5 ms·

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 t

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 5y 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 5y ago
  - banannaise 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 ?
        danShumway 5y ago
        > I'm trying hard to correlate "We were arrested and discriminated against in the past" Current bathroom bills, bans on transgender medical care, and efforts to equate LGBTQ+ acceptance and care with grooming are not "the past", they're happening right now.
        Banana699 5y ago
        >Current bathroom bills Is that government/public bathrooms or private businesses bathrooms? Aren't LGBT++ people extremely fond of saying "It's a private business, it can do whatever it wants", or does that only work when people critical of them are banned off the internet ? >bans on transgender medical care I'm highly, highly skeptical that a western country really did ban transgender "medical" care. Most likely it's an obscure law that just made it a private expense not paid for by tax money. You can prove me wrong though. >efforts to equate LGBTQ+ acceptance and care with grooming I have a feeling that people who are reacting to pre-12-years-olds being shown pornographic imagery of 2 boys doing a sexual activity by defending it as "Queer sex education", I have just the slightest feeling, that those people are, indeed, defending what amounts to pedophilic tendencies. When those people are the most visible parts of a community and they're shouting their rather unusual opinions without the slightest pushback or dissent from others in the same community, I have a feeling, again just a very slight feeling, that this community does, in fact, present a very attractive affiliation for pedophiles. In other words, if some people want to be treated as equal, maybe they should start acting as equals, respecting the things that everybody else respect. Maybe they should stop being the spoilt children of corporate giants who call for banning/firing anyone who looks at them funnily, maybe they should disavow clearly criminal tendencies within their own. Maybe they should stop treating a joke as a genocide. Maybe then, just maybe, other people would start seeing them as ordinry humans with the same duties, and consequently the same rights and respect, as the rest of us.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y 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 5y ago
Semiapies 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
- rocef 5y ago

banannaise 5y 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 5y ago
- banannaise 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 ?
        danShumway 5y ago
        > I'm trying hard to correlate "We were arrested and discriminated against in the past" Current bathroom bills, bans on transgender medical care, and efforts to equate LGBTQ+ acceptance and care with grooming are not "the past", they're happening right now.
        Banana699 5y ago
        >Current bathroom bills Is that government/public bathrooms or private businesses bathrooms? Aren't LGBT++ people extremely fond of saying "It's a private business, it can do whatever it wants", or does that only work when people critical of them are banned off the internet ? >bans on transgender medical care I'm highly, highly skeptical that a western country really did ban transgender "medical" care. Most likely it's an obscure law that just made it a private expense not paid for by tax money. You can prove me wrong though. >efforts to equate LGBTQ+ acceptance and care with grooming I have a feeling that people who are reacting to pre-12-years-olds being shown pornographic imagery of 2 boys doing a sexual activity by defending it as "Queer sex education", I have just the slightest feeling, that those people are, indeed, defending what amounts to pedophilic tendencies. When those people are the most visible parts of a community and they're shouting their rather unusual opinions without the slightest pushback or dissent from others in the same community, I have a feeling, again just a very slight feeling, that this community does, in fact, present a very attractive affiliation for pedophiles. In other words, if some people want to be treated as equal, maybe they should start acting as equals, respecting the things that everybody else respect. Maybe they should stop being the spoilt children of corporate giants who call for banning/firing anyone who looks at them funnily, maybe they should disavow clearly criminal tendencies within their own. Maybe they should stop treating a joke as a genocide. Maybe then, just maybe, other people would start seeing them as ordinry humans with the same duties, and consequently the same rights and respect, as the rest of us.
SpicyLemonZest 5y 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 5y ago

Semiapies 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago

rocef 5y ago