Jun 12, 2023·edited Jun 12, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
I think the category error here is thinking the MSM exist now to present "news", that is, a relatively fair and factual assessment of various events.
But for the left side of the aisle, most esp the progressive aristocracy who suck daily at the teat of NYT/NPR/PBS etc, this DeSantis Fascist! beat serves first and foremost as an etiquette lesson—All Good People hate that "Don't Say Gay" Florida Man—plus as a tribal/ideological marker/shibboleth and also as a way to update crowdsourced dogma on the fly.
Not to mention that the digital Left seems to be displaying serious Projection issues, and as it's very hard for them to look in the mirror and admit that they've become censorious scolds who bowdlerize old books, inflict "sensitivity readers" on authors, and cancel anyone who contradicts sacred dogma, they've instead created this "book banning" antigay hysteria so as to blame their opponents for what they've so obviously become. (As if the Pensacola school board is as powerful as the NYT, Hollywood, the Ivy League etc. LOL)
The MSM for Left/liberals is like Tylenol—take 2 every 6 hrs to ease symptoms of cognitive dissonance.
Frustrates me to no end that the alphabet-soup of LBGTQ+ was created. Those of us that identify as L, G, or B find very little in common with the T-extremists (noting that NOT all T's are extremists), but are now being lumped in as one big group by the folks who find macro-groupings useful for their targeted tirades. I'm personally a fan of the #RemoteTheTfromLGBQ movement. Doesn't have much steam yet......but has potential.
Jun 12, 2023·edited Jun 12, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
As a trans person, I am also a fan of removing T from LGB. I mean, for one, it's only tangetially related to the others and its placement in the alphabet pantheon is a result of historical convenience rather than any similiarity. Also LGB is all about what type of person arouses you, and our whole thing is kinda "it's not autogynephilia it has nothing to do with sex or arousal".
Would love to see T split off into its own thing with Two Spirits and Non-Binaries given their own place in that new acronym. The fact that NBs are lumped in with me under the "T" umbrella has bothered me for the better part of a decade.
EDIT: That said, this is a pipe dream and we all know it. Every aberrant facet of human existence will one day be included in LGBT. The pride flag will become a literal alphabet, used in the New Language spoken by the Coalition of the Oppressed. The pride flag has black and brown people on it now. There will be no "splitting", sorry. :(
Honestly, the sad part is the extremes cause the people like you to be marginalized, all for politics. I truly feel for those of you who aren't the crazies. I have some really good friends who are blanketed in the term, but who feel the same as you all have stated.
Yeah, I'm gay and never signed up for any of this crap. And it's starting to look like the center cannot hold on these issues. We've got the gender psychos on one side, the self-righteous preachers on the other, and we're about to get a tidal wave of backlash for things most of us never had anything to do with. Would love to be proven wrong. Forced teaming sucks for the people being glommed onto.
The thing that really worries me, is that when the backlash really gets going, I might end up having to use those guns on people who I consider friends. This idea does not exactly fill me with joy.
It's a well-known trope that, 'You'll know the person that you'll have to defend yourself against.' I see no reason why this trope wouldn't apply to social breakdown just as well as it does to personal-level criminality.
This debate falls under the rubric of universal moral panic.
It goes like this: leftists attempt widespread, controversial norm change --> reactionaries on the right defecate themselves and others --> leftists screech about the smell --> additional defecation ensues --> rinse (for the love of god), repeat. Before you know it, everyone has shit in their pants and no one is happy.
Exactly. It's like an Anti-Overton's-Window: it is a subject that encapsulates issues all sides find unacceptable, so we can't stop talking about it.
"Please don't override my parental authority and teach my kids to get gender mutilation without even talking to me about it" becomes "why can't they just let trans people including youth exist?" On the other side.
All kinds of compromise would be possible if empathy hadn't been chucked out years ago, and the media let us talk to each other plainly.
Frankly, I'll bet most people in this country are like me: not pro- or anti- just ANYTHING BUT TRANS. Live and let live, but there are multiple existential crises growing while this issue continues to dominate the discourse. Let's pass laws saying there can be no change to current policy on trans issues for 10 years.
[["Please don't override my parental authority and teach my kids to get gender mutilation without even talking to me about it" becomes "why can't they just let trans people including youth exist?" On the other side.]]
This is a perfect description of the Shiri's Scissor in play.
I’m always hesitant to reach for the law book, because, generally, I think fewer things should be illegal. But yeah, this is a particular pickle considering the stakes of “what if you’re wrong.” Both extremes of the trans debate are horrified by their opponents’ solutions, firmly believing we’re left with either dead kids or sterile, mutilated kids. The truth is likely to be some of both, though the clear social contagion aspect probably weights the calculus more heavily in the direction of mutilation, maybe much more so. How much suffering of children is acceptable? Or even of adults? How should various kinds of suffering be weighted?
Personally, I find the trans activist “research” to be woefully uncompelling, so I err on the side of approaching trans ID as a mental disorder to be treated psychiatrically. The NHS in the UK likely has the right of it -- finally -- limiting puberty blockers for minors to clinical studies until more is known. Still, there’s the ethical dilemma of potentially permanently altering the healthy physiology of children for the sake of science...
Here in America, leaders on the left are treating this as settled consensus, if only the science deniers would come to their senses. Leaders on the right are operating as though all kids are equally susceptible to “transing,” making every child a potential victim in need of protection. And the sane majority is burdened with trying to sort out balls and strikes in a game where the primary players seem largely disinterested in the contributions of those who have been sidelined.
Is Florida threading the needle well enough? I hope so. Time will tell.
Yes, I agree about it being a psychological disorder. However, the larger issue is how science is viewed in America and how it actually works.
Good science takes dozens or hundreds of thousands of studies to reach consensus, and even then it is recognized that the consensus could be wrong. Science only works if it's disproveable. It's a tool of time, consensus is reached after years, science is applied, the world changes.
American society tends to latch onto single scientific findings we find compelling. Those are reported as truth. Good Americans are expected to find the authority compelling.
And that's the rub: we aren't stupid. America is just mercilessly authoritarian. Really, it always has been. "We believe science" is really "Believe us or else". It's not the science, it's the scientist - we are expected to obey the government appointed authority. Who provides as little logic or actual science as possible.
Surely there is some real number of “trans” children, though the true incidence rate may be unknowable in the current climate. Applying the principle to “first, do no harm,” it seems to me the glaring lack of scientific results and rigor in this field would, in a sane world, result in the application of psychiatric treatment to the exclusion of nearly everything else until a greater understanding could be had of more invasive treatment options. The sex binary is so well established that anyone arguing otherwise should suffer reputational harm, especially medical professionals. Unfortunately, the universal moral panic has, to an extent, prevented reason from taking hold by allowing the extremes to engage in a rhetorical arms race.
I largely agree about your statements regarding authoritarian attitudes in the scientific realm. But just as evidence must be weighed, so must consequences of legal impositions, and I’m not sure how capable our elected leaders are at measured lawmaking on either side of this issue, especially since the law is the natural playground of authoritarianism.
See, I don't believe in the soul, so I don't believe a soul can be in the wrong body. Viewing body and mind as a whole can only lead to psychological treatment.
But even if we grant the metaphysics involved, surgery and medication don't turn men into women, or vice versa. Their genitals aren't functional from a reproductive standpoint. They will require a lifetime of medication and surgery. Most will remain visibly trans. Many will experience sexual dysfunction and other side effects.
Why are depression, dysphoria and dysmorphia, suffered for a host of other reasons, considered more damaging than all of that? Reproduction is one of the key goals of all life, and we're taking that away from people because they're sad.
Once science has progressed to where it can produce actual sex change, we are selling all these young people on something that can't actually be provided, yell as the activists might and even if everyone on earth enthuses that they are indeed an actual woman or man, they won't be. And even passing is so expensive as to be an incredibly classist endeavor. That's the tragedy here: we hold up a few beautiful trans women as examples, but that's just not the reality for most. We are inflicting greater harm by ignoring objective reality and protecting feelings instead of children.
Really begs the question: in these instances, can a child ever make a truly informed decision?
My point about there being *some* real number of trans children has to do with, for example, extensive female-typical brain development in male fetuses. Hence dysphoria. Hence trans. This does not mean the boy child was born in the wrong body, just that his software doesn’t exactly line up with his hardware to the extent of causing personal anguish. Psychiatric treatment seems the most humane way to help these people, but I’m not so sure medical “transition” should be completely off the table for *adults* who are able to sufficiently demonstrate their condition and also make a completely informed decision. No, a man will never be a woman with the current state of medicine. End of story there. Hypothetically, though, could you say that the mind of a man transferred into a woman’s body was actually a woman, full stop? Or would you still have to qualify? How about the mind of a transwoman? Would that complete the circle?
Imagine living in the time with the highest word count in the public record and actually reading the words.
I say that as a joke but it's a serious issue. There is just so much to read that we just expect people to pre-chew things for us and take it as truth. Thanks for chewing the cud for us.
The thing you're leaving out, though, is the effect that the *writing* of these laws have: the laws themselves are not as much shots across the bow as some would like to think, but they serve as signals and trends for others who can *use* them as trends. It's a lot like the laws against suicide: the laws themselves are ineffective (anyone who's committed suicide is beyond the reach of such laws) but the existence of the laws serves as a deterrent. The existence of these bills, sane or not, suggests to both sides that there're sides to take... and that the FL government is on one side of the issue, even if the text of the bills suggests that there's more nuance than the readers might think.
I think some of the laws are significant, and also diverge heavily from my own personal preference.
Bathrooms for instance. I think we just just knock the wall down between them and make them all co-ed. Wouldn't bother me a bit. As a single father of a daughter it would have made my life significantly easier to be honest, since those bastards never used to put the changing station in the men's room.
Do the same for sports.
But that's not the preferred solution of most women, for a variety of reasons.
Interesting, I had never thought of that aspect. I have, honestly, always been a big fan of unisex bathrooms. Additionally, it gives parents, like you, a personal area with a changing space for your little ones. I didn't really understand the panic on the whole bathroom thing when NC first did it, then the silliness that resulted. There are far bigger fish to fry IMO.
You're watching the wrong women's soccer games, then, if you think it is a "farce". I watched nearly all of the soccer games my daughter played in and not once did the word "farce" come to mind.
Not sure what you're going on about here. My daughter is more than a little knowledgeable of "the game" and used to be quite a fan of womens pro soccer (until she switched to playing golf due to most soccer coaches and fans being complete assholes). Are there crappy womens soccer teams? Sure. That's no different from mens pro sports. Plenty of inept teams in whatever sport you'd care to mention without specifying whether its men or women...
Lack of baby changing stations in men's rooms isn't an argument for unisex bathrooms across the board. Its an argument for putting baby changing stations in men's rooms (and perhaps getting knuckle-dragging men to do their part and change diapers once in a while).
Mixed sex sports would be an absolute disaster for women. How could it not? Just don't watch them if you think they're not up to standard - most men don't watch women's sports anyway. But don't take the joy of playing and achievement from girls by making them mixed sex. The boys will always be picked ahead, from school teams all the way up along. For obvious reasons.
I'm surprised at this take from you, it seems so wilfully dismissive and that's not like you.
It catches the boundary crossers at an early stage.
Bathrooms do also serve as mini refuges for young girls, I'm thinking of schools and nightclubs etc, filled with horn young men of whom 1% (?) are harassers or worse. It's intimidating being targeted at that age, and a legitimate place you can go where you can't be followed is a godsend. You'd often find someone who understands in there and walk out together, at least in my young days.
I've a feeling most of the people who don't mind are men who haven't experienced that side of things.
Not saying I fully agree with the tactic, but if you look at the relative tameness of the bills vs the media freakout, it seems pretty clear that what these legislators are doing is trying to codify norms that are being challenged in radical ways. That should be taken into account, too. As long as the bills are legally sound and remain limited in scope, this is probably good for Florida, where the radical politics are not very popular.
You worry about HWFO, but it's obvious we have a national state of HW moral panic regarding transgender people in order to get easy votes. Look at the number of laws passed or proposed JUST IN FLORIDA that you've listed here. Given your statements on the subject, I'm guessing you would agree that the attention being given to the subject is not proportional to the "problem". While it's true biased news is distorting the actual text of the laws, I don't think they're distorting the unwarranted intent.
Regarding SB 1438, you accuse media organizations of conflating drag shows with pornography, which to me implies you believe the law will never be used against "non-pornographic" drag shows. First, I'd ask you to consider the necessity of this law now. Is there a rash in Florida of minors being exposed to live pornography that hasn't reached national attention? Why are we being asked to "think of the children" here? You accuse the "leftist" (my quotes) media of conflating transgenderism with sexual activities, but in my experience, it is currently the right that is calling any exposure of minors to the existence of LGBTQ+ people as "grooming". Second, consider one of your own hand-picked data points: "Only 29% of Americans think 'drag queen story hour' is appropriate for children." Why would they possibly consider that inappropriate if they are not conflating being a drag queen with inappropriate sexuality? Why would you consider this an important data point unless you were doing the same?
When I lived in NYC, I discovered there was a law requiring a license for bars to permit clients to dance (I almost got kicked out of an unlicensed bar for breaking that rule!). The law makes no sense. It was created back in the roaring 20's as a way to selectively shut down "undesirable" jazz bars playing black music. When analyzing the text of a law, you need to look also at the intention behind the law, and how it might be applied.
Reading the actual text of SB 1438, you'll find that the meat of the text relies on value judgements:
“Adult live performance” means any show...which, in whole or IN PART, depicts or simulates...lewd conduct...when it:
1. Predominantly appeals to a prurient, shameful, or morbid interest;
2. Is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community of this state as a whole with respect to what is suitable material or conduct for the age of the child present;
and
3. Taken as a whole, is without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for the age of the child present.
(my edits are, of course, meant to highlight the most egregious interpretation)
Given that a significant portion of Floridians conflate books about having two mommies with "grooming", and sees fit to approving of legislation clearly targeted at anti-trans objectives, I find it reasonable to see this law as more than just a way to cut down on exposure of children to pornography.
...but it's the Shiri's Scissor of the moment so it gets the most clicks.
"Regarding SB 1438, you accuse media organizations of conflating drag shows with pornography, which to me implies you believe the law will never be used against "non-pornographic" drag shows. "
Yes. I think if anyone ever tried it, it would fail in court and create FL caselaw that insulates "wholesome drag shows" from prosecution as long as they stayed in a wholesome lane. Like, MTF in a tasteful dress reading kids books and not taking about sex. There's no basis in the law to go after someone doing that. So when I read the arguments flying around today, they look to me like this:
Blues: "Nobody is sexualizing children's content."
Reds: "Ok, then you won't mind us making it illegal to sexualize children's content."
Blues: "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"
When people on the outside looking in see the dialogue go like this, they conclude that the Blues were lying about nobody sexualizing children's content.
On "grooming" accusations, I think the right was doing some Motte and Bailey there. If by grooming we mean setting children up to be sexually abused, Drag Queen Story Hour was most likely not that. If we mean normalizing DQ culture, it obviously was. So the reds say "that's grooming!" with the second well supported definition, since that's obviously what it is, and slip in the inference that they're actually doing the first thing instead of the second when nobody's looking. They're starting to learn how to be dirty with words from the woke. It's no coincidence James Lindsey was at the center of the Grooming Twitter War.
When I have floated the idea of AR-15 Story Hour I have been accused of grooming. To which I said "yep."
On the "29%" figure, I absolutely agree that most people equate drag shows with inappropriate content, because drag shows for basically ever were a firehose of inappropriate content. That's what made them fun. That's literally why people went to them. I've been to them. Exactly 0% of the content I've seen drag shows is child friendly. That's why the reaction has been what it's been.
To your legal interpretation, it seems very plain to me that all a DQ has to do to get away from prosecution during story hour is choose not to depict or simulate lewd behavior. Reading books is not lewd.
"Yes. I think if anyone ever tried it, it would fail in court and create FL caselaw that insulates 'wholesome drag shows' from prosecution as long as they stayed in a wholesome lane." That's a little too on-the-nose reading of this type of legislation. Of course it's a political tool, so we'll skip that part of the question. Beyond the word of the law, it has a chilling effect on anything DQ or queer, and intentionally encourages people to continue conflating drag and trans with something of an aberration and sexual in nature (would a MAGA Floridian allow their children near a drag queen?). If there ever is a prosecution, there's no guarantee of the outcome if the "war on woke" continues to be a successful long-term political strategy. If the 11th circuit court becomes anything like the 5th, all bets are off.
I don't think "grooming" was ever used to mean "normalize". If so, it's a completely cynical use of the term intended 100% to associate LGBTQ+ with sexual perversion. Of course DQ story hour is an attempt at normalization. Given the very same conflation that we've been talking about here regarding DQ and sexuality, efforts need to be made to decouple the two. That's education and normalization, not "grooming". The same goes for "two mommies" and "two daddies" books. The point is to show children at an early age that these people exist and are not aberrations before they get a distorted view from a bigoted society (with intentionally targeted laws).
"On the '29%' figure, I absolutely agree that most people equate drag shows with inappropriate content, because drag shows for basically ever were a firehose of inappropriate content" - but, see, you've just done the switch again. You're talking about drag shows, and not DQs reading stories, which is what the 29% was about. No one's saying you should take kids into a 21+ bar to watch a drag show. DQ story hour would be an opportunity to show kids (and apparently adults) drag queens doing completely normal wholesome activities. Here in Brazil, the most recent soap opera had DQ characters performing on stage. But they were just dressing up as the artists they were imitating, and performing the tunes as if they were the original performers. TV- and child-friendly. "Grooming"? No. And neither would be AR-15 story time.
Side note, Tim, it seems to me that a man dressing up as a famous female entertainer should be just as acceptable as a white person dressing up as a black entertainer. The left has similar hang-ups when it comes to self-ID. Think Rachel Dolezal. Clearly, the intent of such race-bending performers and Ms. Dolezal is not to present historically offensive portrayals of blacks. Quite the opposite, there is genuine admiration in such acts. Not to outright presume your politics, but if you can answer the following question, please help me to understand: Applying the same leftist logic surrounding “blackface,” how come Dolezal is considered an aberration to progressives, while a man identifying as a women is sacrosanct?
Well, TBH I'm not really familiar with her case. However, I can try to answer in general terms the apparent hypocrisy, or at least asymmetry of this type of situation.
First things first, there is a difference between drag (transvestite) and transgender. Transgender is generally recognized as involving a genetic and/or congenital component to it, so what is considered a "choice" often really isn't. No one should be blamed for something they did not choose.
Regarding the question of dressing as a woman vs. dressing as a black person, part of the question is WHY they are doing that. In the case of drag, the answer is usually that they are doing it either because they feel more comfortable in those clothes, or maybe they are just having fun. However, black face has a sordid history in the U.S. of making black people look ridiculous, clowny or otherwise disrespecting black people through caricature (this is the same reason there was so much protest around sport teams that use Native American names and imagery). While there may be well-intentioned reasons for a white person to dress up as a black person in the modern age (e.g. you just want to honor MLK Jr. on Halloween), you just... shouldn't. Not until all the other issues of race have been dealt with and resolved. For the same reason, the "N" word should never be used by a white person, but a black person can, under the right circumstances. It's a question of history: a man dressing as a woman was never a symbol of disrespect; instead, it could be taken as a form of flattery.
Regarding the case of Rachel Dolezal, that's a very delicate topic, and I wouldn't dare presume. I do know that American Indian tribes are also VERY protective of their identities, to the point that people that really should be accepted as allies and family are rejected for not being pureblood enough, or not being raised as part of the tribe. This is due to a history of white people trying to co-opt and/or change American Indian traditions to the point of distortion or dilution. The defensive reaction may at times lead to injustice, but given the history, it's at least understandable. In a similar vein (not in terms of dilution, but in terms of struggles), the African American population in the U.S. has fought tooth and nail to get as far as they have. They have seen time and time again parts of their culture get appropriated by white people (minstrelsy, dance, jazz, blues and rock) and turned into a success that they could never achieve due to their color. To see a white person pretending to be a black person, and becoming head of a chapter of the NAACP no less, has to be more than a little hard to swallow. And she did not do it honestly - she lied about her ancestry and upbringing.
As far as the genetic/congenital aspect of trans-ID, I think it remains to be seen how much of the current trend can be explained in this way. Surely there’s a biological component in some cases, but there are very clear social elements at play as well. Now to ferret out the difference.
Drag is largely performative, right? So, being comfortable in women’s clothing is not exactly a primary consideration. Time and place matter to a drag queen, etc. That’s why I use transgender/drag and transracial/performing as black. The grouped items are not analogs of each other, but each grouping is analogous to the other. Despite this fact, transracial individuals receive disparate treatment, as do white people who dress up to honor their black heroes, etc. In this way, progressives are logically inconsistent. Why? Because of history? That strikes me as arbitrary.
On the question of history, of course it matters in some regards, but to what extent *should* it matter in controlling discourse? Collectivized guilt and, on the flip side, perpetual victimhood in view of history are the progressive versions of holding a generational grudge. Are grudges generally advisable?
Appropriation is a defining aspect of human culture, which follows an evolutionary process, so I find the term “cultural appropriation” to be redundant, but intentionally so, for censorial effect.
"Drag is largely performative, right? So, being comfortable in women’s clothing is not exactly a primary consideration." I know at least one boy that prefers to dress as a woman, but uses his original male name, and the pronouns he/him. He's not a performer. He just feels better dressed as a girl. "Comfortable" doesn't always refer to the fit of the clothing - it can be about how it makes you feel.
"Because of history? That strikes me as arbitrary." Reflect on the "N" word issue, and maybe it'll give you more intuition on the subject. But, to be fair, part of the issue of this "history" is that it's not really in the past. Racism still exists today, both explicit and hidden. Until that's not the case, and there's no power imbalance, these things will continue to be asymmetrical. It's not a "grudge". It's that there's still a very likely probability that someone using black face is doing so as a sign of disrespect (or misunderstanding - like the cringeworthy uses of MLK quotes every Jan 15).
Cultural appropriation in the negative/harmful sense exists. It happens when someone decides they're a member of a group without asking the group itself (hippies in the 60's that went and camped out on Indian reservations thinking they could be one of the tribe), when they adopt a part of a cultural practice without really understanding its original context and meaning (taking some of the teachings of Yoga and calling yourself a master when all you know how to do is stretch differently), when you take someone else's evolved ideas and don't honor those that gave it birth. It happens when it's ignorant, arrogant and/or disrespectful.
Here's an example from my own life: my wife and I met through Capoeira, a martial art with African and local roots that is unique to Brazil. We spent a few years in the U.S., and met many African Americans that were clearly passionate about the history of Capoeira, especially its connection to African traditions. One day we heard a group of people were planning a black-only Capoeira gathering as a way for them to feel a sense of brotherhood, community and safety within their subgroup, and to connect to their African heritage together. In other words, my wife, who is tan-skinned, was being cut out of her own Brazilian heritage for an event in American honoring Africa. THAT's cultural appropriation. Fortunately, when we pointed this out to them, the event was cancelled.
A) you might want to look up the definition of the term "grooming". "preperation" and "training" or forms of normalization.
B) the fact, as Bill Mahr puts it, the growth rates show we will all be "gay" by 2050, means that the grooming is a form of indoctrination to make children believe something that may/ or may not be true. Do you honestly believe that 20% of the worlds population is secretly gay? I don't. It doesn't make sense from a statistical standpoint in which we were continually bred for species survival. 0-5%, I believe. But when places, like NYC, are trending toward 20%+ rates, it fits more that it is the social aspect of fitting in, not how/what someone genuinely is.
When someone on Twitter starts calling an educator a "groomer" they're not looking it up in the dictionary. Let's not play word games here. They mean it in the most perjorative sense of the term. If you really want to go by dictionary definitions, I think this one most matches its current use: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=groomer
I believe 10% is the right number, but that's not important. The point is it's way above 0%, enough so that children should be taught it's normal. Should books that teach children that being in a wheelchair or being blind is normal be considered "grooming"? Should people be against reading those to children? The point is to make something that is rare but normal become familiar enough to children that they don't react to those people as if they're freaks.
Jun 13, 2023·edited Jun 13, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
I'm amazed that noone says that conscience clause would allow medical professionals to not prescribe or dispense contraceptives, morning after pills, medical abortion pills. Also refuse to perform vasectomies, tubal ligation or in vitro fertilization. And OF COURSE perform or participate in surgical abortions for whatever reason (perhaps apart from immediate danger to mother's life). Also prescribe contraceptives to under 18yo, or unmarried, women. Etc etc etc.
I have no idea what the status quo in Florida is now (I'm neither Floridan or even American) but such clauses pave a way to sneakily shift the Overton Window on what's "normal" reproductive health care and heavily affect women's (and general family) lives, including and up to lethal results (CF pre referendum Ireland, Poland right now), in line with usually heavily religious beliefs.
The conscience clause would obviously do that, but it's not like anyone would choose to go to a gyno who refused to proscribe birth control. Anyone pulling the "I'm a gynecologist who objects to modern gynecology" would simply self-select themselves out of a job.
Our medical marketplace isn't perfect, but it's broad enough that we won't have that problem.
What the hell, why would I read the laws when I can freakout about what the news dun told me? The news never lies.....
Com'on now, asking people to read is like asking people to not take a massive poop about every 12-36 hours. The average mouthbreather reads at a 6th grade level, no less. Don't ask them to read. How dare you.
Jun 12, 2023·edited Jun 12, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
Worth noting that the Florida state board of education recently extended the ban on topics of gender and sexuality up to the 12th grade.
When I think of that ban in relation to kindergarteners vs in relation to 12th graders I think of it in 2 very different ways. For kindergarteners I think of it as very necessary protection of young, highly impressionable kids from genuinely insane, groomery tiktok teachers who seem bent on getting the kids they teach to declare themselves the opposite sex. And for the upper elementary grades I think of the insane teachers trying to fill school libraries and curricula with literal porn like that "Gender Queer" book.
But when I think of this in relation to high schoolers, I think of history and literature teachers being banned from discussing very important events in the past 50 years of our history, and works of literature in which these themes have always been central to their analysis and interpretation. The poll you cited bears this out, as 3/4 support a ban on gender/sexuality in K-3 (rightly so), while 2/3 oppose it in high school (also rightly so).
I'll take no position officially in the article, but for me elementary school is *clearly* too young for this stuff, and high school is *clearly* old enough for this stuff, and the question is what to do with middle schoolers. Hell, I lost my virginity when I was a HS freshman.
Hell I went to school with kids who lost their virginity in the 6th grade. And yet I also got in trouble in 5th grade for telling a friend what a vagina is, and that sex is penis in vagina rather than penis in boobs like he thought it was, after his parents complained to mine (he's an only child, I have a sister). Big variance out there!
And yeah middle school is the big question here. Normally I'd come down on the side of allowing it. While I won't endorse banning it, the psycho teachers filling the libraries with alphabet porn at least give me very serious pause.
Personally I feel like if you are old enough to breed, you are old enough to have the conversation about it. Then again we have gotten stuck on these 18 year old "adult" laws and it's kinda silly. (IMO) One is just about as much of an "adult" at 13-15 as they are at 18. Or for that matter, 21. Sure, there are formative changes during that time, but there are formative (IIRC) changes until one is about 23-25. So why 18? 21? 25? It's arbitrary and not based in science/logic.
I've never understood what they expect teachers to say when, say, a third grader says "I saw a man dressed like a lady," or some such. "No you didn't," doesn't seem like the way to go. "Uh huh"? "Ask your parents about it"? The implication that it's forbidden to talk about seems disrespectful to transgender kids and adults.
This was a BS argument. There was never the ban on a teacher explaining what this is. It was just from overtly pushing a stance on impressionable children. That being said, I don't have kids, won't have kids, and it doesn't impact me. So, I really don't GAS. This specific scenario was addressed and debunked previously when it was argued.
At the heart of the anger was that, unlike in years past, parents were not informed of the artwork ahead of time. Hope Carrasquilla, who had been principal at Tallahassee Classical for about nine months, said an email notifying parents had been written, but the administration accidently forgot to send it.
"I made the assumption that the letter went out, and I didn't follow up on it," she told NPR. "It is my responsibility to make sure these things happen, but honestly we did not have to send out a letter regarding Renaissance art."
According to Carrasquilla, two parents were upset they did not receive a letter and one parent complained more specifically about the nudity, equating it to pornographic material.
My theory is that all of these people are mad that they missed the 60s civil rights movement (which, as we all know, was more significant than Thermopylae, Yorktown, and Gettysburg put together), so now they're desperately looking for an "oppressed group" to fight for. After all, oppressed groups are all completely helpless unless overeducated, underemployed, do goody white people take their side.
Social scientist Christian Parenti, an anti-"woke" socialist, science historian, estimates that the RACE GRIFTER industry is a $BILLION business.
Anti-"woke" journalist (conservative?) Jennifer Bilek estimates that the "woke" trans GRIFTER industry is worth $8 BILLION.
John McWhorter (heterodox liberal/center-left) and Glenn Loury (heterodox center-right) have a podcast where they frequently discuss this stuff. McWhorter wrote a book some time ago about a midwestern city that had none of the standard indicators of "structural" racism, but where an anti-racism "activist" back in the 1960s/70s made up all sorts of stuff about "structural" racism to get grant money and donations.
They recently discussed the larger issue of how many black activists in the 1960s realized that it was easier to take radical anti-racism poses to evoke "white guilt" and to get grant money than it was to do the actual hard work of improving the conditions of poor black people.
So, WOKE GRIFTING is largely about greed and money.
The main other part, as historian and critic of the left's identity politics put it decades ago, the postmodern left holds the "belief" that "reality is a social construct".
Thus, the "woke" elites, typically globalists and transhumanist creep crawlies, are freed to engage in INVERTED CLASS WAR against the traditional , industrial working classes, small property owners (Yeomanry) and their working class employees.
See Joel Kotkin's material on (globalist) Neo-Feudalism.
If you really want to go deep into the weeds, see Bernie Neville's work on Jungian archetypes and the Hermes archetype as it relates to disruptive network technology and boundary violations under postmodern social conditions (planetary culture, unregulated neoliberalism, etc.) and Kegan's stage theory.
(Bernie Neville @ latrobe . edu . au)
Similarly:
re: David Ronfeldt's TIMN model of social change
disruption -> disintegration -> regression to ideological tribalism -> reintegration at a higher level / social form
More stuff related to the problem of psychological archetypes:
David Chapman, AI scientist, software developer, Buddhist, explains the limits of human awareness to understand and define truth (reality) in terms of the pattern-nebulosity conundrum:
For those not familiar with these topics in the integral theory community or similar groups:
Chapman has dug into the substrate of human consciousness to explain the core difference between postmodern claims that "reality is a social construct" and that "science" tends to be "absolutist" (echoing the claims 100s of years ago of romanticists).
Robert Kegan's psychological development theory, "stage" theory, sort of supports the postmodern-relativist position, if not its pathological "woke" expression, in that stage 4, enlightenment rationalism, is overly fixed on rational and material awareness.
Stage 5 is holistic, "fluid" and metarational/metamodern.
The problem is that between the failures of materialist, scientific rationalism to explain all of human nature and metarationalism is stage 4.5, postmodern relativism.
Postmodernism claims to deconstruct the absolutisms of modernity, but blunders, in the pathological form of pomo, by holding its anti-absolutist (stage 4.5) position as an absolute!
At stage 5, the epistomological indeterminacy of reality is apparent and the possibility that both absolutes (pattern) and anti-absolutes (nebulosity) can both exist in human awareness.
At stage 5, holding the absolutist, postmodern view about the lack of absolutes is impossible.
"read the words in them"
Well, there's where you've gone wrong. You attempted to engage with objective reality.
I think the category error here is thinking the MSM exist now to present "news", that is, a relatively fair and factual assessment of various events.
But for the left side of the aisle, most esp the progressive aristocracy who suck daily at the teat of NYT/NPR/PBS etc, this DeSantis Fascist! beat serves first and foremost as an etiquette lesson—All Good People hate that "Don't Say Gay" Florida Man—plus as a tribal/ideological marker/shibboleth and also as a way to update crowdsourced dogma on the fly.
Not to mention that the digital Left seems to be displaying serious Projection issues, and as it's very hard for them to look in the mirror and admit that they've become censorious scolds who bowdlerize old books, inflict "sensitivity readers" on authors, and cancel anyone who contradicts sacred dogma, they've instead created this "book banning" antigay hysteria so as to blame their opponents for what they've so obviously become. (As if the Pensacola school board is as powerful as the NYT, Hollywood, the Ivy League etc. LOL)
The MSM for Left/liberals is like Tylenol—take 2 every 6 hrs to ease symptoms of cognitive dissonance.
Frustrates me to no end that the alphabet-soup of LBGTQ+ was created. Those of us that identify as L, G, or B find very little in common with the T-extremists (noting that NOT all T's are extremists), but are now being lumped in as one big group by the folks who find macro-groupings useful for their targeted tirades. I'm personally a fan of the #RemoteTheTfromLGBQ movement. Doesn't have much steam yet......but has potential.
As a trans person, I am also a fan of removing T from LGB. I mean, for one, it's only tangetially related to the others and its placement in the alphabet pantheon is a result of historical convenience rather than any similiarity. Also LGB is all about what type of person arouses you, and our whole thing is kinda "it's not autogynephilia it has nothing to do with sex or arousal".
Would love to see T split off into its own thing with Two Spirits and Non-Binaries given their own place in that new acronym. The fact that NBs are lumped in with me under the "T" umbrella has bothered me for the better part of a decade.
EDIT: That said, this is a pipe dream and we all know it. Every aberrant facet of human existence will one day be included in LGBT. The pride flag will become a literal alphabet, used in the New Language spoken by the Coalition of the Oppressed. The pride flag has black and brown people on it now. There will be no "splitting", sorry. :(
Honestly, the sad part is the extremes cause the people like you to be marginalized, all for politics. I truly feel for those of you who aren't the crazies. I have some really good friends who are blanketed in the term, but who feel the same as you all have stated.
Yeah, I'm gay and never signed up for any of this crap. And it's starting to look like the center cannot hold on these issues. We've got the gender psychos on one side, the self-righteous preachers on the other, and we're about to get a tidal wave of backlash for things most of us never had anything to do with. Would love to be proven wrong. Forced teaming sucks for the people being glommed onto.
Yup. That's why I buy guns.
The thing that really worries me, is that when the backlash really gets going, I might end up having to use those guns on people who I consider friends. This idea does not exactly fill me with joy.
It's a well-known trope that, 'You'll know the person that you'll have to defend yourself against.' I see no reason why this trope wouldn't apply to social breakdown just as well as it does to personal-level criminality.
Well the T follows logically from the LGB, however much you try to deny it.
This debate falls under the rubric of universal moral panic.
It goes like this: leftists attempt widespread, controversial norm change --> reactionaries on the right defecate themselves and others --> leftists screech about the smell --> additional defecation ensues --> rinse (for the love of god), repeat. Before you know it, everyone has shit in their pants and no one is happy.
Exactly. It's like an Anti-Overton's-Window: it is a subject that encapsulates issues all sides find unacceptable, so we can't stop talking about it.
"Please don't override my parental authority and teach my kids to get gender mutilation without even talking to me about it" becomes "why can't they just let trans people including youth exist?" On the other side.
All kinds of compromise would be possible if empathy hadn't been chucked out years ago, and the media let us talk to each other plainly.
Frankly, I'll bet most people in this country are like me: not pro- or anti- just ANYTHING BUT TRANS. Live and let live, but there are multiple existential crises growing while this issue continues to dominate the discourse. Let's pass laws saying there can be no change to current policy on trans issues for 10 years.
[["Please don't override my parental authority and teach my kids to get gender mutilation without even talking to me about it" becomes "why can't they just let trans people including youth exist?" On the other side.]]
This is a perfect description of the Shiri's Scissor in play.
I’m always hesitant to reach for the law book, because, generally, I think fewer things should be illegal. But yeah, this is a particular pickle considering the stakes of “what if you’re wrong.” Both extremes of the trans debate are horrified by their opponents’ solutions, firmly believing we’re left with either dead kids or sterile, mutilated kids. The truth is likely to be some of both, though the clear social contagion aspect probably weights the calculus more heavily in the direction of mutilation, maybe much more so. How much suffering of children is acceptable? Or even of adults? How should various kinds of suffering be weighted?
Personally, I find the trans activist “research” to be woefully uncompelling, so I err on the side of approaching trans ID as a mental disorder to be treated psychiatrically. The NHS in the UK likely has the right of it -- finally -- limiting puberty blockers for minors to clinical studies until more is known. Still, there’s the ethical dilemma of potentially permanently altering the healthy physiology of children for the sake of science...
Here in America, leaders on the left are treating this as settled consensus, if only the science deniers would come to their senses. Leaders on the right are operating as though all kids are equally susceptible to “transing,” making every child a potential victim in need of protection. And the sane majority is burdened with trying to sort out balls and strikes in a game where the primary players seem largely disinterested in the contributions of those who have been sidelined.
Is Florida threading the needle well enough? I hope so. Time will tell.
Yes, I agree about it being a psychological disorder. However, the larger issue is how science is viewed in America and how it actually works.
Good science takes dozens or hundreds of thousands of studies to reach consensus, and even then it is recognized that the consensus could be wrong. Science only works if it's disproveable. It's a tool of time, consensus is reached after years, science is applied, the world changes.
American society tends to latch onto single scientific findings we find compelling. Those are reported as truth. Good Americans are expected to find the authority compelling.
And that's the rub: we aren't stupid. America is just mercilessly authoritarian. Really, it always has been. "We believe science" is really "Believe us or else". It's not the science, it's the scientist - we are expected to obey the government appointed authority. Who provides as little logic or actual science as possible.
Surely there is some real number of “trans” children, though the true incidence rate may be unknowable in the current climate. Applying the principle to “first, do no harm,” it seems to me the glaring lack of scientific results and rigor in this field would, in a sane world, result in the application of psychiatric treatment to the exclusion of nearly everything else until a greater understanding could be had of more invasive treatment options. The sex binary is so well established that anyone arguing otherwise should suffer reputational harm, especially medical professionals. Unfortunately, the universal moral panic has, to an extent, prevented reason from taking hold by allowing the extremes to engage in a rhetorical arms race.
I largely agree about your statements regarding authoritarian attitudes in the scientific realm. But just as evidence must be weighed, so must consequences of legal impositions, and I’m not sure how capable our elected leaders are at measured lawmaking on either side of this issue, especially since the law is the natural playground of authoritarianism.
See, I don't believe in the soul, so I don't believe a soul can be in the wrong body. Viewing body and mind as a whole can only lead to psychological treatment.
But even if we grant the metaphysics involved, surgery and medication don't turn men into women, or vice versa. Their genitals aren't functional from a reproductive standpoint. They will require a lifetime of medication and surgery. Most will remain visibly trans. Many will experience sexual dysfunction and other side effects.
Why are depression, dysphoria and dysmorphia, suffered for a host of other reasons, considered more damaging than all of that? Reproduction is one of the key goals of all life, and we're taking that away from people because they're sad.
Once science has progressed to where it can produce actual sex change, we are selling all these young people on something that can't actually be provided, yell as the activists might and even if everyone on earth enthuses that they are indeed an actual woman or man, they won't be. And even passing is so expensive as to be an incredibly classist endeavor. That's the tragedy here: we hold up a few beautiful trans women as examples, but that's just not the reality for most. We are inflicting greater harm by ignoring objective reality and protecting feelings instead of children.
Really begs the question: in these instances, can a child ever make a truly informed decision?
My point about there being *some* real number of trans children has to do with, for example, extensive female-typical brain development in male fetuses. Hence dysphoria. Hence trans. This does not mean the boy child was born in the wrong body, just that his software doesn’t exactly line up with his hardware to the extent of causing personal anguish. Psychiatric treatment seems the most humane way to help these people, but I’m not so sure medical “transition” should be completely off the table for *adults* who are able to sufficiently demonstrate their condition and also make a completely informed decision. No, a man will never be a woman with the current state of medicine. End of story there. Hypothetically, though, could you say that the mind of a man transferred into a woman’s body was actually a woman, full stop? Or would you still have to qualify? How about the mind of a transwoman? Would that complete the circle?
Imagine living in the time with the highest word count in the public record and actually reading the words.
I say that as a joke but it's a serious issue. There is just so much to read that we just expect people to pre-chew things for us and take it as truth. Thanks for chewing the cud for us.
The thing you're leaving out, though, is the effect that the *writing* of these laws have: the laws themselves are not as much shots across the bow as some would like to think, but they serve as signals and trends for others who can *use* them as trends. It's a lot like the laws against suicide: the laws themselves are ineffective (anyone who's committed suicide is beyond the reach of such laws) but the existence of the laws serves as a deterrent. The existence of these bills, sane or not, suggests to both sides that there're sides to take... and that the FL government is on one side of the issue, even if the text of the bills suggests that there's more nuance than the readers might think.
I think some of the laws are significant, and also diverge heavily from my own personal preference.
Bathrooms for instance. I think we just just knock the wall down between them and make them all co-ed. Wouldn't bother me a bit. As a single father of a daughter it would have made my life significantly easier to be honest, since those bastards never used to put the changing station in the men's room.
Do the same for sports.
But that's not the preferred solution of most women, for a variety of reasons.
Interesting, I had never thought of that aspect. I have, honestly, always been a big fan of unisex bathrooms. Additionally, it gives parents, like you, a personal area with a changing space for your little ones. I didn't really understand the panic on the whole bathroom thing when NC first did it, then the silliness that resulted. There are far bigger fish to fry IMO.
No mom ever yelled at me for changing a diaper in the ladies room. Just make them all co-ed and move on.
Also, women's soccer is a farce. I desperately want trans players to start playing in women's games so at least they'll be more interesting.
You're watching the wrong women's soccer games, then, if you think it is a "farce". I watched nearly all of the soccer games my daughter played in and not once did the word "farce" come to mind.
I mean at the upper levels. They can't even switch fields properly.
Not sure what you're going on about here. My daughter is more than a little knowledgeable of "the game" and used to be quite a fan of womens pro soccer (until she switched to playing golf due to most soccer coaches and fans being complete assholes). Are there crappy womens soccer teams? Sure. That's no different from mens pro sports. Plenty of inept teams in whatever sport you'd care to mention without specifying whether its men or women...
> I have, honestly, always been a big fan of unisex bathrooms.
Ok, you sound like a pervert.
what perverted thing woul you do in a unisex bathroom? You must have something in mind!
Most unisex bathrooms are single rooms (one room, one person) , but you do you.
The discussion was about multi-stall bathrooms. Stop playing stupid.
Go f- yourself. Dick.
Lack of baby changing stations in men's rooms isn't an argument for unisex bathrooms across the board. Its an argument for putting baby changing stations in men's rooms (and perhaps getting knuckle-dragging men to do their part and change diapers once in a while).
Mixed sex sports would be an absolute disaster for women. How could it not? Just don't watch them if you think they're not up to standard - most men don't watch women's sports anyway. But don't take the joy of playing and achievement from girls by making them mixed sex. The boys will always be picked ahead, from school teams all the way up along. For obvious reasons.
I'm surprised at this take from you, it seems so wilfully dismissive and that's not like you.
It's always such a pain when the men's room doesn't have a baby-changing location (even a small flat surface), innit?
I also agree that the sign on the wall that says "sex-segregated" isn't protecting anyone in the bathroom.
It does.
It catches the boundary crossers at an early stage.
Bathrooms do also serve as mini refuges for young girls, I'm thinking of schools and nightclubs etc, filled with horn young men of whom 1% (?) are harassers or worse. It's intimidating being targeted at that age, and a legitimate place you can go where you can't be followed is a godsend. You'd often find someone who understands in there and walk out together, at least in my young days.
I've a feeling most of the people who don't mind are men who haven't experienced that side of things.
Not saying I fully agree with the tactic, but if you look at the relative tameness of the bills vs the media freakout, it seems pretty clear that what these legislators are doing is trying to codify norms that are being challenged in radical ways. That should be taken into account, too. As long as the bills are legally sound and remain limited in scope, this is probably good for Florida, where the radical politics are not very popular.
Of course, that logic goes both ways. It's why drag queen story hour followed on the heels of gay "marriage".
You worry about HWFO, but it's obvious we have a national state of HW moral panic regarding transgender people in order to get easy votes. Look at the number of laws passed or proposed JUST IN FLORIDA that you've listed here. Given your statements on the subject, I'm guessing you would agree that the attention being given to the subject is not proportional to the "problem". While it's true biased news is distorting the actual text of the laws, I don't think they're distorting the unwarranted intent.
Regarding SB 1438, you accuse media organizations of conflating drag shows with pornography, which to me implies you believe the law will never be used against "non-pornographic" drag shows. First, I'd ask you to consider the necessity of this law now. Is there a rash in Florida of minors being exposed to live pornography that hasn't reached national attention? Why are we being asked to "think of the children" here? You accuse the "leftist" (my quotes) media of conflating transgenderism with sexual activities, but in my experience, it is currently the right that is calling any exposure of minors to the existence of LGBTQ+ people as "grooming". Second, consider one of your own hand-picked data points: "Only 29% of Americans think 'drag queen story hour' is appropriate for children." Why would they possibly consider that inappropriate if they are not conflating being a drag queen with inappropriate sexuality? Why would you consider this an important data point unless you were doing the same?
When I lived in NYC, I discovered there was a law requiring a license for bars to permit clients to dance (I almost got kicked out of an unlicensed bar for breaking that rule!). The law makes no sense. It was created back in the roaring 20's as a way to selectively shut down "undesirable" jazz bars playing black music. When analyzing the text of a law, you need to look also at the intention behind the law, and how it might be applied.
Reading the actual text of SB 1438, you'll find that the meat of the text relies on value judgements:
“Adult live performance” means any show...which, in whole or IN PART, depicts or simulates...lewd conduct...when it:
1. Predominantly appeals to a prurient, shameful, or morbid interest;
2. Is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community of this state as a whole with respect to what is suitable material or conduct for the age of the child present;
and
3. Taken as a whole, is without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for the age of the child present.
(my edits are, of course, meant to highlight the most egregious interpretation)
Given that a significant portion of Floridians conflate books about having two mommies with "grooming", and sees fit to approving of legislation clearly targeted at anti-trans objectives, I find it reasonable to see this law as more than just a way to cut down on exposure of children to pornography.
First off, thank you for the detailed comment!! :)
"You worry about HWFO, but it's obvious we have a national state of HW moral panic regarding transgender people in order to get easy votes. "
I agree, and in both directions. The number of minor transitioners is probably relatively small, which I covered here:
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/unnecessary-mastectomy-math
...but it's the Shiri's Scissor of the moment so it gets the most clicks.
"Regarding SB 1438, you accuse media organizations of conflating drag shows with pornography, which to me implies you believe the law will never be used against "non-pornographic" drag shows. "
Yes. I think if anyone ever tried it, it would fail in court and create FL caselaw that insulates "wholesome drag shows" from prosecution as long as they stayed in a wholesome lane. Like, MTF in a tasteful dress reading kids books and not taking about sex. There's no basis in the law to go after someone doing that. So when I read the arguments flying around today, they look to me like this:
Blues: "Nobody is sexualizing children's content."
Reds: "Ok, then you won't mind us making it illegal to sexualize children's content."
Blues: "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"
When people on the outside looking in see the dialogue go like this, they conclude that the Blues were lying about nobody sexualizing children's content.
On "grooming" accusations, I think the right was doing some Motte and Bailey there. If by grooming we mean setting children up to be sexually abused, Drag Queen Story Hour was most likely not that. If we mean normalizing DQ culture, it obviously was. So the reds say "that's grooming!" with the second well supported definition, since that's obviously what it is, and slip in the inference that they're actually doing the first thing instead of the second when nobody's looking. They're starting to learn how to be dirty with words from the woke. It's no coincidence James Lindsey was at the center of the Grooming Twitter War.
When I have floated the idea of AR-15 Story Hour I have been accused of grooming. To which I said "yep."
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-ar-15-story-hour
On the "29%" figure, I absolutely agree that most people equate drag shows with inappropriate content, because drag shows for basically ever were a firehose of inappropriate content. That's what made them fun. That's literally why people went to them. I've been to them. Exactly 0% of the content I've seen drag shows is child friendly. That's why the reaction has been what it's been.
To your legal interpretation, it seems very plain to me that all a DQ has to do to get away from prosecution during story hour is choose not to depict or simulate lewd behavior. Reading books is not lewd.
"Yes. I think if anyone ever tried it, it would fail in court and create FL caselaw that insulates 'wholesome drag shows' from prosecution as long as they stayed in a wholesome lane." That's a little too on-the-nose reading of this type of legislation. Of course it's a political tool, so we'll skip that part of the question. Beyond the word of the law, it has a chilling effect on anything DQ or queer, and intentionally encourages people to continue conflating drag and trans with something of an aberration and sexual in nature (would a MAGA Floridian allow their children near a drag queen?). If there ever is a prosecution, there's no guarantee of the outcome if the "war on woke" continues to be a successful long-term political strategy. If the 11th circuit court becomes anything like the 5th, all bets are off.
I don't think "grooming" was ever used to mean "normalize". If so, it's a completely cynical use of the term intended 100% to associate LGBTQ+ with sexual perversion. Of course DQ story hour is an attempt at normalization. Given the very same conflation that we've been talking about here regarding DQ and sexuality, efforts need to be made to decouple the two. That's education and normalization, not "grooming". The same goes for "two mommies" and "two daddies" books. The point is to show children at an early age that these people exist and are not aberrations before they get a distorted view from a bigoted society (with intentionally targeted laws).
"On the '29%' figure, I absolutely agree that most people equate drag shows with inappropriate content, because drag shows for basically ever were a firehose of inappropriate content" - but, see, you've just done the switch again. You're talking about drag shows, and not DQs reading stories, which is what the 29% was about. No one's saying you should take kids into a 21+ bar to watch a drag show. DQ story hour would be an opportunity to show kids (and apparently adults) drag queens doing completely normal wholesome activities. Here in Brazil, the most recent soap opera had DQ characters performing on stage. But they were just dressing up as the artists they were imitating, and performing the tunes as if they were the original performers. TV- and child-friendly. "Grooming"? No. And neither would be AR-15 story time.
Side note, Tim, it seems to me that a man dressing up as a famous female entertainer should be just as acceptable as a white person dressing up as a black entertainer. The left has similar hang-ups when it comes to self-ID. Think Rachel Dolezal. Clearly, the intent of such race-bending performers and Ms. Dolezal is not to present historically offensive portrayals of blacks. Quite the opposite, there is genuine admiration in such acts. Not to outright presume your politics, but if you can answer the following question, please help me to understand: Applying the same leftist logic surrounding “blackface,” how come Dolezal is considered an aberration to progressives, while a man identifying as a women is sacrosanct?
Well, TBH I'm not really familiar with her case. However, I can try to answer in general terms the apparent hypocrisy, or at least asymmetry of this type of situation.
First things first, there is a difference between drag (transvestite) and transgender. Transgender is generally recognized as involving a genetic and/or congenital component to it, so what is considered a "choice" often really isn't. No one should be blamed for something they did not choose.
Regarding the question of dressing as a woman vs. dressing as a black person, part of the question is WHY they are doing that. In the case of drag, the answer is usually that they are doing it either because they feel more comfortable in those clothes, or maybe they are just having fun. However, black face has a sordid history in the U.S. of making black people look ridiculous, clowny or otherwise disrespecting black people through caricature (this is the same reason there was so much protest around sport teams that use Native American names and imagery). While there may be well-intentioned reasons for a white person to dress up as a black person in the modern age (e.g. you just want to honor MLK Jr. on Halloween), you just... shouldn't. Not until all the other issues of race have been dealt with and resolved. For the same reason, the "N" word should never be used by a white person, but a black person can, under the right circumstances. It's a question of history: a man dressing as a woman was never a symbol of disrespect; instead, it could be taken as a form of flattery.
Regarding the case of Rachel Dolezal, that's a very delicate topic, and I wouldn't dare presume. I do know that American Indian tribes are also VERY protective of their identities, to the point that people that really should be accepted as allies and family are rejected for not being pureblood enough, or not being raised as part of the tribe. This is due to a history of white people trying to co-opt and/or change American Indian traditions to the point of distortion or dilution. The defensive reaction may at times lead to injustice, but given the history, it's at least understandable. In a similar vein (not in terms of dilution, but in terms of struggles), the African American population in the U.S. has fought tooth and nail to get as far as they have. They have seen time and time again parts of their culture get appropriated by white people (minstrelsy, dance, jazz, blues and rock) and turned into a success that they could never achieve due to their color. To see a white person pretending to be a black person, and becoming head of a chapter of the NAACP no less, has to be more than a little hard to swallow. And she did not do it honestly - she lied about her ancestry and upbringing.
Thanks for the thoughtful response here, Tim.
As far as the genetic/congenital aspect of trans-ID, I think it remains to be seen how much of the current trend can be explained in this way. Surely there’s a biological component in some cases, but there are very clear social elements at play as well. Now to ferret out the difference.
Drag is largely performative, right? So, being comfortable in women’s clothing is not exactly a primary consideration. Time and place matter to a drag queen, etc. That’s why I use transgender/drag and transracial/performing as black. The grouped items are not analogs of each other, but each grouping is analogous to the other. Despite this fact, transracial individuals receive disparate treatment, as do white people who dress up to honor their black heroes, etc. In this way, progressives are logically inconsistent. Why? Because of history? That strikes me as arbitrary.
On the question of history, of course it matters in some regards, but to what extent *should* it matter in controlling discourse? Collectivized guilt and, on the flip side, perpetual victimhood in view of history are the progressive versions of holding a generational grudge. Are grudges generally advisable?
Appropriation is a defining aspect of human culture, which follows an evolutionary process, so I find the term “cultural appropriation” to be redundant, but intentionally so, for censorial effect.
"Drag is largely performative, right? So, being comfortable in women’s clothing is not exactly a primary consideration." I know at least one boy that prefers to dress as a woman, but uses his original male name, and the pronouns he/him. He's not a performer. He just feels better dressed as a girl. "Comfortable" doesn't always refer to the fit of the clothing - it can be about how it makes you feel.
"Because of history? That strikes me as arbitrary." Reflect on the "N" word issue, and maybe it'll give you more intuition on the subject. But, to be fair, part of the issue of this "history" is that it's not really in the past. Racism still exists today, both explicit and hidden. Until that's not the case, and there's no power imbalance, these things will continue to be asymmetrical. It's not a "grudge". It's that there's still a very likely probability that someone using black face is doing so as a sign of disrespect (or misunderstanding - like the cringeworthy uses of MLK quotes every Jan 15).
Cultural appropriation in the negative/harmful sense exists. It happens when someone decides they're a member of a group without asking the group itself (hippies in the 60's that went and camped out on Indian reservations thinking they could be one of the tribe), when they adopt a part of a cultural practice without really understanding its original context and meaning (taking some of the teachings of Yoga and calling yourself a master when all you know how to do is stretch differently), when you take someone else's evolved ideas and don't honor those that gave it birth. It happens when it's ignorant, arrogant and/or disrespectful.
Here's an example from my own life: my wife and I met through Capoeira, a martial art with African and local roots that is unique to Brazil. We spent a few years in the U.S., and met many African Americans that were clearly passionate about the history of Capoeira, especially its connection to African traditions. One day we heard a group of people were planning a black-only Capoeira gathering as a way for them to feel a sense of brotherhood, community and safety within their subgroup, and to connect to their African heritage together. In other words, my wife, who is tan-skinned, was being cut out of her own Brazilian heritage for an event in American honoring Africa. THAT's cultural appropriation. Fortunately, when we pointed this out to them, the event was cancelled.
A) you might want to look up the definition of the term "grooming". "preperation" and "training" or forms of normalization.
B) the fact, as Bill Mahr puts it, the growth rates show we will all be "gay" by 2050, means that the grooming is a form of indoctrination to make children believe something that may/ or may not be true. Do you honestly believe that 20% of the worlds population is secretly gay? I don't. It doesn't make sense from a statistical standpoint in which we were continually bred for species survival. 0-5%, I believe. But when places, like NYC, are trending toward 20%+ rates, it fits more that it is the social aspect of fitting in, not how/what someone genuinely is.
When someone on Twitter starts calling an educator a "groomer" they're not looking it up in the dictionary. Let's not play word games here. They mean it in the most perjorative sense of the term. If you really want to go by dictionary definitions, I think this one most matches its current use: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=groomer
I believe 10% is the right number, but that's not important. The point is it's way above 0%, enough so that children should be taught it's normal. Should books that teach children that being in a wheelchair or being blind is normal be considered "grooming"? Should people be against reading those to children? The point is to make something that is rare but normal become familiar enough to children that they don't react to those people as if they're freaks.
I'm amazed that noone says that conscience clause would allow medical professionals to not prescribe or dispense contraceptives, morning after pills, medical abortion pills. Also refuse to perform vasectomies, tubal ligation or in vitro fertilization. And OF COURSE perform or participate in surgical abortions for whatever reason (perhaps apart from immediate danger to mother's life). Also prescribe contraceptives to under 18yo, or unmarried, women. Etc etc etc.
I have no idea what the status quo in Florida is now (I'm neither Floridan or even American) but such clauses pave a way to sneakily shift the Overton Window on what's "normal" reproductive health care and heavily affect women's (and general family) lives, including and up to lethal results (CF pre referendum Ireland, Poland right now), in line with usually heavily religious beliefs.
The conscience clause would obviously do that, but it's not like anyone would choose to go to a gyno who refused to proscribe birth control. Anyone pulling the "I'm a gynecologist who objects to modern gynecology" would simply self-select themselves out of a job.
Our medical marketplace isn't perfect, but it's broad enough that we won't have that problem.
Mistake theory. Conflict.
What the hell, why would I read the laws when I can freakout about what the news dun told me? The news never lies.....
Com'on now, asking people to read is like asking people to not take a massive poop about every 12-36 hours. The average mouthbreather reads at a 6th grade level, no less. Don't ask them to read. How dare you.
Hell, freakoutery about these laws is probably being written into the AP style guide.
Worth noting that the Florida state board of education recently extended the ban on topics of gender and sexuality up to the 12th grade.
When I think of that ban in relation to kindergarteners vs in relation to 12th graders I think of it in 2 very different ways. For kindergarteners I think of it as very necessary protection of young, highly impressionable kids from genuinely insane, groomery tiktok teachers who seem bent on getting the kids they teach to declare themselves the opposite sex. And for the upper elementary grades I think of the insane teachers trying to fill school libraries and curricula with literal porn like that "Gender Queer" book.
But when I think of this in relation to high schoolers, I think of history and literature teachers being banned from discussing very important events in the past 50 years of our history, and works of literature in which these themes have always been central to their analysis and interpretation. The poll you cited bears this out, as 3/4 support a ban on gender/sexuality in K-3 (rightly so), while 2/3 oppose it in high school (also rightly so).
I'll take no position officially in the article, but for me elementary school is *clearly* too young for this stuff, and high school is *clearly* old enough for this stuff, and the question is what to do with middle schoolers. Hell, I lost my virginity when I was a HS freshman.
Hell I went to school with kids who lost their virginity in the 6th grade. And yet I also got in trouble in 5th grade for telling a friend what a vagina is, and that sex is penis in vagina rather than penis in boobs like he thought it was, after his parents complained to mine (he's an only child, I have a sister). Big variance out there!
And yeah middle school is the big question here. Normally I'd come down on the side of allowing it. While I won't endorse banning it, the psycho teachers filling the libraries with alphabet porn at least give me very serious pause.
A lot of kids think the boob thing, I corrected a friend's similar misconception also in the fifth grade lol
Personally I feel like if you are old enough to breed, you are old enough to have the conversation about it. Then again we have gotten stuck on these 18 year old "adult" laws and it's kinda silly. (IMO) One is just about as much of an "adult" at 13-15 as they are at 18. Or for that matter, 21. Sure, there are formative changes during that time, but there are formative (IIRC) changes until one is about 23-25. So why 18? 21? 25? It's arbitrary and not based in science/logic.
I've never understood what they expect teachers to say when, say, a third grader says "I saw a man dressed like a lady," or some such. "No you didn't," doesn't seem like the way to go. "Uh huh"? "Ask your parents about it"? The implication that it's forbidden to talk about seems disrespectful to transgender kids and adults.
This was a BS argument. There was never the ban on a teacher explaining what this is. It was just from overtly pushing a stance on impressionable children. That being said, I don't have kids, won't have kids, and it doesn't impact me. So, I really don't GAS. This specific scenario was addressed and debunked previously when it was argued.
Teachers have said they're anxious about it, and remember that principal had to resign because one of the teachers showed the statue of David?
It was a principal, and I think there was more to the story than that because the FL department of education said immediately that David was fine.
https://flvoicenews.com/florida-education-department-encourages-instruction-on-classical-art-and-david-sculpture/
It's possible this principal used the freakout as a launch platform to gain internet cred in the blue tribe or something. Hard to say for sure.
It seems to be a private school, so not sure if the state even has a say in it.
At the heart of the anger was that, unlike in years past, parents were not informed of the artwork ahead of time. Hope Carrasquilla, who had been principal at Tallahassee Classical for about nine months, said an email notifying parents had been written, but the administration accidently forgot to send it.
"I made the assumption that the letter went out, and I didn't follow up on it," she told NPR. "It is my responsibility to make sure these things happen, but honestly we did not have to send out a letter regarding Renaissance art."
According to Carrasquilla, two parents were upset they did not receive a letter and one parent complained more specifically about the nudity, equating it to pornographic material.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/27/1166079167/tallahassee-classical-michelangelo-david-principal-fired
I don't recall this? But I have actively avoided the news and Twitter for the better part of a year or two now. Have a link?
https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/03/florida-principal-fired-michelangelo-david-statue.html
Thanks.
My theory is that all of these people are mad that they missed the 60s civil rights movement (which, as we all know, was more significant than Thermopylae, Yorktown, and Gettysburg put together), so now they're desperately looking for an "oppressed group" to fight for. After all, oppressed groups are all completely helpless unless overeducated, underemployed, do goody white people take their side.
Social scientist Christian Parenti, an anti-"woke" socialist, science historian, estimates that the RACE GRIFTER industry is a $BILLION business.
Anti-"woke" journalist (conservative?) Jennifer Bilek estimates that the "woke" trans GRIFTER industry is worth $8 BILLION.
John McWhorter (heterodox liberal/center-left) and Glenn Loury (heterodox center-right) have a podcast where they frequently discuss this stuff. McWhorter wrote a book some time ago about a midwestern city that had none of the standard indicators of "structural" racism, but where an anti-racism "activist" back in the 1960s/70s made up all sorts of stuff about "structural" racism to get grant money and donations.
They recently discussed the larger issue of how many black activists in the 1960s realized that it was easier to take radical anti-racism poses to evoke "white guilt" and to get grant money than it was to do the actual hard work of improving the conditions of poor black people.
So, WOKE GRIFTING is largely about greed and money.
The main other part, as historian and critic of the left's identity politics put it decades ago, the postmodern left holds the "belief" that "reality is a social construct".
Thus, the "woke" elites, typically globalists and transhumanist creep crawlies, are freed to engage in INVERTED CLASS WAR against the traditional , industrial working classes, small property owners (Yeomanry) and their working class employees.
See Joel Kotkin's material on (globalist) Neo-Feudalism.
If you really want to go deep into the weeds, see Bernie Neville's work on Jungian archetypes and the Hermes archetype as it relates to disruptive network technology and boundary violations under postmodern social conditions (planetary culture, unregulated neoliberalism, etc.) and Kegan's stage theory.
(Bernie Neville @ latrobe . edu . au)
Similarly:
re: David Ronfeldt's TIMN model of social change
disruption -> disintegration -> regression to ideological tribalism -> reintegration at a higher level / social form
https://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/02/overview-of-social-evolution-past.html
More stuff related to the problem of psychological archetypes:
David Chapman, AI scientist, software developer, Buddhist, explains the limits of human awareness to understand and define truth (reality) in terms of the pattern-nebulosity conundrum:
https://metarationality.com/nebulosity
---
https://meaningness.com/pattern
For those not familiar with these topics in the integral theory community or similar groups:
Chapman has dug into the substrate of human consciousness to explain the core difference between postmodern claims that "reality is a social construct" and that "science" tends to be "absolutist" (echoing the claims 100s of years ago of romanticists).
Robert Kegan's psychological development theory, "stage" theory, sort of supports the postmodern-relativist position, if not its pathological "woke" expression, in that stage 4, enlightenment rationalism, is overly fixed on rational and material awareness.
Stage 5 is holistic, "fluid" and metarational/metamodern.
The problem is that between the failures of materialist, scientific rationalism to explain all of human nature and metarationalism is stage 4.5, postmodern relativism.
Postmodernism claims to deconstruct the absolutisms of modernity, but blunders, in the pathological form of pomo, by holding its anti-absolutist (stage 4.5) position as an absolute!
At stage 5, the epistomological indeterminacy of reality is apparent and the possibility that both absolutes (pattern) and anti-absolutes (nebulosity) can both exist in human awareness.
At stage 5, holding the absolutist, postmodern view about the lack of absolutes is impossible.
Hell yes. Don Quixote syndrome. Needing to feel important without anything important to do.