Battling an internal masculinity struggle right now with the gay community. Any tips would be appreciated.

mvmlego · 2021-02-09T16:28:33+00:00

I'm not going to give a detailed rebuttal or read any subsequent replies, for a few reasons.

1) I already addressed some of those points.

2) It's very demoralizing to spend most of an hour trying to carefully craft responses, only for them to be bombed with satirical funvotes.

2b) A few trolls have decided to go back through the last forty-or-so comments in my history (the vast majority of which weren't meant to be humorous, and several of of which weren't expressing any opinions at all) and bomb those with funvotes as well, quite possibly as a result of the views that I've expressed in this thread.

2c) Meanwhile, the No True Feminist word vomit was for some reason considered by eight people to be "insightful". It's almost as if people are judging comments based on their preconceived notions instead of considering alternative views with an open mind.

3) Given that that the OP has shown his willingness to participate in the comments, I'll say for the third and final time: you should be talking with u/nbailey73. Most of what I've said has been in the interest of explaining and justifying his feelings about the feminist epistemology class that he dropped, which he clearly linked to his self-esteem issues.

Based on my last several threads that I've participated in, it's clear that the only form of participation that's widely valued on this sub is endlessly repetitive "Hur-dur, TRA bad" comments. I won't bother you all or waste any more of my own time by posting. Enjoy your echo chamber.

mvmlego · 2021-02-09T16:26:07+00:00

Thank you for the details. That's feminist epistemology for ya'. Best of luck to you with your college career in the future.

mvmlego · 2021-02-08T06:22:41+00:00

🎵 "Eeeverything is cool when you're part of the T" 🎵

mvmlego · 2021-02-08T06:04:35+00:00

Thanks for the confirmation. Also, if you don't mind sharing, what exactly was the subject of the debate that occurred on your first day of class?

mvmlego · 2021-02-08T05:46:46+00:00

First of all, this was not a derailment. The OP made it clear that certain feminist talking points contributed to his self-esteem and identity issues, and the article that I linked to contained examples of that list the sorts of talking points that he may have had in mind. I should have been more specific with regard to which points in the article that I considered significant, but I was pressed for time. Anyhow, regarding the first two sections:

1.1

1.1 is much more often applied to women

Bull crap. You can't find a single headline by a prestigious publication that makes plainly unflattering generalizations about women in the same way that the ones listed in the article do about men.

1.2

almost all violent crimes are made by men. Same as not all men are rapists, but almost all rapes are done by men... Homicide victims is weird as well, overwhelming majority of men killed by men, not by women, and most are killed by men as well, so it is male on male violence, what have it to do with feminism?

Feminists aren't responsible for violence perpetrated by men, but they're responsible for their responses to it, which often involves speaking and acting in overly-general terms about men as violent, while over-emphasizing women as the victims of male violence.

From a statistical standpoint, it's correct to portray men as the primary victims of violence in addition to portraying them as the primary perpetrators of violence. If feminists only focus on the latter, and on top of that assign group guilt to men in the same way that white nationalists do to racial minorities, then they create an environment that breeds plainly sexist attitudes and policy proposals, such as curfews for men and sex-segregated public transportation.

These examples are worth emphasizing for a couple of reasons. Not only are they the most egregious examples given in the article of feminist rhetoric that's harmful to men; they're the most unequivocally feminist. Both of the articles proposing those policies were written by Meghan Murphy--the founder of Feminist Current, which is a wholly gender-critical feminist publication.

As I said, feminism has its excesses, just like every other movement. I'm not blaming you for them; I'd just like you to acknowledge that they exist, and that they can harm men.

(EDIT: grammar)

mvmlego · 2021-02-08T03:57:02+00:00

not allowing two men or two women be together is repulsing homosexuality

Nobody's talking about making homosexuality illegal.

EDIT: More precisely, what I mean is that nobody in this discussion is advocating for making homosexuality illegal.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T22:00:23+00:00

I think that while second-wave feminism did an admirable job at breaking down stereotypes and gender roles that were harmful to women, the movement's effects on men were mixed. Men's traditional, stifling gender roles were, to some extent, removed, but they were replaced by a set of explicitly negative stereotypes which portrayed men as harmful or malicious toward women in cases where they weren't. This was squarely a result of feminist rhetoric, and it's only worsened with the third wave.

This often manifests as feminist academics declaring innocent aspects of culture--particularly male culture--as harmful to women, which is why I've repeatedly suggested asking the OP about his experiences in his Language, Gender, and Power class, which he described as:

nothing but a social justice warrior class dedicated to basically talking about how bad men are.

Clearly, he perceived feminist rhetoric as contributing to his problem, not solving it. If you're interested in learning about examples of feminists or feminist-leaning organizations abusing their cultural influence in ways that are harmful to men (if only through the propagation of negative stereotypes about them), then I recommend this blog, which tends to be pretty level-headed:

https://becauseits2015.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/social-justices-punching-bags-men-white-people-straight-people/

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T21:28:30+00:00

I don't think I got my point across, in that I was wondering what you think about how a given society should decide whether or not to fund controversial things, with euthanasia being the operative example. Still, I won't pester you any more. I appreciate your reply, and I happen to hold rather similar views on euthanasia, myself.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T21:23:14+00:00

A hydrophobic substance repells water, so "phobic" has always had repulsion as an alternate definition

That's a fair point, but it doesn't account for complete breadth of ways that the term is regularly used in the LGB community. Earlier in this thread, I used the example of Ben Shapiro having a non-emotional, moral objection to homosexual activity. I included the details of him not acting squeamish around Dave Rubin specifically to tease out the definition that you're proposing. Nevertheless, u/reluctant_commenter, whom I respect and who hardly strikes me as a radical or an outlier, clarified that she considers him to be homophobic. Consequently, the word is clearly being used to refer to a much broader set of attitudes than fear or repulsion.

Also, including repulsion in the definition of "homophobic" risks implying that that many gays and lesbians are heterophobic for attitudes that aren't actually bad. I don't consider a lesbian who feels repulsed by the notion of interacting with male genitals to be heterophobic (or misandric). By the same principle, I don't consider straight people who feel some repulsion toward various homosexual acts to be homophobic.

That was a level-headed and thoughtful reply, though. I really appreciate it.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T18:35:19+00:00

Being homosexual is not a bigotry, ... so it is not opens doors for TRA in any possible way.

On a rhetorical level, it does. I don't believe that any sort of sexual attraction is bigoted (regardless of which groups it excludes), but plenty of people don't see things that way. To those of them who don't understand the trans debate, it sounds worse for a gay man to say "I'm attracted to men, but not transmen" than "I'm homosexual".

For the latter to convey the intended meaning, "homosexual" and "sexual orientation" have to maintain their proper definitions (i.e. that they're about sex, rather than gender). It's very difficult for the LGB community to uphold those definitions while accepting the use of "phobic" in "homophobic" to mean something other than "fear".

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T18:09:01+00:00

What changes are you talking about, and how is that relevant to my comment? Even if feminists don't hold significant political power or financial power, the power which they do hold among various cultural institutions can be and sometimes is abused in ways that unfairly lay fault on men. As I said in my last comment, ask the OP if you'd like to learn about a detailed, personal example of this occurring.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T17:52:02+00:00

Thank you for explaining your viewpoint. How would you apply those principles to the subject of euthanasia? Undoubtedly, it can be a procedure that eliminates pain, but it's also a procedure that many consider to be morally wrong to various extents. Presumably, this would fall under your category of controversial procedures that need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. What exactly does that handling process look like? Is the question of whether it should be taxpayer-funded simply a matter of whether it is, in the majority's opinion, a good procedure?

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T15:54:43+00:00

The drug companies are owned by who? Politics (especially in the past) are dominated by who? If feminism needs to exist, who is to blame?

Even if the answer to both of those first two questions is a simple "men", the answer to the third question is considerably more complicated. The fact that feminism was necessary doesn't preclude the feminist movement from incorporating excesses, which can and should be critiqued.

All activist movements have their excesses--even the ones that I'm personally very fond of--because most activists aren't looking to analyze the issue in a balanced way; they're looking to steer others toward certain conclusions by shoring them up with whatever they can find, even to the point of incorporating a plethora of irrelevant or incorrect talking points as long as they provide rhetorical support for the activist's conclusions.

I think some decent examples of this from the feminist movement are the highly publicized figures about on-campus rape and the gender wage gap that circulated extensively around 2015 to 2017, which had the effect of unfairly placing blame on men, in the sense that those problems were blown out of proportion.

If you're skeptical about feminism's excesses, then I'd encourage you to ask u/nbailey73 what he found so alienating about the Language, Gender, and Power class. It's possible that he was completely overreacting, but I don't think that's the case.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T15:11:01+00:00

Notice the last paragraph of that article. Here's the full story on it, in case you're interested:

https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2020/08/05/224-woke-academics-say-not-necessarily/

https://newdiscourses.com/2020/08/2-plus-2-never-equals-5/

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T15:04:26+00:00

I think it's worth emphasizing that you want to find people who will bring out and encourage the best in you, as opposed to blindly encourage you. A tenent of TQ+ ideology and culture is to never "invalidate" someone who feels like a victim (if they can't reasonably be construed as victimizing someone else, at least). The result is that the person in question never engages in self-reflection and will never grow in character. You can see this sort of thing happen all the time with LGBCATONKEYBOARD subs on Reddit.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T05:18:07+00:00

I don't think that's a Freudian slip; I think it's an open part of LGBFACEROLL doctrine at this point. Who here hasn't heard something exactly like:

"Of course trans people need our support the most. No other group has a 40% suicide rate."

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T05:14:41+00:00

I may as well point this out before the lesbians do: it's strange that L is one level below both the G and B on the oppression hierarchy. I was also going to point out that it's on the same level as Allies, but I think the A actually stands for "Asexuals" upon further consideration.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T04:43:23+00:00

I'm curious: what's your position of taxpayer funding of controversial procedures in general? Is it simply a matter of whether you think the procedure is good, or do you think that the goodness of the procedure has to be balanced against the number of people objecting to it (and/or how severely they object to it)?

EDIT: Why are people giving this Fun votes? (Current score: 2I, 3F.) What point do you people think that I'm trying to make with this comment? I'm bringing attention to an interesting area of principle that affects plenty of important topics, including transgender issues, abortion, and euthanasia. I get that people sometimes use the Fun votes as a quick way to express disagreement, but I don't see what there was to disagree about in the original comment.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T04:36:30+00:00

If someone came up to me and threatened to kill themselves if I didn't give them my car, do I really need to say what my answer would be?

While I'm in complete agreement with you about how someone should act in this situation, I think there's a notable minority of people who've let themselves be completely consumed by their feelings of empathy, to the point where their ego or sense of self-worth is grounded in it, who would actually let someone steal their car if they thought it would protect the thief from harm.* I'd estimate this to be somewhere between 2% and 10% of the population, but that's obviously just a shot-in-the-dark estimate.

*https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/white-minneapolis-residents-wont-call-cops-on-homeless-camp/

(Specifically, check out the part with Mitchell Erickson.)

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T04:24:50+00:00

It's the only mental issue, in which people are sent to surgeries and hormonal therapy.

The typical TRA response to that is that gender dysphoria isn't a problem with one's mind; it's a problem with one's body. Their explanations for that assertion vary pretty wildly and tend to be somewhat ad hoc, but I figure it's good to know what to expect in case you get into a conversation with them.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T04:19:38+00:00

It's not that the rules have changed; it's that the proponents of transgender surgeries/hormones disagree that these procedures constitute self-harm.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T04:13:31+00:00

EDIT: I opened the tab for two different posts at once and basically posted my comment under the wrong one. Ignore this.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T03:03:28+00:00

That's only specifically exclusionary of transgender identified males then, not transgender people in general.

It's the primary kind of transgender person that feminists are concerned with, though. Understandably, they're more concerned about whether a small group of non-women gets included with women, which is potentially harmful to all women, than whether a small group of women gets excluded from women, who brought that exclusion upon themselves by identifying as men.

And why are transgender males entitled to be included in a movement advocating for females anyway?

They're not, but the reason that some people appear to disagree with you on that point is that they disagree that the people in question are men.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T00:52:08+00:00

The examples that you cite seem to refute your own account of meaning. If a word's meaning is based solely on the way that it's used, then it's a contradiction to say that a word has been defined as the opposite of what it should mean. EDIT: By your account of meaning, the word "literally" has no proper definition; it's definition is merely whatever the word most-often intended to mean.

Regardless, I'm not naive-enough to believe that the ways that speakers intend their words to be interpreted is completely irrelevant. If a word has been hopelessly co-opted, then I'll stop using it, but I'm not convinced that TERF is one of those. I've heard some feminists actually describe themselves as "TERF", for example.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T00:48:05+00:00

The "trans-exclusionary" in TERF means that the group of people who the radical feminists are advocating on behalf of do not include the (so-called) women who are transgender.

mvmlego · 2021-02-07T00:24:45+00:00

You are seriously comparing "they have 10 points more IQ on average" with "they are neither men, nor women, with very strange bodies"?

You're putting words in people's mouths. I never used or defended the use of the word "strange" to describe intersex people, and neither did the video that I linked to. As I said, the video was trying to do quite the opposite of portraying intersex people as strange; it was trying to portray them as ordinary to the point of being mundane. So to answer your question: no. That's not the comparison I was making.

How promoting information that hurt us in the first place can help us?

You're flat-out ignoring a considerable portion of my comments. I never claimed that spreading misinformation about a group would help members of the group--in fact, I specifically said in my last comment that spreading misinformation was not an effective long-term strategy for neutralizing prejudice.

And yes, I would call "third sex" similar to a slur in most cases.

That depends entirely on the speaker's opinion of the (hypothetical) third sex, just like any other label. Whether "liberal" is a slur depends on the speaker's attitudes towards liberals; whether "TERF" is a slur depends on the speaker's attitude towards TERFs, etc..

One of the things that I find odd about this conversation is that there's a good case to be made that classifying intersex people as "males or females with disorders [of sexual development]" is, rhetorically speaking, considerably more de-legitimizing than classifying intersex people as their own category on par with males or females. Behind each of these classifications are a host of subtle, conflicting connotations, so it's unreasonable to assume that somebody chose whatever description that they did specifically because they were trying to convey the worst of those connotations--which is what u/Destruction assumed, and what you continue to assume.

(EDIT: rephrased the last sentence and added content to first paragraph.)

mvmlego · 2021-02-06T22:51:41+00:00

Eh, I think "TERF" means something; it's just regularly misapplied, as many words are these days: "bigot", "transphobic", "racist", "terrorist", etc.

mvmlego · 2021-02-06T16:42:08+00:00

Calling me neither man nor woman is exactly that.

No, it isn't. Saying that somebody is a member of a third sex is not exactly the same thing as calling somebody an abomination or a slur--and the two may even be antithetical to one-another depending on the speaker's attitudes toward the so-called "third sex", as is the case in the video that I linked to.

You can't remove prejudice by lying about who we are

I agree that using misinformation is not, in the long term, an effective strategy for removing prejudice, but that doesn't imply the people doing the misinforming are, themselves, prejudiced against the group they're claiming to defend.

Consider if BLM was to begin spreading misinformation stating the average IQ among black people is ten points higher than the average IQ among other races--and consequently, that there are disproportionately many black geniuses. Given that this is misinformation about black people, your standard would seem to imply that those BLM activists actually disrespect black people, and that referring to black people as geniuses would be a slur akin to "n-----".

EDIT: Based on this example, it seems clear to me that there's an important conceptual distinction between holding/promoting incorrect views about a group, and disrespecting or using slurs against that group.

mvmlego · 2021-02-06T14:53:04+00:00

Which part: phrasing it prescriptively, or providing no justification for your suggestion? Also, why?

mvmlego · 2021-02-06T04:07:49+00:00

Yep, it falls into the "R" of the "GSRD" acronym that's slowly being rolled out. (Gender-, Sexuality-, and Relationship-Diverse, in case anybody's wondering.) I think I first encountered it at my alma mater's "Q Center" a couple of years ago, and I've seen it pop up a few time since.

mvmlego · 2021-02-06T02:59:30+00:00

I think the reason you've been getting some strong reactions is that you phrased your original comment prescriptively: "I don't think masculine lesbians should get...". You didn't phrase it in terms of your personal aesthetic preference; you phrased it as a rule that others ought to follow, without providing any good reason for the rule you're imposing--or any reason at all, really.

mvmlego · 2021-02-06T02:46:47+00:00

On Saidit, I'm pretty sure that the Karma system has no inherent uses. It's an indicator of seniority and popularity, and it provides a cheap psychological incentive for users to participate in productive ways. Those are still pretty insignificant teleologies, though, so I think the primary reason that the system was implemented on Saidit was to make the website feel as similar to Reddit as possible.

On Reddit, it used to serve a more concrete purpose. Certain actions were restricted to users above a certain Karma threshold--and the potential to be restricted was actually pretty significant, since there's a downvote option that allows users to take a net loss on Karma from bad posts and comments (or ones that were perceived as bad, anyhow). (Sorry if this paragraph felt patronizing. IDK whether you were a Reddit user before joining Saidit.)

mvmlego · 2021-02-06T01:47:19+00:00

Don't expect a sane answer from him regarding his username, or pretty much anything else for that matter.

https://saidit.net/s/LGBDropTheT/comments/79hi/boys_twice_as_likely_as_girls_to_be_bullied_about/rgw4

https://saidit.net/s/LGBDropTheT/comments/77io/biden_picks_dr_rachel_levine_transgender_woman_as/rb9c?context=3

mvmlego · 2021-02-05T04:44:47+00:00

Interesting. I view the choice of whether or not one buys/rents/views-in-cinema a movie as a business transaction like any other. Still, I can see the utility in only holding the expectation that people not discriminate in business transactions in cases where they're the ones providing the good or service, as opposed to consuming it.

mvmlego · 2021-02-04T23:17:03+00:00

IKR? It's like they learned all of the wrong lessons from The Matrix--specifically, that they think the reasons that people liked it were because of its trippy elements, and so they turned those up to 10 in each subsequent production.

mvmlego · 2021-02-04T23:12:51+00:00

If I understand your comment correctly, then your principle implies that there's nothing morally wrong with, for example, an owner of a small restaurant refusing to serve an Asian person on account of their race. Is that correct, or is your principle only meant to apply customers' obligations, or am I misinterpreting your comment in some other way?

mvmlego · 2021-02-04T23:02:13+00:00

That's a good point, although I think it's definitely region-dependent. The only one who's popular in my state is a guy named Charles Stanley, and the most controversial thing about him is a divorce.

mvmlego · 2021-02-04T17:57:46+00:00

What exactly are those boundaries, though? What is the extent to which you'd say that it's morally acceptable to refuse to interact with trans people? If the movie was aimed at promoting trans ideology, then I'd understand, but the OP was being much more general than that. What would you think about avoiding shopping at a small grocery store that had a transgender cashier, for example?

mvmlego · 2021-02-04T17:55:02+00:00

There's a good case to be made that Pat Robertson's views on homosexuality aren't actually biblical,* and his views on transgender issues certainly aren't. The fault lies with Robertson himself, rather than the religion he claims allegiance to.

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leIcLYj3I3U

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frGJH3-4UFA

mvmlego · 2021-02-04T17:47:10+00:00

So many religious right-wingers are supporting trans case.

This is still quite a small minority. Even in right-leaning regions such as upstate New York which are nearly surrounded by large, left-leaning or hard-left cities such as NYC, Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, and (to a lesser extent) Syracuse, the vast majority of self-identified Christians still see transgender ideology as the nonsense that it is on its face.

mvmlego · 2021-02-04T17:40:04+00:00

I have enough Protestant family members and acquaintances to know that Pat Roberson's combination of views is quite an outlier. It's good to keep an eye out for, though, since it's certainly not something we'd like to see become more common.

mvmlego · 2021-02-04T14:43:16+00:00

As I've commented before:

I'm not so keen on boycotting [people or organizations] that don't incorporate their objectionable political or social views into their products or services. I think there's an important distinction between "paying people who hate me" and "paying people to hate me". I don't mind seeing a movie which stars an actor who has abhorrent political views, as long as those views don't work their way into the movie. I don't think that buying a product from a person indicates, or should be commonly understood as indicating, that the buyer likes the seller or the seller's political views. I think that being willing to interact with people who we despise (and people who despise us) is important for living in a pluralistic society. I don't want cancel culture turned in my favor; I want it dismantled completely.

I think this reasoning applies in this case, with a couple of caveats. If the trans person doesn't pass (in terms of both appearance and voice) as an ordinary member of the sex that their character is supposed to be, then I'd consider it to be politically motivated casting, and so I'd refuse to see the movie. In addition, if the character they're supposed to play is trans, then I'd probably consider that to be politically motivated writing, and so I'd refuse to see the movie.

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T19:12:52+00:00

transwomen don't have to be "afraid" of lesbians in order to be "homophobic," the word "homophobic" is a misnomer. It has always meant "bigotry towards X demographic" not fear towards some demographic.

If you insist. As I said, though, this opens the door to TRAs claiming that the "sex" in "homosexual" is a misnomer and insisting that non-bigoted gays and lesbians acshually feel attraction based on gender.

What would you propose?

I'm not completely sure, but perhaps "anti-homosexual discrimination"? I that know bisexuals might object to this term out of concern that it promotes bi-erasure, but I don't think it does. A sexual act that occurs between two people of the same sex can reasonably be described as "a homosexual act", even if one of the people involved is bi--and that's the sense in which I'm using the word "homosexual" in "homosexual discrimination".

Another alternative could be "sexuality discrimination", but this one seems extremely vulnerable to horizontal concept creep. In other words, it can be co-opted by various groups such as demisexuals, zoophiles, BDSM enthusiasts, "MAPs", etc. that LGB people don't want to be lumped in with.

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T17:46:41+00:00

I have heard some mixed opinions here about that whole wedding cake case in the U.S.

I think this is a pretty good example. Regardless of whether it's morally or legally acceptable to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple on the basis of their sexual orientation, I don't necessarily consider the baker to be homophobic. There are plenty of people who have dispassionate moral objections to homosexuality, such as Ben Shapiro--who, despite being an Orthodox Jew, is friends with Dave Rubin (a married gay man) and has no hesitance about, e.g., sitting next to Rubin or shaking his hand. I don't consider his beliefs homophobic, but I know many that LGB people and their allies would disagree.

On the flip side, a lot of people on this sub are overly lenient about labeling TRAs or their talking points "homophobic". The way they actually seem to be using the term is something much more akin to "harmful to homosexual people" than "afraid of homosexual people". This pops up all the time in threads about transwomen coercing or otherwise manipulating lesbians into have sex with them. Such actions are clearly wrong and harmful to lesbians, but it's equally obvious that the transwomen aren't remotely afraid of lesbians. Nevertheless, many (if not the majority) of this sub's users would label the transwomen in question "homophobic".

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T15:44:37+00:00

As wary as I am of second- and third-wave feminism, I don't object to the phrase "toxic masculinity". Some people perceive it as describing masculinity (as a whole) as toxic, but grammatically, what it's actually doing is referring to the aspects of masculinity which are toxic--e.g. proneness to violent aggression.

I agree with you about pretty much all of the other ones, though.

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T15:32:54+00:00

So for example, if one says, "I would prefer to drink some orange juice rather than a bottle of poison," the statement might seem silly, sarcastic, or ridiculous-- because who really is okay with drinking a bottle of poison?

I agree that this would be a silly and probably sarcastic question, but that's not because of the word "prefer"; it's because the answer is so obvious that the question doesn't need to be asked. Consider a scenario where there is no obvious answer:

Alice: I've got Dirty Dancing, Friday the 13th, and The Shining. Which do you prefer?

Bob: Dirty Dancing, I guess. I hate horror movies.

To me (also an American), this seems to be a completely normal use of the word. I see "preference" merely as a simple matter of ranking.

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T15:15:58+00:00

You're talking past me and moving the goalposts on u/Destruction's behalf. His claim was that it's dehumanizing to see intersex people as anything other than male of female. I disputed that notion (while acknowledging that viewing intersex people as something other than male or female is unscientific). This has nothing to do with calling people "abominations", "f-----", or anything else. Those are red herrings with respect to the original topic of conversation.

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T15:04:33+00:00

Because preference implies that while you prefer one sex over the other, you don't completely eliminate the other [option].

No it doesn't. Consider the following scenario:

Alice: I've got Dirty Dancing, Friday the 13th, and The Shining. Which do you prefer?

Bob: Dirty Dancing, I guess. I hate horror movies.

people [will] say that your monosexuality is a preference and that you could potentially change your sexuality

They could say that, but they would be using the word incorrectly. Like I said in my last comment, "preference" doesn't imply any plasticity.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prefer

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T05:55:19+00:00

Obviously, it's dehumanizing to refer to someone as an abomination, but that's not really relevant to a lot of the "intersex is a third sex" crowd, which is much more likely to try to portray intersex as being normal to the point of being mundane than it is portray intersex people as monsters.

For example, I encountered this* video about intersex people a while ago. Despite the writers and host clearly believing that intersex people constitute a third sex, they seem respectful and sincerely concerned about the wellbeing of intersex people--and in fact, I don't know how to interpret all of the scientific and philosophical bungles made in the video as anything other than motivated reasoning aimed at disarming anti-intersex prejudice.

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT0HJkr1jj4

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T05:39:17+00:00

Guess I’m bi now?

I imagine that if you were to point this consequence out to them, they'd fall back on one of their classic lines: "identities mean different things to different people, and everyone's identities are valid". In fact, a paraphrase of this line was used in the second paragraph of the article.

I really don't know how to respond to that line, though. It seems blindingly obvious to me that language ceases to work when two people who are using the same words aren't even trying to mean the same thing with them. The problem is that I can't figure out how to hammer that point home in a way that someone who doesn't already agree with me on it can relate to.

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T03:51:03+00:00

It's not a big deal

...especially considering the statistics involved. Assuming that the stock photo company is intending to make photos that are most relatable to western audiences (and therefore reflect western demographics), the likelihood of getting four white people by random isn't unlikely at all--even less so considering that those four selections aren't independent probabilities (i.e. people tend to disproportionately be around those of the same race).

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T03:31:09+00:00

While I agree that "transphobia" is sickeningly overused, I think this is a problem that the LGB movement largely brought on itself, considering that LGB activists have (and still continue to, in some cases) play pretty fast and loose with the term "homophobia".

As we like to point out to TRAs, the root "sexual" at the end of "homosexual"/"bisexual" means something--specifically, that these are attractions based on sex rather than gender. Unfortunately, LGB activists haven't applied the same degree of precision with the word "homophobia", which--by the same reasoning--should only be used to refer fear of LGB people because of the root "phobia". This leaves the community with little ground to object to the extremely expansive way that TRAs are currently using the word "transphobia".

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T03:19:06+00:00

Unpopular opinion: I don't see what's wrong with the word "preference". It doesn't imply that the absolute or relative strengths of two desires can be changed, nor does it suggest that they should be changed.

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T03:10:52+00:00

"Respect" and "hate". I can't have a perfectly polite--and even rather conciliatory (on my part)--conversation with TRAs without them pretending to read my mind and thereby ascertain that I hate or disrespect trans people.

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T03:07:50+00:00

Whelp. TIL I am transgender.

Wait... maybe I'm this?

What even is this? Genderqueer is the label for people who reject labels? Is this different from trans?

IKR? Has it really never crossed a "queer" or "non-binary" person's mind that everyone does not conform perfectly to sex stereotypes? Sorry to break it to 'em, but they're ordinary straight people. I understand why people dislike the term "snowflake", but it really does apply in this case.

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T03:02:33+00:00

"Bisexual" does not mean "[to have a] preference for same-sex partners"; it's more general: "to be sexually attracted to both sexes".

mvmlego · 2021-02-03T02:59:47+00:00

I don't think it's dehumanizing to consider intersex people to be an actual third sex... it's just biologically ignorant to do so.

mvmlego · 2021-02-02T23:38:07+00:00

What does a racial slur have to deal with saying the f word?

The principle encompasses slurs in general, and both of them are slurs.

tell me [why] you don't agree with me calling myself (BLOCKED WORD BEEP BEEP THOUGHTCRIME ALERT UH OH) but then go on to say it's bad if people can't use certain words neutrally???

I think there's an important distinction between targeted usage and nominative usage--but since the distinction is fundamentally intuitive to me, I'm struggling to explain it. I think it's analogous to how it would clearly be reasonable for somebody to feel offended by me saying to them "you are a moron", but it would clearly be unreasonable for them to feel insulted by me saying a sentence like "the word 'moron' has five letters".

mvmlego · 2021-02-02T14:46:00+00:00

What's the transwoman equivalent of that? An "April"? That's been the most common name, from my experience.

mvmlego · 2021-02-02T14:28:51+00:00

Ah, thank you.

mvmlego · 2021-02-01T19:43:10+00:00

Thank you for the links. Regarding the first one: based on the paragraph that includes the paper's first mention of the word "twin", it appears that the genetic component only accounts for homosexuality in 32% of cases. Am I interpreting this properly?

mvmlego · 2021-02-01T19:10:49+00:00

If I wanna call myself the big bad f word, that's my business tbh

I'm not a fan of that, to be honest. The notion that some people are allowed to use certain words in a targeted fashion (in other words, to actually refer to particular people) but other people aren't allowed to use it even nominally,* is toxic to discourse.

*https://nypost.com/2020/08/03/tcu-players-revolt-after-coach-gary-patterson-allegedly-used-racial-slur/

mvmlego · 2021-02-01T18:54:04+00:00

Interesting. I'd classify a Marxist approach to class issues as identity politics as well, but I get your point.

The only one of those channels that I've watched before is Vaush--and only a couple of his videos. What's he possibly getting cancelled over?

mvmlego · 2021-02-01T14:55:44+00:00

Ah, so it's always been pretty openly political? That's disappointing for a channel called PhilsophyTube, since philosophy encompasses a lot of interesting topics that have nothing to do with politics. Also, I'd never heard the term "Breadtube" before. Thanks for the info.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T19:36:04+00:00

Thanks. Regarding the first link: it's encouraging to see that it was both signed by WoLF, The Heritage Foundation, and plenty of organizations in the middle.

From my past experience, both conservative groups and progressive groups who oppose TRAs tend to unnecessarily slather their objections with their group's ideological talking points--evangelical Christian subculture or second-wave feminism, respectively. Neither of those perspectives are necessary for understanding why TQ+ ideology is nonsense. By working together, they iron out each-others' quirks and biases in presentation so that the resulting message is acceptable to as broad of an audience as possible.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T19:22:23+00:00

On the off chance that you aren't a troll and just grossly misinformed

Right, of course those are the only two options. 🙄 Also, I'm curious: if what I wrote was indicative of trolling, then what would sincere disagreement look like to you?

There are few points of disagreement that I have with your comment, but I'll focus on this for now (since there's no point in typing out a full response if you're going to dismiss this comment as trolling):

Reason 1 is often motivated by AGP

Reason 3 is directly tied to reason 1.

Reasons (1) and (3) are actually very distinct. Autogynephilia is specifically a fetish--the payoff for giving into that impulse is psychologically-induced sexual arousal.* The potential payoffs for being subject to female gender roles and stereotypes are much broader--ranging from the practical and psychological benefits of being seen as non-threatening to the social and psychological benefits of having a highly empathetic friend group.

Plenty of trans people (though obviously far from all) take a rather liberal or libertarian (as opposed to hard-left) position on trans issues, in that they're not attempting to coerce people into conforming to their identity. If you'd like, I can link to examples of trans people extensively criticizing TRAs on these grounds. The notion that they're transitioning only as a roundabout way of making a power play on women by forcing lesbians to sleep with them is a gross caricature.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchard%27s_transsexualism_typology#Autogynephilia

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T16:50:37+00:00

If Marxism is a descriptive theory rather than an ideal (i.e. if Marxism is based on physical reality and ignores identity or "feels"), then we should be concerned with the results that attempts to implement it actually produce--which in each and every case, has been a horror that costs millions of lives, and often tens of millions.

EDIT: It's also worth emphasizing that, according to the article you linked to, Lenin regarded state capitalism as the second-to-last step in a society's transformation into the Marxist-Lenenist utopia. This is important, because even if it's not "true socialism", it's not a complete aberration of socialist ideals, either; it's a necessary step in the process of socialist revolutions. Consequently, it still lays the tens of millions of deaths of Russians, Chinese, Cambodians, and Venezuelans at the feet of socialism.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T15:26:25+00:00

Trump explicitly said he didn't care what bathroom transgenders used.

Thank you! I'm glad I'm not the only person who remembers this. As I said before, I think that Trump would have been socially moderate if cable news media didn't try so hard to vilify him--which just ended up alienating him into aligning himself with the evangelical and establishment wings of the Republican party.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T15:14:19+00:00

Do you have any idea how to do that in a tasteful and effective manner? I've been meaning to check up on my high school alma mater for a while now, but every way that my plan to do so plays out in my head results in the grumpy secretary saying that she can't help at the moment, claiming that she'll get back to me, and then forgetting/ignoring my request.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T15:01:36+00:00

I'd be interested to know u/OPPRESSED_REPTILIAN's views on that, considering that the same standard could be applied to overlook intersex people--or even LG or LGB people, for that matter, depending on what the threshold for inclusion is.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T14:50:12+00:00

From what I remember of Lisa Littman's and Abigail Shrier's research, the rate of young women identifying as trans or queer is drastically outpacing the rate of young men identifying as trans or queer (even though those stats used to be reversed). Consequently, the TQ+ craze is actually impacting the dating pool for straight men more so than for straight women.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T14:36:37+00:00

That's a rather rosy notion of socialism, which necessarily involves abusing the most productive members of society for the (short-term) personal gain of others--just ask the Kulaks.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T14:22:49+00:00

I think the motivation for that is that they know they don't really look or sound quite like women, in the sense of having too angular a face or too deep a voice, so they feel that they need to compensate for that by acting feminine in every way they're biologically capable of.

...and yeah, it results in them looking and sounding like a really cringey caricature.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T14:18:04+00:00

I don't see the connection. I'm aware that many of the policies which TRAs lobby for are harmful to women, but I don't see transwomen as necessarily intending to harm women. I think their motivations for declaring themselves women are some combination of 1) a desire to be subject to female stereotypes and gender roles rather than those of males, 2) body dysphoria akin to people with BIID, or 3) autogynophilia. I wouldn't characterize any of those three reasons as trying to prevent women from wielding power.

mvmlego · 2021-01-31T14:08:44+00:00

I've seen his thumbnails in my recommendations a couple of times, but I know absolutely nothing about him--and now I'm even less likely to watch anything by him in the future. For those of you who have seen some of his videos, though, what do you think? Is his stuff any good?

mvmlego · 2021-01-30T05:04:48+00:00

Time for a third party, bro. The next time you would vote for a Democratic candidate just to stop the Republican candidate (or vise-versa), find someone you know and trust IRL who would do the opposite, and then agree to both vote for a less objectionable third-party candidate.

mvmlego · 2021-01-29T17:36:28+00:00

LOL. We'll see who the mods come down on--a guy who's gotten along fine with everyone but one person, or a guy who says he can't stand to look at non-gays, non-Republicans, non-Jews, or whites.

https://saidit.net/s/LGBDropTheT/comments/77io/biden_picks_dr_rachel_levine_transgender_woman_as/rb9c?context=3

You've really outed yourself with your last comment. Whether your identity politics rants are trolling or sincere, it doesn't really matter--as you've demonstrated, they're toxic to discourse. My job here is done. Keep on ranting, if you'd like, but I won't be reading it, and neither will anyone else who values their time or sanity.

mvmlego · 2021-01-29T14:33:21+00:00

I thought the person's original point was a decent one, though. It seems plausible that campaigns to get transwomen out of women's bathrooms could result in butch lesbians being mistakenly identified as men/transwomen and being harassed.

EDIT: that doesn't mean that transwomen should be allowed in women's spaces, but the potential problems caused by oversensitive transdar (i.e. The trans equivalent of gaydar. Is that a thing?) are still worth keeping in mind.

mvmlego · 2021-01-29T14:22:22+00:00

Keep evading the question, troll.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T23:26:05+00:00

Keep evading the question, troll.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T22:59:22+00:00

While it would be easier for the students to be separated by some of those characteristics in the short term, it would make things more difficult for them and society as a whole in the long term. If boys and girls (or black students and white students, etc.) don't learn how to work alongside one-another when they're young, then they're going to have to go through those struggles when they're older--either in college or in the workplace--unless you're advocating for completely apartheid society.

Such a society may be plausible with regard to race (though I'd contest the notion that it's desirable), but it's certainly not plausible with regard to sex. As for sexual orientation... even just separating schoolchildren on that basis isn't really possible, since kids often can't confidently classify their sexual orientation until their mid teens.

I don't think your solution would actually solve the problem you're seeking to address, either. Segregated schools (or societies) would probably result in an increase in disparities between groups, since the separation allows bigoted actors to more easily target members of certain demographic groups for mistreatment. It would also enable curricula and educational styles that reinforced problematic racial stereotypes, gender roles, etc., making integration down the line even more difficult.

Speaking of which, are you proposing that the education system would remain divided these ways indefinitely, or just until some standard of equal treatment in integrated schools could be assured? If the latter, then what would that standard be? If the former, then why do you believe that equal treatment can never be possible?

P.S.: Speaking in generalized terms about some demographic group doing some bad thing is unhelpful, inflammatory, and typically leverages its vagueness to try to support some sort of incorrect conclusion--and in case you're wondering, I say the same thing to white people making unflattering generalizations about a black person, men making unflattering generalizations about women, etc.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T22:36:15+00:00

Keep evading the question, troll.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T22:06:39+00:00

Okay, troll. Keep evading the question, troll.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T21:00:14+00:00

Your answer has no apparent relation to the question of why one would adopt "hetisachoice" as a username. Keep trolling.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T20:54:16+00:00

Keep evading. This makes for some easy karma for me.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T19:03:27+00:00

Huh. My bad. Thanks for the info!

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T17:39:49+00:00

Oh, man. I didn't look at the image closely, and I thought it was an actual photograph overlaid with a couple of bad filters. It's also been around ten years since I've seen that movie, I think. Thank you.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T17:34:08+00:00

Even though I think you're overestimating the importance of role models (and specifically role models of the same sex) in determining a child's behavior, I see your point now. Thanks for the clarification.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T17:22:49+00:00

That's... good to know. Thanks for the clarification.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T17:04:19+00:00

Wait, what movie?

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T16:57:16+00:00

Yes, I believe this. People, males or females, should take responsabilities for their own actions. People who have no fault shouldn't have to be constantly "covering up" the mess someone else did.

In that case, my second point was appropriate: if a staff member's only responsibility is to do no net harm, then there would be no reason to employ them in the first place, so of course part of their job is to solve problems that they didn't cause. There's no reason this shouldn't include problems that are ostensibly caused by members of the opposite sex.

Regardless, you still haven't properly addressed the first point: how are the male faculty, guidance counselors, administrators, fathers of the bullies, and fathers of the victims categorically more responsible for boys heteronormatively bullying boys than the female faculty, guidance counselors, administrators, mothers of the bullies, and mothers of the victims are? You keep changing the subject to men harassing other men, but that's not what the article, the study, or the Saidit post are about; they're about boys bullying other boys--and the male adults in those boys' lives didn't necessarily cause the bullying any more so than the female adults in those boys' lives caused it.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T16:19:23+00:00

To be fair to the guy who posted that, I don't think the Nazis were nuanced enough to distinguish between a homosexual person and, for example, a bisexual person or a transvestite (who would probably identify as "queer" nowadays).

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T16:06:47+00:00

Did Abby Nissenbaum work on that study, specifically? It seemed to me that the two research teams just happened to be researching similar things and finding the same conclusions (and, at least in the case of Abby's group, doing so illegitimately). That said, I agree with the more general point that it's good to be skeptical of individual social science studies.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T15:52:06+00:00

Stop being evasive and answer the question properly for once. I've seen you do this sort of thing before.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T15:34:49+00:00

The 2nd point is not true, I don't know where you got that idea from my answer lmao.

Your original comment was a non-sequitur, so I had to fill in your reasoning as best I could. You said that you agreed with someone who claimed (a) "this [is] a problem that has nothing to do with the female population" and (b) "let men handle it". This implies that you believe, for example, that female guidance counselors, the mother of a bully, and the mother of a victim of bullying have no responsibility to help resolve boy-on-boy bullying.

You've been pretty adamant about the point that men are causally responsible for boys bullying other boys, and I don't see how this would relate to conclusions (a) and (b) unless you were also operating under the hidden premise that people aren't responsible for solving problems that they didn't cause.

Also, you haven't clarified how men are responsible for sexual-orientation-based boy-on-boy bullying. How are the men in this situation causally responsible for the problem, and how does that justify censorshipment's comments that men bear sole responsibility for fixing it?

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T02:35:08+00:00

I think the existence of intersectional feminism demonstrates that feminists, progressives, and (especially) hardcore leftists don't consider wealthy, white lesbians to have it the hardest.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T02:31:17+00:00

Yep. Each of the groups of the acronym has their own unique challenges, and I think one of the ones for gay men is that straight men tend to be less accepting of homosexual men than straight women are of homosexual women.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T02:29:25+00:00

To be clear: are you advocating for separate boys' and girls' schools? I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing; I'd just be surprised. I tend to hear more support for that idea among social conservatives and the most vocal opposition to that idea among second-wave feminists.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T02:20:56+00:00

Your comment seems to rely on two premises, both of which appear to be false:

1) that men (specifically, the male school staff) are causally responsible for the boys being bullied.

2) that school staff should only be responsible for fixing the problems that they cause.

To the first point: in what way is boys bullying boys caused by male school staff failing to take responsibility for their actions? To the second: of course people aren't only responsible for fixing whatever problems they've caused. If a staff member's only responsibility was to do no net harm, then there would be no reason to pay them in the first place.

mvmlego · 2021-01-28T01:22:13+00:00

Odd fact: men can get erections while dying from various forms of execution.* I'm not denying the potential link between autogynophilia and transwomen--I'm just saying: don't underestimate the weirdness of physiological sexual arousal.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_erection

mvmlego