftist parties) but I already encountered some cases. Also, I'm hearing more and more what It would be conservative opinions from the gay people I have more trust with. Which is quite unexpected for me.
- kongin 5y ago>Also, I'm hearing more and more what It would be conservative opinions from the gay people I have more trust with. Which is quite unexpected for me. You can only say you have a real gay friend when they show you their Nazi Furry dungeon and start talking about degenerates. The number of homofascists in the closet is hilariously large.