>The rancour and confusion on these issues at the moment is awful, I just hope that it's something that we will get through and come out of with a better understanding of trans issues and better lives for trans people.
I will guarantee that this won't happen. The current approach is radicalizing people against trans.
>I'm hetero white male myself so have no standing on this,
You're wrong. You are part of your society and your society must have a standing. Your opinion matters, whatever it might be. Never ever censor yourself on issues. When the mob comes because you don't have the right opinion. Humour and 'here's my opinion, why am I wrong' is the way to go.
>but going through the AIDS epidemic at it's height in the 80s as a teenager was a transformative experience for me. In particular the almost gleeful reaction to the advent of the "gay plague" from many religious conservatives in the US horrified me, especially as I consider myself broadly conservative, at least on economics.
This sounds like me. There is certainly a statistic that aids does disproportionately harm homosexual males. It's important to make people aware of this, but we both agree the republicans from ~40 years ago were a bit scummy. Hell even the Oreilly and Hannity era...
But this changed. There's many many openly homosexual republicans now. Dave Rubin is probably one of the key people you would be interested in. He literally had Ben Shapiro on his show call him names to his face. That's what has to happen sometimes.
>Fortunately we seem to have got through that for the most part. Acceptance of LGB rights and respect for their dignity has, in the upcoming generation including my own kids, become thoroughly uncontroversial and they want to do right by Transgender people too.
Largely speaking not because of someone coming along and banning you for your views. But rather showing that their prejudices were wrong by being good people to them and talking to them.
>The Transgender debate is in a very difficult phase, partly because some issues like sports seem to overlap with and contend uncomfortably with hard won respect for women's rights and identity.
We aren't even close to the difficult phase yet. All the current pro-trans approaches are causing more animosity and censoring the debate that must occur will actually make the situation far worse than it currently is.
>You're quite right, the maximalist gender political wing isn't helping at all. Polarisation is not the way to go on this, it's going to take time for people to get to understand the issues and develop informed opinions, but the road we've travelled for LGB rights shows it's possible and worthwhile.
The other key factor to deal with. Trans people are pawns in the grander scheme. This has little to do with trans people but rather a political issue that is being used to censor political opponents and remove their seat in the debate. This will come at the cost to Trans people.
> The current approach is radicalizing people against trans.
I have seen no evidence in support of this. There's plenty of anecdotes of people saying it happened to them, but no evidence of a widespread trend.
I remember when "gay" was the insult du jour in middle school. Now high schools are having walkouts in opposition of homophobic laws [1]. This would never have happened ten years ago. It wasn't even conceivable twenty years ago. Gay rights were further from the mainstream than trans rights are now. These things move fast, and they move together.
> There's many many openly homosexual republicans now.
Did the Republican party start supporting gay marriage while I wasn't looking? Some republicans still feel comfortable questioning interracial marriage.
> Trans people are pawns in the grander scheme. This has little to do with trans people but rather a political issue that is being used to censor political opponents and remove their seat in the debate.
Maybe they aren't. Maybe trans people are the important issue here. Maybe people really do believe the things they say they believe, support the things they say they support. It's a comforting thought to deny it, because if attacks on trans people aren't a proxy for some other issue, then it rules out the easy solutions where you can just convince them to stop.
And that's reddit... where there are no conservatives left. They've banned all of us.
>Now high schools are having walkouts in opposition of homophobic laws [1]
School walkouts by children aren't because the students are so well versed and well informed on issues. They were convinced by the teachers to walk out. People who wanted to skip school joins.
So frankly the title of 'dont say gay' is propaganda.
So what does it say?
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third
98 parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur
99 in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age
100 appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
So it's not that they banned saying gay. They banned talking about sexual orientation with children below grade 3. So 8 years old? Do kids younger than 8 years old need to know about sexual orientation as defined by the government? or should parents be responsible here? I say parents, but this is a key political point. There is no objective truth of what is right or wrong on this issue. What should the age be? Age of consent is similar, no one has the answer to what the age of consent should be.
>Did the Republican party start supporting gay marriage while I wasn't looking? Some republicans still feel comfortable questioning interracial marriage.
Not exactly what I said; but its amazing how people are allowed to have differing views. I'm not in or from the USA so I'm not going to defend unnamed random republicans who probably dont represent the party. How about Trump's position: https://www.ontheissues.org/2020/Donald_Trump_Civil_Rights.h...
Ya he went around the world and picked a fight with places like the middle east and russia to fight for gay rights. Seems like Trump was doing the right thing?
That gay marriage is a state issue. Which it very clearly is a state issue.
>Maybe they aren't. Maybe trans people are the important issue here. Maybe people really do believe the things they say they believe, support the things they say they support. It's a comforting thought to deny it, because if attacks on trans people aren't a proxy for some other issue, then it rules out the easy solutions where you can just convince them to stop.
We could go into this if you're interested. We would need primers on the grand debt cycle, the new world order stuff(mainly china becoming #1, good job USA shipping all your factories to china), the USA losing their reserve currency benefits, and the coming probable civil war as indicated by the huge political polarization coming from the democratic party. So for example this 43 minute video covering it only slightly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8
> And that's reddit... where there are no conservatives left.
I don't know if that's true. I'd always hear Reddit was more conservative than most other sites.
I've noticed that people of every political alignment think that social media is biased against them. In truth, both sides have prominent figures who would have been banned years ago if they weren't famous enough to get an exception from the rules, both sides have people banned for no good reason, and both sides have people banned for good reasons that they don't think are good reasons. A nuanced study of whether one side is more affected than the other would never survive the heated environment of political social media.
> Ctrl + F "gay": 0 results. Ctrl + F "homo": 0 results.
True and entirely irrelevant. It is easy to make a law that targets a group without directly naming them.
> Do kids younger than 8 years old need to know about sexual orientation?
"Straight" is also a sexual orientation. It is not possible for a child to avoid fairy tales where a prince marries a princess, or ads with a husband and wife in them, or cartoons where a boy and a girl have a crush on each other. So they're gonna know about that one. On the other hand, they might be able to make it to age 8 with minimal exposure to gay couples if their parents are conservative.
Really, it's about whether teachers will be allowed to read a children's book featuring a gay couple to the class. If the principal gets a letter from a lawyer saying a teacher gave age-inappropriate instruction on sexual orientation to first graders, and cited the line of the law forbidding it, then it doesn't matter if the principal supports the teacher. Nor that the "instruction" was just reading a children's book that featured a gay couple; legally, it would likely be considered instruction. Nor that it was entirely age-appropriate; that exception is so vague as to be useless. They can't afford to defend themselves in a lawsuit. So they get rid of the book to make the lawsuit go away. End result is all the books about gay people get thrown out and, if history feels poetic, burned.
(I would also like to note that it has language about requiring schools not to withhold information about the child's health from their parents that seems designed to out transgender and gay children to their parents against their wishes; it too has an exception too vague and limited to be useful.)
> ... Really, it's about whether teachers will be allowed to read a children's book featuring a gay couple to the class. ...
Same-sex couples have nothing whatsoever to do with sexual orientation per se. Heterosexual folks can certainly form strong affiliative bonds with friends/associates of the same sex, that are functionally identical to so-called "gay or lesbian couples", though in fact the traditional term is something like "blood brotherhood".
Sexual orientation matters only inasmuch as it describes why some of these pairs might engage in sexual contact (hopefully of the consensual sort) whereas most do not.
Teach kids about blood brotherhood and similar traditional bonds between people of the same sex, and they will be very well equipped (in fact, more so than most!) to understand "gay marriage" later on, when they are able to relate to what is meant by sexual orientation. Traditional culture has the language to talk about all of this stuff, in a way that's appealing and not offputting to conservative concerns, or for that matter "progressive" ones.
>I don't know if that's true. I'd always hear Reddit was more conservative than most other sites.
Are most other sites far left? frontpage of reddit routinely promotes far left positions. While conservative subreddits are banned.
>I've noticed that people of every political alignment think that social media is biased against them.
There have been studies which very clearly indicate this is 1 sided. This polarization is coming from the democrats. When 'the_donald" was on reddit. There was regularly >50,000 active on there at any time of the day. It was one of the largest subreddits and was constantly on the front page. Reddit banned them over quite illegitimate reasoning, you cant exactly hold a subreddit responsible because they constantly get brigaded and false flagged. This was the first big purge but they've done it over and over since. Now reddit is more or less an echo chamber for the left. From which many people are studying. The societal consequences are huge.
>In truth, both sides have prominent figures who would have been banned years ago if they weren't famous enough to get an exception from the rules, both sides have people banned for no good reason, and both sides have people banned for good reasons that they don't think are good reasons. A nuanced study of whether one side is more affected than the other would never survive the heated environment of political social media.
On the contrary, these studies are extensive and have been publishing for years. The last time there was this much political polarization in the USA there was a civil war.
>more than 425 bills that would restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states
This is pretty much all states. Very very unusual, why do the republicans think there are voting issues across the country? Ive never seen that before. Then again I do recall Hillary Clinton saying the republicans rigged the election against her. She was certain to win.
>"Straight" is also a sexual orientation. It is not possible for a child to avoid fairy tales where a prince marries a princess, or ads with a husband and wife in them, or cartoons where a boy and a girl have a crush on each other. So they're gonna know about that one. On the other hand, they might be able to make it to age 8 with minimal exposure to gay couples if their parents are conservative.
The parents are responsible to expose their children; not teachers until grade 3. However you just touched on it did you. It has absolutely nothing to do with letting kids know they might be gay. Which is not an important detail before grade 3. This is about politics. This is about forcing this on your political opponents.
>Really, it's about whether teachers will be allowed to read a children's book featuring a gay couple to the class.
Im not american, I havent been to the USA in ages. I have been to Orlando for vacation. I cant recall the big theme park there but ive been there. I dont care what happens in florida to grade 1 kids. I literally linked the law in this case, That's not at all what the law says. Gecko's Garage for example has lesbians characters. Mommy truck and Mommy recycle, this is absolutely allowed in schools at grade 1. Now if geckos garage turned around and did much more? Then it would be wrong.
>If the principal gets a letter from a lawyer saying a teacher gave age-inappropriate instruction on sexual orientation to first graders, and cited the line of the law forbidding it, then it doesn't matter if the principal supports the teacher.
If teachers can't hold back sexual content from grade 1. That teacher needs to be fired. This isn't a good hill to die on for democrats.
> They can't afford to defend themselves in a lawsuit. So they get rid of the book to make the lawsuit go away. End result is all the books about gay people get thrown out and, if history feels poetic, burned.
Lets sideline for a second. Another controversy recently was this nuclear physicist Sam Brinton. Its unimportant if he's qualified for his appointed position for the discussion. I'll even concede and say sure he is qualified, I dont really know tbh.
Why is Sam so controversial? Is it because people really urgently want to promote conversion therapy? No not at all.
Is it because he's occasionally goofy looking? Certainly part of it... but you know taste is subjective.
The controversy is that he's going and having furry bondage sex in public. Obviously done as part of political activism and exhibitionism. This isn't helping the trans cause at all. This is harming it.
>(I would also like to note that it has language about requiring schools not to withhold information about the child's health from their parents that seems designed to out transgender and gay children to their parents against their wishes; it too has an exception too vague and limited to be useful.)
Ive been watching the huge increase of riots in the usa. Various 'occupy' riots. blm race riots like kenosha or minneapolis. I'll even reiterate... these are proper and legitimate riots. Police brutality in the USA is crazy. Clear and obvious racism is objectively true.
Yet they get called a protest? They literally seized the government. They took control over a police precinct and freed prisoners. It's remarkable how well this protest is being treated by the media and even wiki.
This INSURRECTION justified banning trump off twitter. They didnt destroy anything, nor overthrow anything. They entered government buildings for 5 hours. In fact, they mocked exactly what happened at CHOP. Beautiful display to show where the situation is.
There was a huge commission to investigate the first right-wing protest who did far far less than anything BLM ever did. Yet people have been held in prison without charge. Others charged and guilty of sedition and being sent to prison for 20 years. Police were committing mass suicide... absolutely crazy.
This very different reaction by the democrats is very revealing. The polarization from the democrats is a gigantic mistake. Mistake is probably the wrong word, it's far worse than a mistake.
Midterms are coming in what 8 months? Georgia and NC are my main watches. EVERYONE will be looking at transparency of that vote counting. Any impropriety is not going to go well.
I will guarantee that this won't happen. The current approach is radicalizing people against trans.
>I'm hetero white male myself so have no standing on this,
You're wrong. You are part of your society and your society must have a standing. Your opinion matters, whatever it might be. Never ever censor yourself on issues. When the mob comes because you don't have the right opinion. Humour and 'here's my opinion, why am I wrong' is the way to go.
>but going through the AIDS epidemic at it's height in the 80s as a teenager was a transformative experience for me. In particular the almost gleeful reaction to the advent of the "gay plague" from many religious conservatives in the US horrified me, especially as I consider myself broadly conservative, at least on economics.
This sounds like me. There is certainly a statistic that aids does disproportionately harm homosexual males. It's important to make people aware of this, but we both agree the republicans from ~40 years ago were a bit scummy. Hell even the Oreilly and Hannity era...
But this changed. There's many many openly homosexual republicans now. Dave Rubin is probably one of the key people you would be interested in. He literally had Ben Shapiro on his show call him names to his face. That's what has to happen sometimes.
>Fortunately we seem to have got through that for the most part. Acceptance of LGB rights and respect for their dignity has, in the upcoming generation including my own kids, become thoroughly uncontroversial and they want to do right by Transgender people too.
Largely speaking not because of someone coming along and banning you for your views. But rather showing that their prejudices were wrong by being good people to them and talking to them.
>The Transgender debate is in a very difficult phase, partly because some issues like sports seem to overlap with and contend uncomfortably with hard won respect for women's rights and identity.
We aren't even close to the difficult phase yet. All the current pro-trans approaches are causing more animosity and censoring the debate that must occur will actually make the situation far worse than it currently is.
>You're quite right, the maximalist gender political wing isn't helping at all. Polarisation is not the way to go on this, it's going to take time for people to get to understand the issues and develop informed opinions, but the road we've travelled for LGB rights shows it's possible and worthwhile.
The other key factor to deal with. Trans people are pawns in the grander scheme. This has little to do with trans people but rather a political issue that is being used to censor political opponents and remove their seat in the debate. This will come at the cost to Trans people.