Transgender rights discussion

It makes me laugh seeing the ultra woke lose their minds over Rowling when she is largely considered to be the founder of that segment of society.

I don’t get why people are so offended by her. As far as I can tell she’s got nothing against trans people but just stated her belief that there are 2 genders, though trans people can do what they want with their bodies. Some people are so desperate to be offended.
 
Hold on she's written 5 of these books already? And the protaganist is called Cormoran Strike?!? :lol:

That name actually made me cringe. Sounds like something Alan Partidge would pitch on his podcast.
 
Prodigal7 said:
It makes me laugh seeing the ultra woke lose their minds over Rowling when she is largely considered to be the founder of that segment of society.
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How on Earth have you come to that conclusion?
 
A lot of people love her books and somehow feel recognizing she's doesn't seem to be a good person implies they themselves are not good people for enjoying her books. This makes them fall into a rabbit hole of insane excuses.
 
fergieisold said:
Hagrid to the rescue! Seriously though I clearly have been born in the wrong era. I'm early 30s and stuff like this is more my cup of tea than the current twitter rage.
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fergieisold said:
No, that's not what he was saying. He was using it as an example of how a lot of todays youth, particularly the ones on twitter it seems, are a bunch of pansies.
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What era would you like to have been born in, out of interest? Because these kind of running battles about what is and isn’t kosher to say in public discourse have been ongoing for time immemorial. In fact the alternative scene in the UK during the 80s which Coltrane was very much a part of, was almost entirely predicated on rebuffing the old ideas of what you could and couldn’t say in comedy. Chastising the old Jim Davidson/Chubby Brown era as bigoted and old fashioned, and replacing it with the more inclusive language and attitudes of a younger generation (which are now largely normalised)... Those comics were ridiculed and pushed out of the cultural zeitgeist pretty quickly, far more so than Rowling, who as well as continuing to publish books (as evidenced by, well...this book!) also seems to have the support of a number of high profile people.

Further back the people doing this kind of "woke" chastising were the ones fighting for gay rights and civil rights and protesting the Vietnam war, all of whom were invariably called pansies or the like by the prevailing orthodoxy (hell, the hippy generation were the most pansy of all!)

So, either you agreed with those attempts to alter the discourse (probably, because you were born into an era that had normalised them) in which case if you were born then, you’d invariably BE one of the pansy woke brigade... or you believe that the great winding road of civilisation had ultimately perfected itself in or around the late 90s, when the last generation of whiney woke pansies had gotten people to be more thoughtful of their attitudes toward black and gay people (somewhat) but still didn’t give a feck about trans rights yet?

None of these attitudes are particularly new. People aren’t really fighting a hitherto unknown and unique brand of intolerant woke SJW tweens, they’re actually fighting the passage of time, and the fact that the Overton window has been gently pushing progressive ideas and attitudes into the mainstream to the point where the values of the last progressive generation, are no longer considered particularly radical or woke anymore to the new (hence the common misunderstanding of the idea that people move more right wing as they get older, when in fact they generally just stand still and society moves)...and the fierceness of the fight to get there is whitewashed as being calm and civilised. - Just look how conservatives in the US have already re-imagined MLK and the Civil Rights era as a lovely peaceful and smooth march to progress - not like now with these unruly riots and whatnot!

Similarly people like Rowling from that last 80s/90s generation haven't suddenly become mad bigots, they've just not moved with the times, and their views aren’t “liberal” anymore...and even things they think they’ve achieved, like racial progress, are being shown up by things like BLM as not having really done nearly enough... and all this evidently frustrates them, because a lot of their self image is based around the idea of being tolerant and progressive (which they were in another time) so they’re becoming ultra defensive and digging themselves further into a hole.. It's the Principle Skinner meme in action.

Like @Sweet Square says though, the younger generation will eventually win. They always do. Even if it takes a while for them to become middle aged curmudgeons with their hands on the levers of power. By which time they too will inevitably be bitching about how their attitudes to some future movement are being treated unfairly by the chip implanted cyborg pansies of 2050.
 
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Prodigal7 said:
Her whole feminist narrative and the gay dumbledore moment generated the first real woke army, online at least. Now they’re all devouring her.
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I thought she was generally ridiculed for her attempts at diversifying Hogwarts after the fact?
 
fergieisold said:
she’s not a bigot. There’s nothing really even controversial about what she’s said. Pretty standard opinions for someone to hold...doesn’t mean she’s demeaning or hating on trans people.
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What's your take on her endorsement of Berns?
 
fergieisold said:
Hagrid to the rescue! Seriously though I clearly have been born in the wrong era. I'm early 30s and stuff like this is more my cup of tea than the current twitter rage.
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Yes, I've noticed there's definitely a subset of people who wished they lived in past eras when minorities had less rights.
 
Prodigal7 said:
It makes me laugh seeing the ultra woke lose their minds over Rowling when she is largely considered to be the founder of that segment of society.

I don’t get why people are so offended by her. As far as I can tell she’s got nothing against trans people but just stated her belief that there are 2 genders, though trans people can do what they want with their bodies. Some people are so desperate to be offended.
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Obviously.
 
fergieisold said:
Seriously though I clearly have been born in the wrong era.
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Me too, mate. The other day a man grabbed the fish that I was doing to eat, so I killed him with my club. Now the cops are giving me all sorts of shit...
 
Sweet Square said:
Yeah Southall a great example for showing this isn't really a difficult or complex issue. It's about treating people with basic human dignity.
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This. I just don’t get why these people feel they have to give it so much attention, sat there getting riled at the thought of someone’s genitals. It’s no different if someone is gay. So what? What impact does it have on your life? Just move on. Even if you don’t like it, just get on with your life.

Mockney said:
What era would you like to have been born in, out of interest? Because these kind of running battles about what is and isn’t kosher to say in public discourse have been ongoing for time immemorial. In fact the alternative scene in the UK during the 80s which Coltrane was very much a part of, was almost entirely predicated on rebuffing the old ideas of what you could and couldn’t say in comedy. Chastising the old Jim Davidson/Chubby Brown era as bigoted and old fashioned, and replacing it with the more inclusive language and attitudes of a younger generation (which are now largely normalised)... Those comics were ridiculed and pushed out of the cultural zeitgeist pretty quickly, far more so than Rowling, who as well as continuing to publish books (as evidenced by, well...this book!) also seems to have the support of a number of high profile people.

Further back the people doing this kind of "woke" chastising were the ones fighting for gay rights and civil rights and protesting the Vietnam war, all of whom were invariably called pansies or the like by the prevailing orthodoxy (hell, the hippy generation were the most pansy of all!)

So, either you agreed with those attempts to alter the discourse (probably, because you were born into an era that had normalised them) in which case if you were born then, you’d invariably BE one of the pansy woke brigade... or you believe that the great winding road of civilisation had ultimately perfected itself in or around the late 90s, when the last generation of whiney woke pansies had gotten people to be more thoughtful of their attitudes toward black and gay people (somewhat) but still didn’t give a feck about trans rights yet?

None of these attitudes are particularly new. People aren’t really fighting a hitherto unknown and unique brand of intolerant woke SJW tweens, they’re actually fighting the passage of time, and the fact that the Overton window has been gently pushing progressive ideas and attitudes into the mainstream to the point where the values of the last progressive generation, are no longer considered particularly radical or woke anymore to the new (hence the common misunderstanding of the idea that people move more right wing as they get older, when in fact they generally just stand still and society moves)...and the fierceness of the fight to get there is whitewashed as being calm and civilised. - Just look how conservatives in the US have already re-imagined MLK and the Civil Rights era as a lovely peaceful and smooth march to progress - not like now with these unruly riots and whatnot!

Similarly people like Rowling from that last 80s/90s generation haven't suddenly become mad bigots, they've just not moved with the times, and their views aren’t “liberal” anymore...and even things they think they’ve achieved, like racial progress, are being shown up by things like BLM as not having really done nearly enough... and all this evidently frustrates them, because a lot of their self image is based around the idea of being tolerant and progressive (which they were in another time) so they’re becoming ultra defensive and digging themselves further into a hole.. It's the Principle Skinner meme in action.

Like @Sweet Square says though, the younger generation will eventually win. They always do. Even if it takes a while for them to become middle aged curmudgeons with their hands on the levers of power. By which time they too will inevitably be bitching about how their attitudes to some future movement are being treated unfairly by the chip implanted cyborg pansies of 2050.
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*applauds*
 
Mockney said:
What era would you like to have been born in, out of interest? Because these kind of running battles about what is and isn’t kosher to say in public discourse have been ongoing for time immemorial. In fact the alternative scene in the UK during the 80s which Coltrane was very much a part of, was almost entirely predicated on rebuffing the old ideas of what you could and couldn’t say in comedy. Chastising the old Jim Davidson/Chubby Brown era as bigoted and old fashioned, and replacing it with the more inclusive language and attitudes of a younger generation (which are now largely normalised)... Those comics were ridiculed and pushed out of the cultural zeitgeist pretty quickly, far more so than Rowling, who as well as continuing to publish books (as evidenced by, well...this book!) also seems to have the support of a number of high profile people.

Further back the people doing this kind of "woke" chastising were the ones fighting for gay rights and civil rights and protesting the Vietnam war, all of whom were invariably called pansies or the like by the prevailing orthodoxy (hell, the hippy generation were the most pansy of all!)

So, either you agreed with those attempts to alter the discourse (probably, because you were born into an era that had normalised them) in which case if you were born then, you’d invariably BE one of the pansy woke brigade... or you believe that the great winding road of civilisation had ultimately perfected itself in or around the late 90s, when the last generation of whiney woke pansies had gotten people to be more thoughtful of their attitudes toward black and gay people (somewhat) but still didn’t give a feck about trans rights yet?

None of these attitudes are particularly new. People aren’t really fighting a hitherto unknown and unique brand of intolerant woke SJW tweens, they’re actually fighting the passage of time, and the fact that the Overton window has been gently pushing progressive ideas and attitudes into the mainstream to the point where the values of the last progressive generation, are no longer considered particularly radical or woke anymore to the new (hence the common misunderstanding of the idea that people move more right wing as they get older, when in fact they generally just stand still and society moves)...and the fierceness of the fight to get there is whitewashed as being calm and civilised. - Just look how conservatives in the US have already re-imagined MLK and the Civil Rights era as a lovely peaceful and smooth march to progress - not like now with these unruly riots and whatnot!

Similarly people like Rowling from that last 80s/90s generation haven't suddenly become mad bigots, they've just not moved with the times, and their views aren’t “liberal” anymore...and even things they think they’ve achieved, like racial progress, are being shown up by things like BLM as not having really done nearly enough... and all this evidently frustrates them, because a lot of their self image is based around the idea of being tolerant and progressive (which they were in another time) so they’re becoming ultra defensive and digging themselves further into a hole.. It's the Principle Skinner meme in action.

Like @Sweet Square says though, the younger generation will eventually win. They always do. Even if it takes a while for them to become middle aged curmudgeons with their hands on the levers of power. By which time they too will inevitably be bitching about how their attitudes to some future movement are being treated unfairly by the chip implanted cyborg pansies of 2050.
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It was more a comment on my obvious rejection of the current situation online. I still believe most of the current dialogue really is something that only exists online.

I imagine back in the 80s views weren’t great when it came to minority groups and change was needed. Now it just seems like we have a situation where things are rightly liberal towards all groups and generally people really aren’t bothered who’s gay, straight, trans, whatever. People do still have opinions though that to me seem fairly normal. (E.g I don’t think it’s controversial to say a women is a women and a trans women isn’t biologically a women)...it feels like online normal opinions are being attacked and I just don’t see what anybody is trying to gain from it.
 
fergieisold said:
generally people really aren’t bothered who’s gay, straight, trans, whatever.
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Stats don't really show that. Just because you may not see it in your daily life, it doesn't mean it's not happening. Talk to some gay and trans people and they'll tell you about what they face everyday even in the most liberal countries. So people aren't complaining for the sake of it or to be woke online, they complain because they want things to change.
 
BobbyManc said:
This. I just don’t get why these people feel they have to give it so much attention, sat there getting riled at the thought of someone’s genitals. It’s no different if someone is gay. So what? What impact does it have on your life? Just move on. Even if you don’t like it, just get on with your life.
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Interesting thread.

 
DOTA said:
That would be the one. What do you think of it?
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I frankly don't feel educated enough on the subject to offer my opinon on that piece, I just wanted to share her own explaination. Obviously I think death threats, threats of violence etc. is bang out of order.
 
Shamana said:
I frankly don't feel educated enough on the subject to offer my opinon on that piece, I just wanted to share her own explaination. Obviously I think death threats, threats of violence etc. is bang out of order.
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Understood.

I would refer you to this, which was shared a lot at the time, and is a pretty accessible read.
Synco said:
I found this (long) reply to be helpful on several key questions. Maybe it's of interest to you too.
https://medium.com/@KatyMontgomerie...gs-justification-for-transphobia-7b6f761e8f8f
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Mockney said:
What era would you like to have been born in, out of interest? Because these kind of running battles about what is and isn’t kosher to say in public discourse have been ongoing for time immemorial. In fact the alternative scene in the UK during the 80s which Coltrane was very much a part of, was almost entirely predicated on rebuffing the old ideas of what you could and couldn’t say in comedy. Chastising the old Jim Davidson/Chubby Brown era as bigoted and old fashioned, and replacing it with the more inclusive language and attitudes of a younger generation (which are now largely normalised)... Those comics were ridiculed and pushed out of the cultural zeitgeist pretty quickly, far more so than Rowling, who as well as continuing to publish books (as evidenced by, well...this book!) also seems to have the support of a number of high profile people.

Further back the people doing this kind of "woke" chastising were the ones fighting for gay rights and civil rights and protesting the Vietnam war, all of whom were invariably called pansies or the like by the prevailing orthodoxy (hell, the hippy generation were the most pansy of all!)

So, either you agreed with those attempts to alter the discourse (probably, because you were born into an era that had normalised them) in which case if you were born then, you’d invariably BE one of the pansy woke brigade... or you believe that the great winding road of civilisation had ultimately perfected itself in or around the late 90s, when the last generation of whiney woke pansies had gotten people to be more thoughtful of their attitudes toward black and gay people (somewhat) but still didn’t give a feck about trans rights yet?

None of these attitudes are particularly new. People aren’t really fighting a hitherto unknown and unique brand of intolerant woke SJW tweens, they’re actually fighting the passage of time, and the fact that the Overton window has been gently pushing progressive ideas and attitudes into the mainstream to the point where the values of the last progressive generation, are no longer considered particularly radical or woke anymore to the new (hence the common misunderstanding of the idea that people move more right wing as they get older, when in fact they generally just stand still and society moves)...and the fierceness of the fight to get there is whitewashed as being calm and civilised. - Just look how conservatives in the US have already re-imagined MLK and the Civil Rights era as a lovely peaceful and smooth march to progress - not like now with these unruly riots and whatnot!

Similarly people like Rowling from that last 80s/90s generation haven't suddenly become mad bigots, they've just not moved with the times, and their views aren’t “liberal” anymore...and even things they think they’ve achieved, like racial progress, are being shown up by things like BLM as not having really done nearly enough... and all this evidently frustrates them, because a lot of their self image is based around the idea of being tolerant and progressive (which they were in another time) so they’re becoming ultra defensive and digging themselves further into a hole.. It's the Principle Skinner meme in action.

Like @Sweet Square says though, the younger generation will eventually win. They always do. Even if it takes a while for them to become middle aged curmudgeons with their hands on the levers of power. By which time they too will inevitably be bitching about how their attitudes to some future movement are being treated unfairly by the chip implanted cyborg pansies of 2050.
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That is a good post and makes a lot of sense. This is mainly about people resisting change. I think it does miss an interesting nuance here. I’m very old but not old enough to be certain about whether or not some of the voices speaking up against progressive ideologies in the past were people who would consider themselves fellow progressives? My memory is shite but wasn’t the culture war in the 80s/90s a much more straightforward conservative vs progressive difference of opinion?

The trans rights debate clearly has similar combatants at opposite extremes but there’s a lot more to it than that, with at least some hard left feminists and LGBT rights advocates taking issue with the tactics and goals of the sort of trans rights advocates that are piling on to J.K. Rowling. I’m not sure that’s as directly comparable with the historical movements you use as analogies.

The other elephant in the room is the idea that progressive ideologies are always - and always will be - positive for society. That’s it’s not possible to ever reach a point where the progressives take a wrong turn and go off on an ideological tangent which ends up doing more harm than good. Couldn’t there come a point where battling to protect the rights of some minorities could have net negative consequences for the vulnerable as a whole? Obviously, there are no historical examples of this happening in the past. Does this really mean it couldn’t happen now, or at any point in the future?

And that’s not mention the possibility that all this bun-fighting on the left could makes right wing politics seem more rational, coherent and appealing to young people than they ever were in the 80s/90s. My memory of conservatives in that era was of people old long before their time and not remotely interesting to the vast majority of ‘young folk’. Sadly, I’m not sure that’s the case any more. I agree that “the younger generation will always win” but I’m way more worried now than I was when I was young myself that the politics of this victorious younger generation could be a long way to the right of my own.
 
maniak said:
Stats don't really show that. Just because you may not see it in your daily life, it doesn't mean it's not happening. Talk to some gay and trans people and they'll tell you about what they face everyday even in the most liberal countries. So people aren't complaining for the sake of it or to be woke online, they complain because they want things to change.
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I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but on the whole we’ve come a long way. I don’t think we’ll go any further crying bigot at Rowling for talking about trans people.

I know I keep repeating myself but Twitter sucks. Nobody seems to be there to actually ask her what she thinks. They seem to project their own insecurities at her and then throw their toys out the pram.
 
fergieisold said:
I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but on the whole we’ve come a long way. I don’t think we’ll go any further crying bigot at Rowling for talking about trans people.

I know I keep repeating myself but Twitter sucks. Nobody seems to be there to actually ask her what she thinks. They seem to project their own insecurities at her and then throw their toys out the pram.
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Sure, but just because things are better than they were, it doesn't mean the job is done. If bigotry arises, even in small scale, it should be pointed out. It seems to be to be the case here. Rowling is not asking for trans people to be sent to gulags but she's saying things online and in her books that are unsettling and occasionally offensive. If people react to it, I don't see it as crying, but rather as a legitimate response (obviously death threats and the like are the loon fringe).

I don't have tweeter, so I follow this through the news and links people post here and there. Sometimes I feel people use the "it's tweeter so it's a bunch of loons we can just ignore" to dismiss something unfairly.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That is a good post and makes a lot of sense. This is mainly about people resisting change. I think it does miss an interesting nuance here. I’m very old but not old enough to be certain about whether or not some of the voices speaking up against progressive ideologies in the past were people who would consider themselves fellow progressives? My memory is shite but wasn’t the culture war in the 80s/90s a much more straightforward conservative vs progressive difference of opinion?

The trans rights debate clearly has similar combatants at opposite extremes but there’s a lot more to it than that, with at least some hard left feminists and LGBT rights advocates taking issue with the tactics and goals of the sort of trans rights advocates that are piling on to J.K. Rowling. I’m not sure that’s as directly comparable with the historical movements you use as analogies.

The other elephant in the room is the idea that progressive ideologies are always - and always will be - positive for society. That’s it’s not possible to ever reach a point where the progressives take a wrong turn and go off on an ideological tangent which ends up doing more harm than good. Couldn’t there come a point where battling to protect the rights of some minorities could have net negative consequences for the vulnerable as a whole? Obviously, there are no historical examples of this happening in the past. Does this really mean it couldn’t happen now, or at any point in the future?

And that’s not mention the possibility that all this bun-fighting on the left could makes right wing politics seem more rational, coherent and appealing to young people than they ever were in the 80s/90s. My memory of conservatives in that era was of people old long before their time and not remotely interesting to the vast majority of ‘young folk’. Sadly, I’m not sure that’s the case any more. I agree that “the younger generation will always win” but I’m way more worried now than I was when I was young myself that the politics of this victorious younger generation could be a long way to the right of my own.
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Really interesting point and well put. Progressive is a subjective term. Is something good for our own well being and for society, or not. The trans argument sits in the middle of that I think and it’s very unfair to call someone who believe in gender identification a biggot, which is actually happening.
 
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