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[Mosh]

So don't tell me this is about sports or about science. This is about politics. This is about Republicans exploiting a non-issue in an electoral campaign to rile prejudice and hatred among the more bigoted of their voters. There was an enormous anti-trans campaign by the Republicans in 2022, who believed that by focusing on this issue, they could get a landslide victory in the midterms. They didn't, but for whatever reason, this still won't stop them.

This is where it begins and ends for me. The GOP lost the culture war on gay marriage, they are losing it on abortion, and are beginning to lose it on guns. They need a new boogeyman and right now it's trans people. The trans kids in sports issue affects a tiny sliver of the population and the GOP is using it to attract gullible people. Clearly, it's working.

 

[Perun]

What's this got to do with anything?

He knows he doesn't have any counter-arguments to what I said, he can't take that because he still hates me for an old post I made and so he's trying to do an ad hominem against me by painting me as a hypocrite. The German in his post translates to something like "you're soaked in self-righteousness". To substantiate it, he brings up a vague memory of an inappropriate joke I probably made at some point to prove it and in order to reinforce his point he tries to suggest I wouldn't own up to that. I would if I knew what he's talking about; I just don't remember. I thought I once wrote something like "Iron Gayden" or "Dick in son" on the board when I was drunk, but I couldn't find it. I also did a search for posts containing "homo", but only found the one I linked to. I used the word "retard" three times, and I know I used that gay seal image at least once, and I admit I thought it was funny in a very schoolboy way. I posted this while drunk earlier this year, although you'd have to be really be mean-spirited to interpret it as anything but a bad pun on names.

But fine, let's put it all on the table.

I made gay jokes when I was in school in the nineties and early 2000s.

I lived with a Lesbian for several months when I was in my early 20's and she dragged me to a lot of gay parties and I went along because I didn't have many friends at the time, and at some point I became annoyed because that wasn't my subculture and I would have liked to meet straight chicks, so I might have let out an ill-advised statement or slur at the time (although if I did, it wasn't so anyone heard it, which of course may be worse because it's cowardly).

I wore blackface in school once, when we were doing a nativity play and we did a modern re-interpretation of the three wise men as foreigners, the black one being an American. Since we had no Blacks in the school and I could do an American accent, I put on brown face paint, not seeing anything wrong with it at the time. I was 12, I think. There might be a photo of it, I've never seen any though.

I once unsuccessfully tried not to laugh at a Holocaust joke.

I spend a lot of time in Bulgaria where I live next door to a Roma neighbourhood and they usually party until midnight in the summer, and I probably said "can't those Gypsies fucking shut up for once" in bed once or twice.

In grade 8 I called a rheumatic classmate of mine a "cripple". He laughed but I was nevertheless guilted by my teacher to apologise to him.

In grade 5 I asked a classmate of mine who wore a hearing aid if he's "deaf or stupid".

A few years ago I saw a guy in a train station attacking a girl and went between them, only for both of them to tell me they're friends and joking around and I didn't apologise but just said "fine" and it occurred to me later on that I might have reacted differently hadn't the guy been black.

I once patted a black kid on the head because I wanted to know what the hair feels like, I was around 25 then.

I lived in a lower class, high-immigrant neighbourhood in Berlin for ten years and occasionally brought up something I saw "Ghetto Turks" doing in conversation. Some 10-15 years ago I made a related Facebook post in which I said I saw two carrying a plastic bag from a bookstore and I said (jokingly) "I wonder where they stole that". I have since deleted the post and still cringe at it.

I shared an article about cultural appropriation on Facebook twelve years ago saying I thought it was a lot of bullshit.

Probably the biggest thing: Around the same time, I said several times to various people that gender studies is not a proper academic discipline because I was butthurt about a grade that was slightly lower than expected in a gender studies class I took. Mind you, I maintain the teacher was really bad in explaining what queer theory is, but that is not an excuse for me to block and develop prejudice against this field of study, and it took me several years and more experiences with LGBTQIA+ people to overcome my prejudice and educate myself on the subject properly.

Do you want more, @jazz from hell or is that enough for you? Does anything in this disqualify any of my arguments?

 

[Saapanael]

Those historical examples are interesting, LC.

Let's be clear - if you want to wear a dress to school because you think you're a girl, then you're a *girl*.

I’m not trying to argue but what if somebody believes they’re the next Jesus Christ or an alien from another planet? Should they be treated as such?

 

[LooseCannon]

Those historical examples are interesting, LC.



I’m not trying to argue but what if somebody believes they’re the next Jesus Christ or an alien from another planet? Should they be treated as such?

These are the same arguments that were used to dismiss people's homosexuality, with the suggestion that being gay was against nature, when it isn't. People think they're a messiah literally all the time. It's very common, and it doesn't mean the person is mentally ill. Look at people who believe they can talk to god, they get churches, not shackles. Some people believe they're aliens, some people believe in insane conspiracies, but we don't lock them up as long as those beliefs don't cause harm to themselves and others. Hell, when it comes to religious beliefs, we allow an insane amount of things under that label. Things that aren't scientifically possible, like transubstantiation, are still proclaimed as true by major religions. But hey, religion gets you a pass there.

Transgender people getting gender affirming care doesn't cause harm, not to themselves, nor others. The opposite is true; coming out as trans vastly increases someone's likelihood of being the subject of violence. This all comes back to one person striking back, which is what kicked this off. I don't want to see violence, but it's very true that reactionary forces try to apply pressure to small othered groups until someone makes a bad decision to fight back with violence, thus giving the reactionary forces the excuse to apply violence to that group in an exponential way. That's why MLK and Gandhi demanded non-violence from their followers, to take that weapon away from the reactionaries.

 

[Brigantium]

That is bizarre. A 10-year old doesn’t know what “trans” is. They can be influenced into thinking they’re trans (by parents, society) but hormonal treatment at that age? Come on. When I was around 9, I would sometimes use my mom’s lipstick to paint my lips red. I didn’t pretend to be a girl or anything, I probably just liked the sensation of coloured lips. Pretty weird to think back on it but it was harmless. Thank god my mother didn’t get me into hormone treatment (perhaps a more delusional mother would’ve thought I must want to be a girl) because I was just a kid having fun. That’s what kids do at that age, shameless exploration, not medically transforming their body.
I’ve met transgender people in my life and I tolerate them as I do any other person, but with most of them you can sense deep inner struggles, which have likely contributed to the decision to change from man to woman or from woman to man. I would never want to attribute such struggles to a child still deep in the process of growing up and figuring out life.

If I'd known when I was ten that female to male reassignment was a thing, I would certainly have been interested in it. Once natural hormones kick in, if you're not cis, it can mess you up physically and psychologically for life. That That's far less reversible than treatment. They tend to prescribe medication for temporary hormone blocking in teens, not for realignment aka 'sex change'. Any gender experimental traits in childhood are then ruled out before the person starts realignment treatment.

There are huge social pressures, not to mention enormous industries, exploiting cis people in unnaturally enhancing gender stereotype characteristics and biological sex characteristics, things people probably wouldn't be too bothered about without these features being presented as the norm. Any pro-trans pressure is miniscule by comparison. In fact, the only pressure I'm aware of is from a tiny minority of people who deny and oppose nonbinary gender identity, and want everyone to fit into a male or female camp, whether they're trans or cis.

 

[jazz from hell]

He knows he doesn't have any counter-arguments to what I said, he can't take that because he still hates me for an old post I made and so he's trying to do an ad hominem against me by painting me as a hypocrite. The German in his post translates to something like "you're soaked in self-righteousness". To substantiate it, he brings up a vague memory of an inappropriate joke I probably made at some point to prove it and in order to reinforce his point he tries to suggest I wouldn't own up to that. I would if I knew what he's talking about; I just don't remember. I thought I once wrote something like "Iron Gayden" or "Dick in son" on the board when I was drunk, but I couldn't find it. I also did a search for posts containing "homo", but only found the one I linked to. I used the word "retard" three times, and I know I used that gay seal image at least once, and I admit I thought it was funny in a very schoolboy way. I posted this while drunk earlier this year, although you'd have to be really be mean-spirited to interpret it as anything but a bad pun on names.

But fine, let's put it all on the table.

I made gay jokes when I was in school in the nineties and early 2000s.

I lived with a Lesbian for several months when I was in my early 20's and she dragged me to a lot of gay parties and I went along because I didn't have many friends at the time, and at some point I became annoyed because that wasn't my subculture and I would have liked to meet straight chicks, so I might have let out an ill-advised statement or slur at the time (although if I did, it wasn't so anyone heard it, which of course may be worse because it's cowardly).

I wore blackface in school once, when we were doing a nativity play and we did a modern re-interpretation of the three wise men as foreigners, the black one being an American. Since we had no Blacks in the school and I could do an American accent, I put on brown face paint, not seeing anything wrong with it at the time. I was 12, I think. There might be a photo of it, I've never seen any though.

I once unsuccessfully tried not to laugh at a Holocaust joke.

I spend a lot of time in Bulgaria where I live next door to a Roma neighbourhood and they usually party until midnight in the summer, and I probably said "can't those Gypsies fucking shut up for once" in bed once or twice.

In grade 8 I called a rheumatic classmate of mine a "cripple". He laughed but I was nevertheless guilted by my teacher to apologise to him.

In grade 5 I asked a classmate of mine who wore a hearing aid if he's "deaf or stupid".

A few years ago I saw a guy in a train station attacking a girl and went between them, only for both of them to tell me they're friends and joking around and I didn't apologise but just said "fine" and it occurred to me later on that I might have reacted differently hadn't the guy been black.

I once patted a black kid on the head because I wanted to know what the hair feels like, I was around 25 then.

I lived in a lower class, high-immigrant neighbourhood in Berlin for ten years and occasionally brought up something I saw "Ghetto Turks" doing in conversation. Some 10-15 years ago I made a related Facebook post in which I said I saw two carrying a plastic bag from a bookstore and I said (jokingly) "I wonder where they stole that". I have since deleted the post and still cringe at it.

I shared an article about cultural appropriation on Facebook twelve years ago saying I thought it was a lot of bullshit.

Probably the biggest thing: Around the same time, I said several times to various people that gender studies is not a proper academic discipline because I was butthurt about a grade that was slightly lower than expected in a gender studies class I took. Mind you, I maintain the teacher was really bad in explaining what queer theory is, but that is not an excuse for me to block and develop prejudice against this field of study, and it took me several years and more experiences with LGBTQIA+ people to overcome my prejudice and educate myself on the subject properly.

Do you want more, @jazz from hell or is that enough for you? Does anything in this disqualify any of my arguments?

I've reported your post for hate-speech. Also, for the future:

Can you stop reacting to every post I make? Seriously, you have been on my tail long enough. Yeah you're a moderator, but you're watching over everything I do like an obsessive child, and still you're unable to win any debate with arguments, choosing to call people homos and nazis instead -- you have no awareness of your own history, you antisemitic loser.

 

[Perun]

Can anyone who is not @jazz from hell explain to me what the fuck he is talking about here?

 

[LooseCannon]

Can you stop reacting to every post I make? Seriously, you have been on my tail long enough. Yeah you're a moderator, but you're watching over everything I do like an obsessive child, and still you're unable to win any debate with arguments, choosing to call people homos and nazis instead -- you have no awareness of your own history, you antisemitic loser.

No, I'm stepping in here.

Perun is not a anti-semite, and he is not just calling people homos and Nazis. He quite deeply documented his own past around being a little impolitic from time to time, something of which we are all guilty. Perun responded to you with a sourced, and detailed breakdown here. He made an accurate comparison to history - worth noting that the Nazis went after LGBTQ+ people as well, of course - and you didn't like it. Your response had nothing to do with engaging in arguments, it was a one-liner dismissing everything because you didn't like it. You then followed this up with a personal attack and attempting to smear Perun by referring to past things he'd said, which have no context in today's discussion. So you dismissed his reasoned, sourced post with a one-liner and then immediately tried to make him the enemy.

This is not arguing. This is not logical. This is an attempt to devolve a discussion around a nuanced and challenging topic into insults and devaluating the person making arguments you don't like. You did not prove anything, you could not argue, so you attempted to change the subject and attempted to inflame tensions.

This is actionable behaviour under The Rules and will be considered strongly by the Moderation team. If this continues, I'll lock the thread and delete anything that isn't respectful or reasonable towards others.

 

[jazz from hell]

No, I'm stepping in here.

Perun is not a anti-semite, and he is not just calling people homos and Nazis. He quite deeply documented his own past around being a little impolitic from time to time, something of which we are all guilty. Perun responded to you with a sourced, and detailed breakdown here. He made an accurate comparison to history - worth noting that the Nazis went after LGBTQ+ people as well, of course - and you didn't like it. Your response had nothing to do with engaging in arguments, it was a one-liner dismissing everything because you didn't like it. You then followed this up with a personal attack and attempting to smear Perun by referring to past things he'd said, which have no context in today's discussion. So you dismissed his reasoned, sourced post with a one-liner and then immediately tried to make him the enemy.

This is not arguing. This is not logical. This is an attempt to devolve a discussion around a nuanced and challenging topic into insults and devaluating the person making arguments you don't like. You did not prove anything, you could not argue, so you attempted to change the subject and attempted to inflame tensions.

This is actionable behaviour under The Rules and will be considered strongly by the Moderation team. If this continues, I'll lock the thread and delete anything that isn't respectful or reasonable towards others.

Sorry Loose, nothing against you, but it was time to diss this pompous, antisemitic ass. Implying someone is a nazi, because he or she disagrees with you on a scientific subject, is trivializing the holocaust, which *is* antisemitic, and unacceptable! Of course I wrote like an idiot -- I wanted him to understand me, for fuck's sake.

 

[LooseCannon]

I'm locking this for now.