myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.win
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I know 8 trans people well and many more as acquaintances. The 8 people I know well range from being an old childhood friend, to coworkers, to students, to neighbors.
I'm mostly aware that they are trans at all due to the increase in anti-trans laws and blatant transphobia in the US. Were it not for that I might not know or even care. But I worry about them.
In each case the fact that they are trans is one of the less interesting things I know about them.
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winShow content
I sometimes want to just explain to the bigots, this could all be very normal if you'd stop huffing bigoted media and get to know someone who was trans. It's just like ... a hormone imbalance that can be treated. It's like being mad at people for having red hair. If only you knew how boring this could be, how normal. How easy to forget that they are trans.
And I could just forget, if it weren't for the bigotry and the threats to their safety.
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winShow content
In decades of knowing trans people in being in places that are more accepting of trans and LGBTQ people I've never once had someone say "how dare you misgender me" though if someone had I don't know if that would matter, it's just nothing like what people expect and fear.
No one is pole dancing. I do not live in a gay pride parade.
I'm a Christian, I go to church now and then. I'm inwardly kind of prudish and I don't even like being around people swearing much.
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winShow content
All these nerds are so normal. And we are all robbed of feeling normal by the bigotry.
I'm glad that I'm not exceptional among the cis people I know in these communities, who are like me frustrated and angry that people we care about are being used as political props.
But how do you explain that everything is normal? How do you make a big sensation about how there is nothing sensational about the fact that people may change their name, or their gender?
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And if you don't like slightly sheltered nerds who wince when we hear swear words there are people who are more outgoing & bodacious: some of them are trans. It's very normal and boring. No one cares.
Whatever cultural daily norms you find ... normal could include trans people. It wouldn't matter. It has no impact on your life.
Why has your fear reached across the country and made one of my students nervous that he can't get his medicine?
How fucking dare you.
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Albert Cardona
albertcardona@mathstodon.xyzShow content
I mean, fishes change gender as part of their natural life cycle; frogs can as well; many animals are hermaphrodites; some are gynandromorphs; homosexuallity is very common (double-digit percent) in a number of mammals and birds, inclusive of the rearing of chicks. Beyond vertebrates, there’s even more variation. As a biologist, these debates are bizarre, because all that matters is that the population persists over time, and individuals contribute what they want or can to that success. And being nice to each other sure smooths everyday life, increasing chances of success. We are all in it together, here on spaceship Earth.
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Diversity in all respects is a strength. It is also a joy. A population of Hegseth clones would be so mind-numbingly tedious that we would welcome its (inevitable) rapid demise.
Imagine a world without railway map nerds. Hideous.
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@futurebird
In my experience, LGBTQ people and their allies want it to be illegal to express yourself in a way that offends them, including misgendering.
Maybe it's different on your side of the pond.
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winShow content
With an online conversation it's hard to know if someone who disagrees with you is being sincere or not.
"LGBTQ people and their allies want it to be illegal to express yourself"
There are always limits to expression. If I decide I don't want to call you by your name, but I feel that "Sealion" is a better name for you, I could get in trouble at work or at school for doing that after you object... because it's rude.
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@futurebird
I have to admit, I don't currently work and I haven't been in school for ages. I'm still rebuilding my life. So I can't really comment on that last point. But I reckon it's probably different in those circumstances than in society as a whole. But still, https://qoto.org/@light/116217402058880799
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Yes, I sincerely believe in freedom of speech. Is there a problem with that? Does that make me a "sea lion"? What even is a "sea lion"? Someone who asks questions? What's wrong with asking questions? Curiosity and debate are good things.
Do you also have this attitude with your students?
@futurebird
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Adriano
adriano@lile.cl@light Just as a semi-disinterested observer: if I held *any* generosity or respect for your position, this disingenuous "well what does sealion actually mean? isn't it something incredibly harmless and positive?" made me lose it. No, a sealion is not somebody who just asks questions, and you know it.
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@futurebird
Also, it's not rude to state a fact so long as you're not rubbing it in.
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winIt never feels good to be wrong. I should know. I want to think "This will sink in if they think about it. And it's easier for me to talk about it than someone more directly invested"
But then I think about a friend who was with their girl scout troop on a trip and some jerk thought one of the girls "didn't look like a girl" and thought it was his duty to bring this up (and the child heard this!) because that's where this is going.
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winIf you are wondering "well was it a trans kid?" Why. That is irrelevant. That is the wrong thing to be worried about here.
Not all girls "look like girls" according to the whims of random men. Their opinions on "what is objectively a woman" are unimportant.
But, in this case it was a cis girl. Just not the most conforming kind of little girl. She wanted to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History museum. Will she even remember the dinosaurs or will she remember the asshole?
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@futurebird @light In this moment where the USA government and several states are actually taking ID and rights away from trans and queer people it's a bit rich to have the gall to utter "In my experience, LGBTQ people and their allies want it to be illegal to express yourself in a way that offends them, including misgendering." Like, kudos, what a massive set of brass gonads.
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If you have a job, and your boss is named "Jane" but you decide you'd rather call her "Debbie" since you think she looks more like a Debbie than a "Jane" and you also decide you'd rather only speak to her by singing... well is it "against free speech" if she fires you for being annoying and not treating her with respect?
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@futurebird That's a silly example. A person's name is their prerogative. Calling someone by a name they don't want to be called by is just plain rude. This goes for both cis and trans people.
That being said, people in power shouldn't punish those "underneath" them for personal reasons.
But not all nouns are names. It's tyrannical to force someone to refer to a man as a "woman" or "she", or vice versa.
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You think this is a good take because a lot of people who cleared the way for fascists to take over told you that free speech was freedom from accountability and consequences.
You can misgender and dead name anyone you want! You won't be arrested or even fined, nor should you be.
But, someone might get sick of you being a little piece of shit and pick you up and throw you out. And that's their right! They should do that!
And this is what we call "society". Welcome.
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Btw if you want to change society so that you get to be a piece of shit but trans people don't get to exist in peace you aren't a "free speech advocate", you're just someone who prefers speech that is abusive and harmful and dramatically restricts and suppresses the expression and speech of others in service to abuse.
The vast majority of people who face consequences for their abusive speech literally sought out victims and abused them at work or at home or in the street.
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Freedom of speech literally means freedom from accountability and consequences tho. That's why it's federal law in many countries. Exactly for the state not to decide to impose "accountability and consequences" for you.
Your ideology is an exact copy of Idi Amins views on this
Idi Amin (former Ugandan dictat…
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winGet some new material. No one believes y'all care about "free speech" anymore.
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you can't even elaborate because your Trump derangement syndrome automatically associates statement A to also support policy B, C, D, E and F.
So yeah, everyone is MAGA, your neighbor is MAGA because he said something vaguely resembling something Trump said, just as your janitor, your student, your taxi driver, your doctor.
I didn't even make a political statement or laid out how to solve addressing trans people in interactions in general (I personally just use the names and suggested pronouns), I mainly came here to observe Taylans curious autism on this topic and pointed out an intellectual flaw I saw presented by John.
Neither I, Taylan or light even live in the United states, and as for Taylan I know he voted a social democratic party in Europe while I voted socialist.
And for the record I think barely anyone on the American Right believes in free speech, they only do when convenient, just as you guys. I just assume you are not happy with this situation, but don't ever consider that persecuting perception (which pronouns ultimately are) or dissident thought could backfire.
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winShow content
I can understand the fears that people have for their children. "be yourself" is good advice but being yourself can be dangerous. And that's often not fair. You might tell your teen daughter "you're not leaving the house dressed like that" you know she could be hurt. It's "better parenting" to make it clear why you are making such demands, but there is this practical impulse to keep young people safe.
I've spoken to parents of trans kids filled with fear.
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Joscelyn Transpiring
JoscelynTransient@chaosfem.twShow content
@futurebird I’ve definitely been there with parents that are wrestling with this fear too, more than any bigotry or biases (plenty of parents of trans kids that do have transphobia to work through too, but this is a thing I’ve seen too among some).
With the way you framed it…it somehow brought to mind the way Ta-Nehisi Coates describes why his family resorted to physical punishment: fear of what the outside world would do to him. I remember that hitting like a pile of bricks when I read “Between the World and Me,” the lesson his family was teaching him before the world taught him that his body didn’t belong to himself under a system of racism.
Makes me think about this parallel, how the current political powers are making it very clear that they do not think trans people’s, especially trans kids’, bodies belong to themselves. How it’s a lesson so many of us have to internalize and navigate to survive. And I can so easily see parents of trans kids wrestling with how to try to instill in them that their lives and bodies should belong to themselves but that there are violence shitheads who don’t.
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winShow content
But, having seen decades of trans lives as an outsider I think it's better to still be yourself in the end. It's healthier. It's safer.
That it is less safe to be a trans kid than a cis kid isn't the fault of trans kids.
Like, we all knew that, right? But it's worth saying anyway I think.
Even if we enter a more repressive world I will still know the same number of trans people.
This is nothing new, and maybe we are painfully turning a corner.
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myrmepropagandist
futurebird@sauropods.winShow content
It already exists in little pockets, it works better than the alternatives. It's spreading.
Maybe things are going to get worse before they get better but I believe in and want the future where being trans is boring.
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@dagda @taylan @light @futurebird
You literally want the right to verbally abuse people into not expressing themselves.
But wait! You *have* that right. That's why you're even on here writing anything at all.
Freedom of speech, everyone.
But that's not *all* you want. You also want *back* what you lost: the *privilege* to do that anywhere and everywhere, and have the powers-that-be back you up with guns and cash.
That some small amount of that power was lost is an unforgivable offense.
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You're relying on me being a gormless liberal who is bamboozled by edge cases, lies, and extremist propaganda, and that's a bad assumption. I understand the difference between your ideology of aggressive eliminationism and what you call a "gender ideology" which is just people trying to live their lives how they choose to live them.
To that point, trans people's right to live free of defamatory abuse and your right to defame and abuse them are not equivalent.
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Again - I'm not a ridiculous liberal who is confused about what free speech is, or that it comes with responsibility, just like any freedom does.
You're an enemy of freedom using the vernacular of freedom to destroy it anywhere you can find it. Your particular burning cross is erasing trans people; the KKK wants to erase the free Black person; the Christofascist wants to erase women and openly queer people. You are all the same creature in different skins.
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It is not contradictory to say that protecting freedom of speech and expression means suppressing speech and expression that only exists to destroy freedom of speech and expression, any more than it is contradictory for someone who doesn't believe in killing to protect themselves with ultimate force from someone trying to kill them.
After all, to allow bullies the freedom to destroy freedom is suicide, not principle.
At least to *grown* people, it is.
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I know that's all you hear. I'm arguing with you to sharpen my ability to dismantle your arguments for third parties, not to persuade you not to be a fool and a bully.
I don't have the power for that lol lmao
Only you can decide not to dedicate your life to polishing your boot and then looking for necks of people weaker than you to stomp on.
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The Dread Slender Gnome
Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz@taylan I see you run into someone who doesn't appear know the difference between a subjective perception and a reality claim.
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> You literally want the right to verbally abuse people into not expressing themselves.
No I don't, I use suggested pronouns and names when talking with or about trans people
> But wait! You *have* that right. That's why you're even on here writing anything at all.
Freedom of speech, everyone.
I didn't even write anything particular on the topic at hand, I just pointed out your flawed definition of free speech. Taylan has compiled some sources that there are in fact countries that will legally punish you for talking about transgenderism on an abstract, conceptual level (not specific social interactions with trans people) in a way that the government doesn't approve of. If these are "fringe edge cases" what's stopping the right wing and fence sitters from calling repression against liberals and anti-fascists the same way?
Either way looking at your profile I noticed how you are literally an ameriKKKan theater kid so I apologize for not recognizing earlier that you are incapable of formulating reasonable or independent thoughts
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The Dread Slender Gnome
Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyzand you would be rightful to ask why the distinction even matters at that point
Because a convincing lie doesn't become a truth.
Neither does a convincing forgery become the real thing.
Truth matters.
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CAIS mentioned
Fun fact: I knew an individual with XY CAIS once, this person was so fucking annoyed at trans activism for constantly using Intersex as an unilateral discourse tool for their gain, said some polemic stuff about the T a biological women wouldn't have ever been able to get away with. Really shows how little political logic is behind the LGBTIQ+ acronym. Barely anyone can even properly describe the 100+ intersex conditions (of which almost all point to variance within the sex binary, not a spectrum of sex) but trans activists will spread misinformation about them in every second sentence regardless
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@futurebird Being gay is a far bigger part of my life than being trans. Because I walk around holding my partner's hand. Or giving her a hug. Or we smile at one another and pay for food together. It's easy for people to tell we're a pair of women who are together.
Trans? I'm in no way ashamed of it, and sometimes I have a trans pride something or another around. But most of the time? It's about as interesting of a part of me as where I went to college. Sure I still deal with the remaining body dysphoria, but so do cis people.
Just leave us alone and we'll be your slightly quirky neighbors who are a bit more empathetic to the plights of both genders than average.
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Alexandre Oliva
lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.brShow content
CC: @futurebird@sauropods.win
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The Dread Slender Gnome
Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz@taylan I get that you're trying to make a nuanced argument that takes every detail into account.
But I do think there's a general principle here that can be applied, and should be applied. Namely, that "is" and "is not" are not just a meaningful, but profoundly important distinction.
If I acquire a laboriously crafted facsimile of an old, rare book, correct to the last detail, including using old paper, leather and thread, so well made that there is indeed "very little difference" between the facsimile and the real one, there will still be a difference. And the facsimile will be a facsimile, and the real one will be the real one.
Some people might not care. Others might be fooled and not be able to tell the difference. But that wouldn't change the fact of one being real and one a copy.
I think that alone is important, and I think leaving that principle out of discussions does a disservice in the long run. It also opens the door for obfuscation of the kind you're describing.
But if we set the difference between "is" and "is not" as our compass point from the get go, we can cut through a lot of confusion.
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@lxo @futurebird Well we're both trans, live in "good" states, and just cut people out of our lives if they're shitty about it. So we don't really know nor care what they think. They're just dead to us if they don't accept both parts of us.
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@lxo @futurebird plus "stealth" enough most strangers just say "eh more woman than man, well just assume gay over trans"
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Nicholas Conrad
nicholas@aklp.clubyour DNA can reveal your ancestry. I thought this is widely known.
New ivy-league memo dropped. Paola Ramos has a masters in public policy from Harvard and is very confident genes are just a racist fever dream.
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The Dread Slender Gnome
Gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz@taylan It's possible they have to make that comparison, because otherwise calling a man a man could not be construed as dehumanisation.
If they were to admit that there's nothing devaluing in saying a man pretending not to be a man is still a man, their entire case for forcing other people to go along with the pretence would fall apart.
The only way disagreeing with TWAW and TMAM is bad, is if it's somehow bad to state honestly what sex a person is, and that can only be true if the statement "you are a man" is interpreted as fundamentally expressing an inferiority. In other words, it must be construed as a declaration of inferiority, in order for them to hang on to their idea that saying TWAM is bad.
I suspect that as long as the person you're talking to wants to hang on to the idea that TWAW and that must not be questioned, there will be no way you can convince them that what you're saying is not the same as racism.
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