Jarhyn
Wizard
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2010
- Messages
- 14,632
- Gender
- Androgyne; they/them
- Basic Beliefs
- Natural Philosophy, Game Theoretic Ethicist
Maybe it seems that way to you, but it WAS a rather smooth transition into that state.It's been a thing, but it is close to being a centralized discussion point of the alt-right / GOP. The alt-right and their media are obsessing over it. Naming names, putting targets on people.I dunno where you were 10 years ago, but it was here when I first joined the forums, in fact they were already beating war drums indicating that fever pitch against the trans community was coming in the form of sports and prisons arguments.But does it really? This outrage on transgender is pretty new. And the word outrage is accurate. It makes me wonder where it was 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. The alt-right weren't pro-transgender, but this rage, it feels so manufactured and fake.By your reasoning, all terms and definitions are arbitrarily decided. The 'classic' definition of male and of female is based on easily observed physical characteristics as well as functions. The fact that not all individuals fit neatly into one category or the other does not change this. This holds true even when describing plants and....tools and implements which are sometimes described as having a male end or a female end, depending on which fits into the other. Or at least that was how certain tools and implements were referred to by my father's generation. Not all plants fit into male or female, either. A lot are hermaphrodite, having reproductive structures of both male and female plant.The problem here, and it keeps getting pointed out, is that "cat" is an invented category here. The boundaries of cat are arbitrary, even if the circumstances to allow the arbitration to shift are mountainous.So what? I didn't say anyone was harmed. Are we supposed to just automatically accept all claims as true unless they've been shown to be harmful? Does "My pet Spot is a cat; therefore all animals named Spot are cats." become a valid argument if the guy who points out "But my dog is named Spot too." isn't showing anyone would actually be harmed by his dog being a cat?
The problem is the fact that we are using "woman" and "man" and the categories aren't actually closed here, so when you say "they are a woman" what you are really doing is using figurative language.
What you are actually doing is replacing simile with a metaphor, ie "that person is LIKE the platonic woman, moreso than they are LIKE the platonic man", never mind that these platonics are created from... You guessed it, an arbitrary population selection.
It's a failure to preserve figurative language, and failing likewise to understand that you are inserting imagination where only mechanism belongs.
The problem is that given how obsessive and absolutist and essentialist people are, especially over gender and sex, people will tend to take offense if you point out something they wish to see as binary all-or-nothing is actually shades of gray; they will shit in your mouth and call you a liar despite the fact that the categories they know they see are as illusory as race.
At the same time, it has been known for millennia that not all individuals fit neatly into male or female. Indeed, as has been mentioned several times in this thread, some cultures had and some still have words to describe such individuals. Those cultures are more wise than western based cultures today, in that respect.
Given the emotional response expressed when say, women must choose whether or not to undergo mastectomy and then whether or not to have 'reconstructive' surgery and the absolute venom with which such topics as circumcision are discussed and debated, it is not surprising that discussing gender reassignment surgery evokes so much emotion.
Even back then, the discussion was always a DARVO when it came to cutting.
I feel like my entire membership here has been, year in and year out, one thread about trans panic after another, building, with a half-life on posts, interspersed with discussions panicking about the gays.
It was always going to be trans people after they lost their grip on the false projection they perpetrated on gays. We all knew this, more than a decade ago. I would say as far back as late 00's with the Jessica Manning incident?
It feels manufactured, but the sort of manufacturing that you know is happening, like in Brand New Cherry Flavor, the producer manufactures ways and excuses to steal control over the film project, when it's really because she took his hand off her leg in the car. There was never any question about it, just about whether she could get that slimy piece of shit to actually admit it.
It's the most disgusting kind of "manufactured", the kind there's no excuse for or hiding the fact it happened.
Early stories suggested a later tone and plan of attack, and then some decade or more later they pick up pitch, as the public was primed to hear the spinning and the lies some decade ago.
Maybe dry-run/dress rehearsal/execution fits better?
People were against it, now they are raging over it. It wasn't a smooth transition.
The major battleground positions politically are Abortion, Gays, Trans, Drugs, and Ethnic Minorities.
It's not that people were against it and now they are raging, it's more that they always were raging about something, and the dog caught the car on abortion.
Combined with the inability to vilify the L, the B, or the G, due to the political landscape changing in 2010, and the failure of the drug war, this is what's left: trans folks.
It was always in the buffer, and it's neither sudden nor unexpected. It's as scheduled, right on time.