6 ms·

> for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose Ugh, I'm going to regret commenting here, but it really seems like thi

> for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose Ugh, I'm going to regret commenting here, but it really seems like this obsession is almost entirely on the right wing. In the US, the centrist Dems have been banging the appeasement drum for my entire political life, and it's gotten us nowhere. Like... the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if everyone just shuts up and lets them discriminate against the hate group of the moment. The bathroom thing is also such a bait and switch, same as sports. In my state, we removed protections for housing and employment discrimination against trans people because... one trans athlete existed? The real question we need to answer is why the right is so obsessed with other peoples' genitals, to the point that they have to make up stories and generate AI videos to get mad at. I for one am sick of people focusing on a tiny fraction of the population and making them a scapegoat for everything. You're absolutely right that climate change is a bigger issue - so why can't we focus on it? We can't focus on it because the anti-reality reactionaries are using trans people as a distraction. It's all one big malignant tumor on society, not a collection of unrelated issues.

cogman10 7mo ago
It's all about propaganda. Rightwing media is incredibly well funded and a big portion of that reason is because rich people have been using propaganda to boost their industries since almost forever. Republicans in the late 60s were the party of the EPA. What changed? People like the Koch brothers dumped literal millions into rightwing outlets big and small to talk about how awesome it is to burn oil. A similar thing happened with smoking. Rush Limbaugh, even as he had lung cancer, was talking about what a myth it was that smoking caused lung cancer almost right up until his death. Whenever you find highly monied interests, you can find a right wing propagandist that will tell you black is white. And the insidious thing is that they don't spend their entire broadcast talking about the glories of oil or smoking. No, the best ones just insert it in as little throw away lines while talking about feminazis, gay people, trans people, black people, mexicans, etc. That's effectively how the propaganda works. Get people highly tuned up on an emotional topic and then just slip in here and there lies that you don't even think about. As a kid, I listened to probably a thousand hours of rightwing talkshow hosts because of my parents. Once I started viewing things with a more critical mind it became beyond obvious what game they are playing. Unfortunately, not everyone picks up on this game.
- chazzalpha 7mo ago
  The propaganda machine is powerful, precisely because the ultra-wealthy who fund it want the people to fight a culture war instead of a class war. The wealthy have been successfully astroturfing right-wing anti-democratic movements for decades, to the point that fascism is making a comeback. Climate-change denial was one of their earlier experiments, and anti-trans psyop is their most recent. The result is the same, creating false divisions among the masses who have more in common than they realize. The world is burning before our eyes. It is unconscionable to use the rights and the bodies of the marginalized to put out the fire. What would be the point of making a better society if it requires leaving the most vulnerable behind? How would that even be a better society? We must be cognizant of who the real enemy is and never do the oppressor's work for them. Billionaires have class solidarity; for our planet’s survival, we must build solidarity as well. Fight the class war, and you fight climate change, transphobia, and all threats to life and liberty.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > the ultra-wealthy who fund it want the people to fight a culture war instead of a class war We're capable of fighting more than one political war at a time. All evidence points to the donor class actually being vested in these culture war issues. Democrat donors prioritise Gaza and trans issues. MAGA donors prioritise Israel and Bible thumping. The Adelsons aren't donating to GOP candidates to distract anyome class issues, they're donating because they have non-economic policy preferences to push.
tac19 7mo ago
> climate change is a bigger issue - so why can't we focus on it? What it needed was for strong left-wing people to stand up and denounce the distraction. To claim loud and proudly that transgender issues were not important when compared to climate change. To refocus the public on climate change and take the wind out of the fringe issue. Instead, we took to the street for BLM, when it wasn't an important issue, when compared to climate change. You can't blame the right-wing for the number of people who filled the streets for BLM... during a pandemic where we were supposed to socially distance. It cost us doubly. And not one important left-wing voice stood up and said so.
- empyrrhicist 7mo ago
  There's a Guante lyric I really like about this topic that I think highlights how I feel about your argument: "Those who turn hoses on water protеctors Are those who cage "Stop Cop City" protеstors And enforce the brutality of the border Same ones who enforce bans on drag performers Same ones who enforce bans On crossing state lines for abortions Some of those that work forces Are the same that burn crosses Are the same that burn everything For the bosses" I don't think we totally disagree, but I come down differently on where to point the blame. > What it needed was for strong left-wing people to stand up and denounce the distraction. I mean, that did happen. > To claim loud and proudly that transgender issues were not important when compared to climate change. That was said, along with housing prices/inflation/corruption. > Instead, we took to the street for BLM, when it wasn't an important issue Here's where you're really, really losing me. You're: 1. Pivoting to a totally different issue 2. Ignoring the role of the media in promoting the most controversial takes and presentation of both issues. It sucks to blame people for having values when the real problem is for-profit engagement-based media. 3. Ick - it really rubs me the wrong way to see people say "BLM wasn't an important issue when compared to climate change". That seems really easy to say if you're not under routine threat of state violence, but BLM was a reaction to a very real epidemic of state violence against black people. To those people, that kind of immediate threat IS as big a deal as climate change. If anything, criticize the branding of "defund the police" (which was so bad I half wonder if it was a psyop). Moreover, part of my original point was that climate change isn't a separate thing - it's a problem because the same systems that use wedge issues to divide us all benefit from the unsustainable status-quo. The realpolitik take on this seems so short sighted - it takes for granted that some progress can be made on climate change by ignoring our values, while also ignoring that alienating the affected groups makes it harder to change our society enough to do anything about climate change.
lelanthran 7mo ago
> In my state, we removed protections for housing and employment discrimination against trans people because... one trans athlete existed? I think you're sort of proving the parent's point - when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person? Trans rights ain't even that popular; most people are okay with "you think you're someone else? Well, fine, no skin off my nose". OTOH, the majority of people globally aren't okay with "It must be a crime if you don't treat me as a member of the opposite sex". The identity politics, of all forms, sucked out much of the air from the room leaving precious little left for discussing things like climate change. Whether we like it or not, human attention is a limited resource. If you're going to allow a few vocal nutters to direct the course of your discussion, then you can't very well complain, now can you? I mean, that's what leaders are supposed to do - direct the discussion. When the opposition says "They want to let men into women's changing rooms", then you say "No, we don't support that at all". I mean, voters find some things distasteful - you have to choose which of those things you are going to argue for, and which you are going to back down from. Diluting your message so that you mention a little bit of everything is just dumb politics, because human attention is a limited resource!
- empyrrhicist 7mo ago
  I made my position clear in other comments, so I'll leave it at that. I do not find your arguments persuasive.
- array_key_first 7mo ago
  > "It must be a crime if you don't treat me as a member of the opposite sex". This is a thing that basically does not exist. This is, again, more right-wing culture war bullshit that was cooked up in a meth lab. It's not real. Can you get fired if you purposefully antagonize your boss at work? Yes. That's always been the case. Guess what, if I call my boss a jackass I'm probably getting shown the door, and that's not even a pronoun. Can you get in trouble for discriminating based on gender and sexual orientation? Yes, and that's been the case for a while. Nobody is getting into legal trouble because they don't personally believe trans women aren't "real" women, whatever "real" might mean to them. Nobody, not a soul. It's just a non-issue. What's going on is there is a set of people who are basically just doing nothing who are under constant new and innovative threats from the right. And, when they say, "hey, don't do that", we somehow have the gall to point at them and yell "Culture war! Culture war!" It's not that people's goodwill is being burnt on trans people. It's that the right has been playing to the populist messaging they have in order to continue their crusade. While the economy is burning down, and the climate is worsening, and we are entering wars, they are trying to convince you the problem is some set of people who are doing nothing. And, that the solution is simple: beat down this set of people. This includes immigrants, trans people, gay people. Of course, it's just not true. But humans are stupid. We're already pre-wired to be uneasy around people we don't understand who are different from us, especially visibly different. And, humans understand and have high confidence in simple solutions. I mean, God, look at the border wall. Will that work? Did that work? Of course not. But it's such a simple, almost child-like understanding of the problem that people had very high confidence in it.
asmsecnd 7mo ago
In the US, it was the left who decided to push gender identity into law and policy, with no regard to the adverse consequences of doing so. That the right decided to capitalize on this for political reasons is just them taking an opportunity that was basically handed to them on a plate. Interestingly it's a bit different in the UK. Both the main left and right parties had been promoting gender identity based policy for years, and it was only though the dedicated efforts of feminists who pointed out all the problems with this, and particularly the negative impacts on women and girls, that it recently started to be reversed.
- empyrrhicist 7mo ago
  I don't think you and I live in the same information universe, since I disagree with literally every thing you've said here. Unfortunately I don't have the energy to productively try to disabuse you of (what I believe are) delusions, misinformation and ignorance, so... have a nice day I guess.
  - asmsecnd 7mo ago
    Perhaps we have received different information on this topic. I am curious why you disagree though, as I consider my perspective to based in verifiable fact. For example, in the UK, it was Theresa May's right-wing Conservative government who planned to reform the law to make it easier, and with fewer medical requirements, for people to acquire a Gender Recognition Certificate. They had a public consultation too. This move was supported by the left-wing Labour Party. And in recent years, legal action and advocacy by feminist groups has been a highly significant factor in policy changes around this area, most notably For Women Scotland who took their legal challenge all the way to the UK's Supreme Court, winning the case with a statutory reinterpretation of the Equality Act.
rawgabbit 7mo ago
The reality is that the US is divided on gender issues. Full stop. It is a distraction and a useful one for MAGA. Among the Democrats, we keep getting tripped up by it and nominate candidates who don't realize the political land mine that it is. I am for gender equality, for racial equality, for renewables, for nuclear energy. But please win the election by prioritizing talking about jobs, jobs, jobs, economic disopportunity, and naked corruption. After winning the election, then you can address gender issues along with the full slate of Democratic platform priorities.
- zardo 7mo ago
  How are you supposed to know which Democrat secretly supports trans rights?
  - Sabinus 7mo ago
    Dems are supposed to be able to talk frankly about their beliefs without the left wing of the party destroying them. There shouldn't be political consequences from within the Dem coalition for saying "I don't think we should have trans people in professional women's sports". Since the Dems can't talk about the policies, the right wing gets to take up all the attention on them.
    - aaAaaAai 7mo ago
      Some Democrats do. Kara Dansky of Women's Declaration International, for instance.
- watwut 7mo ago
  Democrats were NOT talking about transgender issues. Conservatives were. Democrats talking about jobs, economic disopportunity, and naked corruption gets no votes, because republican voters are not motivated by those. They are using those as talking point against democrats, but that is about it.
JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if everyone just shuts up and lets them discriminate against the hate group of the moment No. But a lot of people in the center will listen to academics again if they don't think they're being lectured on a new definition of bigotry every fifteen minutes. Also, from what I can tell, the issue of trans rights caused issues in the centre when it lept to kids' sports. Even the bathrooms were mostly the edges of the political spectrum screaming at each other. But when it touched kids' sports, a lot of folks got off their couches, and that was–given the stakes–a sort of needless battle.
- empyrrhicist 7mo ago
  > No. But a lot of people in the center will listen to academics again if they don't think they're being lectured on a new definition of bigotry every fifteen minutes. I get annoyed by some performative language games too, but I just don't see any evidence that your broader claim here is true. > Also, from what I can tell, the issue of trans rights caused issues in the centre when it lept to kids' sports. Most people are willing to acknowledge that the sports issue is a bit complicated, but it's also such an incredibly niche issue and so much lower stakes than everything else. People got off their couches for the sports thing because it's a "safe" environment in which to express hatred towards an out group. You can tell that it was never about sports by the actions taken by the loudest complainers on the issue (enshrining housing and employment discrimination, weird laws about forcing teachers to report violations of religious principles to parents, creepy nonsense like the bill to make lists of all trans people or mass cancel all of their drivers licenses etc.)

cogman10 7mo ago

It's all about propaganda. Rightwing media is incredibly well funded and a big portion of that reason is because rich people have been using propaganda to boost their industries since almost forever. Republicans in the late 60s were the party of the EPA. What changed? People like the Koch brothers dumped literal millions into rightwing outlets big and small to talk about how awesome it is to burn oil. A similar thing happened with smoking. Rush Limbaugh, even as he had lung cancer, was talking about what a myth it was that smoking caused lung cancer almost right up until his death. Whenever you find highly monied interests, you can find a right wing propagandist that will tell you black is white. And the insidious thing is that they don't spend their entire broadcast talking about the glories of oil or smoking. No, the best ones just insert it in as little throw away lines while talking about feminazis, gay people, trans people, black people, mexicans, etc. That's effectively how the propaganda works. Get people highly tuned up on an emotional topic and then just slip in here and there lies that you don't even think about. As a kid, I listened to probably a thousand hours of rightwing talkshow hosts because of my parents. Once I started viewing things with a more critical mind it became beyond obvious what game they are playing. Unfortunately, not everyone picks up on this game.

chazzalpha 7mo ago
The propaganda machine is powerful, precisely because the ultra-wealthy who fund it want the people to fight a culture war instead of a class war. The wealthy have been successfully astroturfing right-wing anti-democratic movements for decades, to the point that fascism is making a comeback. Climate-change denial was one of their earlier experiments, and anti-trans psyop is their most recent. The result is the same, creating false divisions among the masses who have more in common than they realize. The world is burning before our eyes. It is unconscionable to use the rights and the bodies of the marginalized to put out the fire. What would be the point of making a better society if it requires leaving the most vulnerable behind? How would that even be a better society? We must be cognizant of who the real enemy is and never do the oppressor's work for them. Billionaires have class solidarity; for our planet’s survival, we must build solidarity as well. Fight the class war, and you fight climate change, transphobia, and all threats to life and liberty.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > the ultra-wealthy who fund it want the people to fight a culture war instead of a class war We're capable of fighting more than one political war at a time. All evidence points to the donor class actually being vested in these culture war issues. Democrat donors prioritise Gaza and trans issues. MAGA donors prioritise Israel and Bible thumping. The Adelsons aren't donating to GOP candidates to distract anyome class issues, they're donating because they have non-economic policy preferences to push.

tac19 7mo ago

> climate change is a bigger issue - so why can't we focus on it? What it needed was for strong left-wing people to stand up and denounce the distraction. To claim loud and proudly that transgender issues were not important when compared to climate change. To refocus the public on climate change and take the wind out of the fringe issue. Instead, we took to the street for BLM, when it wasn't an important issue, when compared to climate change. You can't blame the right-wing for the number of people who filled the streets for BLM... during a pandemic where we were supposed to socially distance. It cost us doubly. And not one important left-wing voice stood up and said so.

empyrrhicist 7mo ago
There's a Guante lyric I really like about this topic that I think highlights how I feel about your argument: "Those who turn hoses on water protеctors Are those who cage "Stop Cop City" protеstors And enforce the brutality of the border Same ones who enforce bans on drag performers Same ones who enforce bans On crossing state lines for abortions Some of those that work forces Are the same that burn crosses Are the same that burn everything For the bosses" I don't think we totally disagree, but I come down differently on where to point the blame. > What it needed was for strong left-wing people to stand up and denounce the distraction. I mean, that did happen. > To claim loud and proudly that transgender issues were not important when compared to climate change. That was said, along with housing prices/inflation/corruption. > Instead, we took to the street for BLM, when it wasn't an important issue Here's where you're really, really losing me. You're: 1. Pivoting to a totally different issue 2. Ignoring the role of the media in promoting the most controversial takes and presentation of both issues. It sucks to blame people for having values when the real problem is for-profit engagement-based media. 3. Ick - it really rubs me the wrong way to see people say "BLM wasn't an important issue when compared to climate change". That seems really easy to say if you're not under routine threat of state violence, but BLM was a reaction to a very real epidemic of state violence against black people. To those people, that kind of immediate threat IS as big a deal as climate change. If anything, criticize the branding of "defund the police" (which was so bad I half wonder if it was a psyop). Moreover, part of my original point was that climate change isn't a separate thing - it's a problem because the same systems that use wedge issues to divide us all benefit from the unsustainable status-quo. The realpolitik take on this seems so short sighted - it takes for granted that some progress can be made on climate change by ignoring our values, while also ignoring that alienating the affected groups makes it harder to change our society enough to do anything about climate change.

lelanthran 7mo ago

> In my state, we removed protections for housing and employment discrimination against trans people because... one trans athlete existed? I think you're sort of proving the parent's point - when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person? Trans rights ain't even that popular; most people are okay with "you think you're someone else? Well, fine, no skin off my nose". OTOH, the majority of people globally aren't okay with "It must be a crime if you don't treat me as a member of the opposite sex". The identity politics, of all forms, sucked out much of the air from the room leaving precious little left for discussing things like climate change. Whether we like it or not, human attention is a limited resource. If you're going to allow a few vocal nutters to direct the course of your discussion, then you can't very well complain, now can you? I mean, that's what leaders are supposed to do - direct the discussion. When the opposition says "They want to let men into women's changing rooms", then you say "No, we don't support that at all". I mean, voters find some things distasteful - you have to choose which of those things you are going to argue for, and which you are going to back down from. Diluting your message so that you mention a little bit of everything is just dumb politics, because human attention is a limited resource!

empyrrhicist 7mo ago
I made my position clear in other comments, so I'll leave it at that. I do not find your arguments persuasive.
array_key_first 7mo ago
> "It must be a crime if you don't treat me as a member of the opposite sex". This is a thing that basically does not exist. This is, again, more right-wing culture war bullshit that was cooked up in a meth lab. It's not real. Can you get fired if you purposefully antagonize your boss at work? Yes. That's always been the case. Guess what, if I call my boss a jackass I'm probably getting shown the door, and that's not even a pronoun. Can you get in trouble for discriminating based on gender and sexual orientation? Yes, and that's been the case for a while. Nobody is getting into legal trouble because they don't personally believe trans women aren't "real" women, whatever "real" might mean to them. Nobody, not a soul. It's just a non-issue. What's going on is there is a set of people who are basically just doing nothing who are under constant new and innovative threats from the right. And, when they say, "hey, don't do that", we somehow have the gall to point at them and yell "Culture war! Culture war!" It's not that people's goodwill is being burnt on trans people. It's that the right has been playing to the populist messaging they have in order to continue their crusade. While the economy is burning down, and the climate is worsening, and we are entering wars, they are trying to convince you the problem is some set of people who are doing nothing. And, that the solution is simple: beat down this set of people. This includes immigrants, trans people, gay people. Of course, it's just not true. But humans are stupid. We're already pre-wired to be uneasy around people we don't understand who are different from us, especially visibly different. And, humans understand and have high confidence in simple solutions. I mean, God, look at the border wall. Will that work? Did that work? Of course not. But it's such a simple, almost child-like understanding of the problem that people had very high confidence in it.

asmsecnd 7mo ago

In the US, it was the left who decided to push gender identity into law and policy, with no regard to the adverse consequences of doing so. That the right decided to capitalize on this for political reasons is just them taking an opportunity that was basically handed to them on a plate. Interestingly it's a bit different in the UK. Both the main left and right parties had been promoting gender identity based policy for years, and it was only though the dedicated efforts of feminists who pointed out all the problems with this, and particularly the negative impacts on women and girls, that it recently started to be reversed.

empyrrhicist 7mo ago
I don't think you and I live in the same information universe, since I disagree with literally every thing you've said here. Unfortunately I don't have the energy to productively try to disabuse you of (what I believe are) delusions, misinformation and ignorance, so... have a nice day I guess.
- asmsecnd 7mo ago
  Perhaps we have received different information on this topic. I am curious why you disagree though, as I consider my perspective to based in verifiable fact. For example, in the UK, it was Theresa May's right-wing Conservative government who planned to reform the law to make it easier, and with fewer medical requirements, for people to acquire a Gender Recognition Certificate. They had a public consultation too. This move was supported by the left-wing Labour Party. And in recent years, legal action and advocacy by feminist groups has been a highly significant factor in policy changes around this area, most notably For Women Scotland who took their legal challenge all the way to the UK's Supreme Court, winning the case with a statutory reinterpretation of the Equality Act.

rawgabbit 7mo ago

The reality is that the US is divided on gender issues. Full stop. It is a distraction and a useful one for MAGA. Among the Democrats, we keep getting tripped up by it and nominate candidates who don't realize the political land mine that it is. I am for gender equality, for racial equality, for renewables, for nuclear energy. But please win the election by prioritizing talking about jobs, jobs, jobs, economic disopportunity, and naked corruption. After winning the election, then you can address gender issues along with the full slate of Democratic platform priorities.

zardo 7mo ago
How are you supposed to know which Democrat secretly supports trans rights?
- Sabinus 7mo ago
  Dems are supposed to be able to talk frankly about their beliefs without the left wing of the party destroying them. There shouldn't be political consequences from within the Dem coalition for saying "I don't think we should have trans people in professional women's sports". Since the Dems can't talk about the policies, the right wing gets to take up all the attention on them.
  - aaAaaAai 7mo ago
    Some Democrats do. Kara Dansky of Women's Declaration International, for instance.
watwut 7mo ago
Democrats were NOT talking about transgender issues. Conservatives were. Democrats talking about jobs, economic disopportunity, and naked corruption gets no votes, because republican voters are not motivated by those. They are using those as talking point against democrats, but that is about it.

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago

> the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if everyone just shuts up and lets them discriminate against the hate group of the moment No. But a lot of people in the center will listen to academics again if they don't think they're being lectured on a new definition of bigotry every fifteen minutes. Also, from what I can tell, the issue of trans rights caused issues in the centre when it lept to kids' sports. Even the bathrooms were mostly the edges of the political spectrum screaming at each other. But when it touched kids' sports, a lot of folks got off their couches, and that was–given the stakes–a sort of needless battle.

empyrrhicist 7mo ago
> No. But a lot of people in the center will listen to academics again if they don't think they're being lectured on a new definition of bigotry every fifteen minutes. I get annoyed by some performative language games too, but I just don't see any evidence that your broader claim here is true. > Also, from what I can tell, the issue of trans rights caused issues in the centre when it lept to kids' sports. Most people are willing to acknowledge that the sports issue is a bit complicated, but it's also such an incredibly niche issue and so much lower stakes than everything else. People got off their couches for the sports thing because it's a "safe" environment in which to express hatred towards an out group. You can tell that it was never about sports by the actions taken by the loudest complainers on the issue (enshrining housing and employment discrimination, weird laws about forcing teachers to report violations of religious principles to parents, creepy nonsense like the bill to make lists of all trans people or mass cancel all of their drivers licenses etc.)