4 ms·

"I’m not saying it’s fair or right…" Good, because concern trolling like this is pretty shitty, and definitely not fair or right. Certainly not intellectually

"I’m not saying it’s fair or right…" Good, because concern trolling like this is pretty shitty, and definitely not fair or right. Certainly not intellectually honest. You attack someone repeatedly for supposedly not standing up against "dumb policies" and "extremist" positions, without your daring to name what you think those are. After all, if you did that, you might have to defend your stance against criticism instead of attacking someone for not preventing the entire Democratic Party from committing unspecified wrongs of "inclusion".

SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
It's not really a matter of "daring". Most online platforms don't permit dissent on transgender issues. If someone attempted to directly argue that they don't think transgenderism is real, they wouldn't face criticism or engage in a robust debate, they'd simply get their comment deleted. (If you turn on showdead you can see that's happened in this very thread, although admittedly the guy was a bit rude about it.)
- banannaise 4y ago
  The fact that transgender people exist is quite settled from a scientific perspective. Most reasonable platforms will not put up with people asserting that trans people are either mentally ill, clout-chasing, or victims of abuse, in the same way that most reasonable platforms will not put up with arguments that Black people are a criminal race because <insert debunked science here>. Dissent along those lines, no matter how politely framed, is simply an attempt to launder bigotry into "debate".
  - Banana699 4y ago
    - banannaise 4y ago
      This is a willful misinterpretation of the very realistic idea that it is possible to make me disappear from public existence by legally forcing me into the closet.
      - Banana699 4y ago
        There is nobody that can make you disappear from public existence unless you help them do so, by being utterly dependent on their continued acknowledgement and validation of an identity that you made central to your existence. But that's really nobody's fault except you, anybody is allowed to view any identity as illegitimate, it's totally on you that you're so attached to this identity that a bunch of people not believing in it is a thing that makes you "disappear from public life".
        pgcj_poster 4y ago
        Within living memory, people could get arrested for wearing clothes that the cops deemed inappropriate for their sex. Most trans women had to present as men to avoid being fired from their jobs or publicly ridiculed. Those who were lucky enough to transition generally had to disappear and cut all ties to the previous life. More and more of us have emerged from the underground in recent decades, but there are many people out there who want us to go back. The recent Alabama bill targeting trans youth makes explicit the fact that it's setting out to prevent them from ever becoming trans adults. It's completely reasonable for us to be afraid of being forced back into the position we were in a few decades ago.
        Banana699 4y ago
        So how does this relate to the aggressive lobbying and infiltration that modern trans advocacy groups do? is it to secure a 'buffer' of rights, gain so much privileges that even if the scary 'cis majority' takes away some of them you will still have some? I'm trying hard to correlate "We were arrested and discriminated against in the past" to "We must teach impressionable pre-pubescents about gender dysphoria behind their parents' back and ban anyone who criticizes this off the internet in the present". A majority used to take your rights away, then it self corrected and gave you your rights back, then you... impose your views back on them and influence institutions to crush their dissenting views ? Am I just naive or is "we used to be second class citizens but now we're not" cause for reconciliation with and gratitude toward the majority, not hostility and belligerent activism ?
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    And that's all reasonable on its own terms, but your opponents don't see it this way at all. I see being trans as more like being a Mormon; it would obviously be obnoxious for me to walk up to random Mormons and say "you don't exist" or "Joseph Smith was a fraud", but it would be equally obnoxious if a Mormon friend told me that studies have proven they hold the Melchizedek priesthood and I need to affirm that or they won't feel comfortable around me.
  - rocef 4y ago
- Semiapies 4y ago
  I don't see any posts by him in this thread with showdead on that I can't see with it off, so I don't buy your complaint. As it is it, looks like what you think is "a bit rude" amounts to some guy facing criticism and working himself up into a lather about how that's everyone saying "shut up white man". But at any rate, your argument amounts to, "But he has to be disingenuous and chickenshit, because Hacker News is run by the SJWs!", which I find laughable.
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    The comment I'm referring to is by a different commenter twofornone. My argument definitely isn't that Hacker News is run by the SJWs, both because I don't think HN moderation is particularly left wing and because I don't think "the SJWs" is a meaningful category. What I would say is that debates about the fundamental legitimacy of transgender stuff get too heated for most platforms to accept, because people have strong, passionate beliefs on the issue which can't easily be compromised on. It's an entirely reasonable moderation decision and I might very well make the same one if I were in charge - but as a consequence, those of us who are transgender skeptical sometimes need to carefully talk around the touchiest issues rather than engaging on them directly.
    - banannaise 4y ago
      > It's equally forbidden (and there's also an example of this downthread) to go around saying that if you don't believe the right things about trans people you're committing genocide. That's a very strange interpretation of my comment. If you think my gender identity is invalid, you're not committing genocide, you're just an asshole. If you think my gender identity makes me a pedophile groomer who needs to be kept away from kids, and want to enforce that via imprisonment, then you're committing genocide. Unfortunately, that is a political position of the governor of at least one US state. It is not the political position of most of the people voting for him, but that's not a ton of consolation.
    - Semiapies 4y ago
      "The comment I'm referring to is by a different commenter twofornone" Then you're just being disingenuous, jumping into a thread responding to someone else entirely and talking about dead comments as if the person being responded to had made them.
- rocef 4y ago
  - rocef 4y ago

SpicyLemonZest 4y ago

It's not really a matter of "daring". Most online platforms don't permit dissent on transgender issues. If someone attempted to directly argue that they don't think transgenderism is real, they wouldn't face criticism or engage in a robust debate, they'd simply get their comment deleted. (If you turn on showdead you can see that's happened in this very thread, although admittedly the guy was a bit rude about it.)

banannaise 4y ago
The fact that transgender people exist is quite settled from a scientific perspective. Most reasonable platforms will not put up with people asserting that trans people are either mentally ill, clout-chasing, or victims of abuse, in the same way that most reasonable platforms will not put up with arguments that Black people are a criminal race because <insert debunked science here>. Dissent along those lines, no matter how politely framed, is simply an attempt to launder bigotry into "debate".
- Banana699 4y ago
  - banannaise 4y ago
    This is a willful misinterpretation of the very realistic idea that it is possible to make me disappear from public existence by legally forcing me into the closet.
    - Banana699 4y ago
      There is nobody that can make you disappear from public existence unless you help them do so, by being utterly dependent on their continued acknowledgement and validation of an identity that you made central to your existence. But that's really nobody's fault except you, anybody is allowed to view any identity as illegitimate, it's totally on you that you're so attached to this identity that a bunch of people not believing in it is a thing that makes you "disappear from public life".
      - pgcj_poster 4y ago
        Within living memory, people could get arrested for wearing clothes that the cops deemed inappropriate for their sex. Most trans women had to present as men to avoid being fired from their jobs or publicly ridiculed. Those who were lucky enough to transition generally had to disappear and cut all ties to the previous life. More and more of us have emerged from the underground in recent decades, but there are many people out there who want us to go back. The recent Alabama bill targeting trans youth makes explicit the fact that it's setting out to prevent them from ever becoming trans adults. It's completely reasonable for us to be afraid of being forced back into the position we were in a few decades ago.
        Banana699 4y ago
        So how does this relate to the aggressive lobbying and infiltration that modern trans advocacy groups do? is it to secure a 'buffer' of rights, gain so much privileges that even if the scary 'cis majority' takes away some of them you will still have some? I'm trying hard to correlate "We were arrested and discriminated against in the past" to "We must teach impressionable pre-pubescents about gender dysphoria behind their parents' back and ban anyone who criticizes this off the internet in the present". A majority used to take your rights away, then it self corrected and gave you your rights back, then you... impose your views back on them and influence institutions to crush their dissenting views ? Am I just naive or is "we used to be second class citizens but now we're not" cause for reconciliation with and gratitude toward the majority, not hostility and belligerent activism ?
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  And that's all reasonable on its own terms, but your opponents don't see it this way at all. I see being trans as more like being a Mormon; it would obviously be obnoxious for me to walk up to random Mormons and say "you don't exist" or "Joseph Smith was a fraud", but it would be equally obnoxious if a Mormon friend told me that studies have proven they hold the Melchizedek priesthood and I need to affirm that or they won't feel comfortable around me.
- rocef 4y ago
Semiapies 4y ago
I don't see any posts by him in this thread with showdead on that I can't see with it off, so I don't buy your complaint. As it is it, looks like what you think is "a bit rude" amounts to some guy facing criticism and working himself up into a lather about how that's everyone saying "shut up white man". But at any rate, your argument amounts to, "But he has to be disingenuous and chickenshit, because Hacker News is run by the SJWs!", which I find laughable.
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  The comment I'm referring to is by a different commenter twofornone. My argument definitely isn't that Hacker News is run by the SJWs, both because I don't think HN moderation is particularly left wing and because I don't think "the SJWs" is a meaningful category. What I would say is that debates about the fundamental legitimacy of transgender stuff get too heated for most platforms to accept, because people have strong, passionate beliefs on the issue which can't easily be compromised on. It's an entirely reasonable moderation decision and I might very well make the same one if I were in charge - but as a consequence, those of us who are transgender skeptical sometimes need to carefully talk around the touchiest issues rather than engaging on them directly.
  - banannaise 4y ago
    > It's equally forbidden (and there's also an example of this downthread) to go around saying that if you don't believe the right things about trans people you're committing genocide. That's a very strange interpretation of my comment. If you think my gender identity is invalid, you're not committing genocide, you're just an asshole. If you think my gender identity makes me a pedophile groomer who needs to be kept away from kids, and want to enforce that via imprisonment, then you're committing genocide. Unfortunately, that is a political position of the governor of at least one US state. It is not the political position of most of the people voting for him, but that's not a ton of consolation.
  - Semiapies 4y ago
    "The comment I'm referring to is by a different commenter twofornone" Then you're just being disingenuous, jumping into a thread responding to someone else entirely and talking about dead comments as if the person being responded to had made them.
rocef 4y ago
- rocef 4y ago