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The fact that transgender people exist is quite settled from a scientific perspective. Most reasonable platforms will not put up with people asserting that tran

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 ?
        danShumway 4y 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 4y 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 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

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 ?
      - danShumway 4y 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 4y 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 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