6 ms·

The trans topic is a wedge issue that has absolutely no impact on 99% of people. Many of the things people like to bring up when complaining about "a shift to t

The trans topic is a wedge issue that has absolutely no impact on 99% of people. Many of the things people like to bring up when complaining about "a shift to the left" are fringe ideas even on the left, and are amplified by right-wingers who are trying to paint the left as out of touch with reality. Having said that, age-appropriate sex ed in elementary school (e.g. talking about bodily autonomy and consent) is actually a good idea, since children at that age are often victims of sexual abuse and don't understand exactly what is happening to them. And if you genuinely get bent out of shape about tampons in mens bathrooms, I'm really happy for you. Your life must be genuinely amazing that something so meaningless even warrants being mentioned as a point of contention. Personally, as somebody who sometimes purchases tampons for his wife, it seems at best marginally useful, and at worst completely irrelevant to me. The economy topic is hardly a left-wing issue. People on the right cheered for Luigi just as much as people on the left, because they're suffering just as much, or more. What is happening here is not the left moving to the left, it's poor people being disenfranchised and reacting to it. This is also a major reason why Trump got elected: people have so little trust in the current system that they'd rather vote for somebody who promises to break it, than for somebody who promises to improve it. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "communists/socialists", since those two words have been stripped of all meaning in the US. "It wasn't a policy shift, it's attempting to save face" You're just using different words, but you're saying the same thing I did: it's a shift to the right. It's also dumb and counterproductive, because immigration is not the source of people's problems, and curtailing immigration in the way it is currently being done will only make things worse, but that is besides the point.

unitol 2y ago
> The trans topic is a wedge issue that has absolutely no impact on 99% of people. The idea of "gender identity" as based on a subjective inner sense of self, and that "gender identity" must supersede sex, fundamentally reframes a core characteristic of the entire human population. When implemented in law and policy, this affects everyone. The impact is mostly on women and girls, for whom female-only spaces are essential for their safety and dignity. Allowing any man who says he's a women into such spaces undermines the very reason they exist in the first place, and effectively destroys them. This isn't progress; it harms women and girls. It shouldn't be a surprise why so many people are against such changes being imposed.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  "The impact is mostly on women and girls, for whom female-only spaces are essential for their safety and dignity." This is an inherently self-contradictory position, because it implies that trans men must be forced into women's spaces.
  - unitol 2y ago
    I don't see how this is a self-contradictory position. Women who've decided to call themselves men are in fact still women.
    - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
      Your position is that this is about protecting women's spaces and making them feel safe and dignified. Your position is also that somebody like Buck Angel must use the women's bathroom, because he is "in fact still a woman." My assertion is that this is contradictory, because forcing somebody like Buck Angel to use the womens' bathroom will make women and girls feel less safe, not more.
      - unitol 2y ago
        This is about every female-only space, not just bathrooms. Consider prisons, for example. There have been many cases recently of male criminals being transferred to the female prison estate, on the basis of their self-declared so-called "female gender identity", who have then raped and in some cases impregnated women incarcerated with them. It should be obvious that the same risk is not present from other female prisoners. Even if they happen to look very butch and/or hirsute. So keeping prisons single-sex is clearly a much better policy for incarcerated women. Even for bathroom spaces, the prospect of laws that penalize males who decide to use female bathrooms is good news. This is because the threat of negative consequences for such behavior makes it much less likely that any such males will even bother trying, which means that women in general will not only be safer, but also can feel safer, because they know that any individuals encountered in these spaces are almost certainly female. Even if, like Buck Angel, they don't conform to feminine stereotypes.
mulmen 2y ago
> This is also a major reason why Trump got elected: people have so little trust in the current system that they'd rather vote for somebody who promises to break it, than for somebody who promises to improve it. I agree this is what appears to have happened but I still can’t follow the logic. What happens next? Who builds the next system and why should we expect it will be any better?
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  My impression is that a lot of people are just hoping for everything to go to hell to the point where fundamental changes become inevitable, and they're assuming that these fundamental changes will likely be beneficial to them. I'm not sure if this is evidence of how bad people think the status quo is, or if it is evidence of how naive most people are.
  - UncleOxidant 2y ago
    > they're assuming that these fundamental changes will likely be beneficial to them. That rarely works out. When a country collapses the ensuing is chaos going to be a very rough time. Recent examples include the collapse of the Soviet Union. The 90s were really bad for people there. A lot of them moved here to the US to escape that and try to find a better life. I worked with some of them. And now what do they have in Russia? A dictatorship that's not any better than what they had in Soviet times - certainly worse than what they had under Gorbachev. People who assume that something better will rise out of the ashes of collapse, but that rarely happens. Better to try to work to make the system you have better even if in small ways.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    > they're assuming that these fundamental changes will likely be beneficial to them. This is the part that confuses me. I have met a few “burn it down” types but never heard one articulate why that would work out well in the long run. I’m only assuming they even thought that far ahead. The only people who can tell me why they voted for Trump are people who want his specific brand of incremental change.

unitol 2y ago

> The trans topic is a wedge issue that has absolutely no impact on 99% of people. The idea of "gender identity" as based on a subjective inner sense of self, and that "gender identity" must supersede sex, fundamentally reframes a core characteristic of the entire human population. When implemented in law and policy, this affects everyone. The impact is mostly on women and girls, for whom female-only spaces are essential for their safety and dignity. Allowing any man who says he's a women into such spaces undermines the very reason they exist in the first place, and effectively destroys them. This isn't progress; it harms women and girls. It shouldn't be a surprise why so many people are against such changes being imposed.

InsideOutSanta 2y ago
"The impact is mostly on women and girls, for whom female-only spaces are essential for their safety and dignity." This is an inherently self-contradictory position, because it implies that trans men must be forced into women's spaces.
- unitol 2y ago
  I don't see how this is a self-contradictory position. Women who've decided to call themselves men are in fact still women.
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    Your position is that this is about protecting women's spaces and making them feel safe and dignified. Your position is also that somebody like Buck Angel must use the women's bathroom, because he is "in fact still a woman." My assertion is that this is contradictory, because forcing somebody like Buck Angel to use the womens' bathroom will make women and girls feel less safe, not more.
    - unitol 2y ago
      This is about every female-only space, not just bathrooms. Consider prisons, for example. There have been many cases recently of male criminals being transferred to the female prison estate, on the basis of their self-declared so-called "female gender identity", who have then raped and in some cases impregnated women incarcerated with them. It should be obvious that the same risk is not present from other female prisoners. Even if they happen to look very butch and/or hirsute. So keeping prisons single-sex is clearly a much better policy for incarcerated women. Even for bathroom spaces, the prospect of laws that penalize males who decide to use female bathrooms is good news. This is because the threat of negative consequences for such behavior makes it much less likely that any such males will even bother trying, which means that women in general will not only be safer, but also can feel safer, because they know that any individuals encountered in these spaces are almost certainly female. Even if, like Buck Angel, they don't conform to feminine stereotypes.

mulmen 2y ago

> This is also a major reason why Trump got elected: people have so little trust in the current system that they'd rather vote for somebody who promises to break it, than for somebody who promises to improve it. I agree this is what appears to have happened but I still can’t follow the logic. What happens next? Who builds the next system and why should we expect it will be any better?

InsideOutSanta 2y ago
My impression is that a lot of people are just hoping for everything to go to hell to the point where fundamental changes become inevitable, and they're assuming that these fundamental changes will likely be beneficial to them. I'm not sure if this is evidence of how bad people think the status quo is, or if it is evidence of how naive most people are.
- UncleOxidant 2y ago
  > they're assuming that these fundamental changes will likely be beneficial to them. That rarely works out. When a country collapses the ensuing is chaos going to be a very rough time. Recent examples include the collapse of the Soviet Union. The 90s were really bad for people there. A lot of them moved here to the US to escape that and try to find a better life. I worked with some of them. And now what do they have in Russia? A dictatorship that's not any better than what they had in Soviet times - certainly worse than what they had under Gorbachev. People who assume that something better will rise out of the ashes of collapse, but that rarely happens. Better to try to work to make the system you have better even if in small ways.
- mulmen 2y ago
  > they're assuming that these fundamental changes will likely be beneficial to them. This is the part that confuses me. I have met a few “burn it down” types but never heard one articulate why that would work out well in the long run. I’m only assuming they even thought that far ahead. The only people who can tell me why they voted for Trump are people who want his specific brand of incremental change.