Twitter quietly edited its hateful conduct policy to drop transgender protections
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EvilClaire
Seniorius Lurkius
Sneaky said:
a duty seems to exist on us to affirm people in their delusions
Honestly, it doesn't even need to go as far as affirming... I don't walk around introducing myself as my deadname and Claire, or including I was AMAB. It's a simple matter of accepting and respecting how I introduced myself. It's that simple. I hadn't given another choice of options to choose from. Please don't denigrate us, at least to our face or in a public spaced designed for us to see it.
I literally could care less what Sneaky and Dirty Joe Bob Billy McPottyMouth say about me when I'm not around, it's not my business. But, the idea that it's such a hardship to simply be nice to whomever that person is... WOW!
Why is being even the tiniest bit kind such a hardship?
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No, "people A should be beaten for existing" and "people B should be beaten for beating up on people A" are not even remotely similar arguments.
No one is suggesting that anyone be beaten up simply for not liking trans people.
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The issue of transgender women in sports is one where I find myself not in complete agreement with the crowd here.
What makes me wonder is, I assume that men and women in sports are separated because their birth gender, and especially puberty, gives one group an advantage over the other. Not having these groups compete separately would mean one would effectively be unable to compete at the highest level. So if a trans woman has that advantage, which is effectively the reason athletes are separated in the first place, is it really fair to have them compete with women who don't have that advantage?
I'm not sure the answer is "yes." And before you say how there are people with physiological advantages in all sports – being taller, inherently stronger, webbed feet, whatever – I know, but we don't separate athletes based on such advantages. If there was a basketball competition for athletes under 2m tall, and another for taller athletes, it would feel unfair for a 2.10m tall athlete to compete in the "shorter" competitions, whatever the reason may be.
Now, the biggest issue I find in my stance (oh, I'm sure you'll find plenty more) is that, given that trans women are women, and that, for example, intersex people exist, grouping athletes by gender would no longer work. And if the said advantage is really the reason for the separation, how do we objectively measure the advantage? Is it even possible, even in a sport-by-sport basis? I have no idea.
The one thing I'm 100% sure of, however, is that this makes it even harder for me to understand prohibiting puberty blockers. I mean, if puberty may give them an edge, and they don't want to go through puberty, why the fuck should they be forced to?
ETA: I only mean professional competitions. On the amateur level, any such advantage trans women might have is a non-issue IMO.
What makes me wonder is, I assume that men and women in sports are separated because their birth gender, and especially puberty, gives one group an advantage over the other. Not having these groups compete separately would mean one would effectively be unable to compete at the highest level. So if a trans woman has that advantage, which is effectively the reason athletes are separated in the first place, is it really fair to have them compete with women who don't have that advantage?
I'm not sure the answer is "yes." And before you say how there are people with physiological advantages in all sports – being taller, inherently stronger, webbed feet, whatever – I know, but we don't separate athletes based on such advantages. If there was a basketball competition for athletes under 2m tall, and another for taller athletes, it would feel unfair for a 2.10m tall athlete to compete in the "shorter" competitions, whatever the reason may be.
Now, the biggest issue I find in my stance (oh, I'm sure you'll find plenty more) is that, given that trans women are women, and that, for example, intersex people exist, grouping athletes by gender would no longer work. And if the said advantage is really the reason for the separation, how do we objectively measure the advantage? Is it even possible, even in a sport-by-sport basis? I have no idea.
The one thing I'm 100% sure of, however, is that this makes it even harder for me to understand prohibiting puberty blockers. I mean, if puberty may give them an edge, and they don't want to go through puberty, why the fuck should they be forced to?
ETA: I only mean professional competitions. On the amateur level, any such advantage trans women might have is a non-issue IMO.
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EvilClaire
Seniorius Lurkius
I'm lost on what you're telling me here... Is it that maybe you're somewhere in the middle, it feels like you're in some way telling me you're too lazy to do any of the work to help make change so it's easy to keep those friends that say crappy things from time to time that you may or may not agree with?
OR.
It's incumbent upon me to make the changes to be a better person?
I think you have this absolutely backwards.
As one of the objects of the nazi, *phobe hate... I stand by my statement. Aurich is wrong and in a very real and scary way, he's given them a pass for pretending to be "civil". All that does is make people think that maybe there might be something to this person's view because they were deemed "civil" and got a pass by Aurich, a person who catogoricaly stated that he doesn't stand for transphobia. So, possibly you interpruted that as I am making it up and I'm the one that needs to change.
Aurich needs to do better and honestly, so you do.
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I just want to highlight this post briefly.
I know lots of trans people very personally. Family and friends, adults and teens. I'm used to having to learn a new pronoun.
But I didn't just spring forth from bed one day utterly aware of the Trans Experience™ ready to be an awesome person. I had to learn things, I had to sort through feelings, and emotionally process.
I grew up in San Francisco, one of the queer capitals of the world. I had gay and bisexual friends, chilled in the Castro. Was normal to me.
And yet, even with that kind of upbringing I had no trans experiences, it wasn't something my friends discussed. There wasn't a level of broad cultural awareness then, even in in SF. I came to it later in life.
Teens now are so much more enlightened and hip to this stuff, it's amazing. It's what frightens conservatives. But a lot of adults just never learned.
If we don't allow space for discussion there are people who will never be reached. Yes, that can mean a certain amount of explaining your existence for some. And nobody should feel like they need to do that. And if you are trans you're surrounded by allies here.
But you can't yell understanding into someone. I can ban people who don't want to learn. But I can't decide who those people are until they really tell me.
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You are of course welcome to feel that way. I've explained how the rules work here, where I stand on everything, how I will continue to moderate, and why the best I can.
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Sure, in the same way that shooting someone running away from you and shooting someone coming at you with an axe are both committing violence against another person.
Violence in self-defense is just about universally recognized as justifiable.
Violence in defense of a person being unjustly, violently attacked is also pretty much always considered a legitimate use of violence.
The thing about Nazis is that they're Nazis. Their whole schtick is achieving white supremacy through violence.
Violently attacking someone who is openly advertising that they are, when they get the opportunity, going to violently attack you... I can't say that it meets any legal standard for self-defense (although IANAL), but I certainly can't take issue with people who think it meets a moral one.
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I mean...
On one hand, we've got a group of people who don't seek to actively harm anyone and just want to be afforded the same rights, privileges, courtesies, etc as everyone else in society...
And on the other hand, we've got a group of people who actively seek to oppress, disenfranchise, eradicate, etc groups that are not part of the right "in" group.
I, personally, am not going to just walk up to and punch a known literal Nazi in the face, and I, personally, am not going to tell anyone else that's what they should do either.
But the other thing I'm not going to do is tone police anyone who does say that's what should be done to them.
That's just me, though.
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The targets of transgender bans in sports are typically teenagers (and usually teenage girls.)
Why the fuck does everyone always jump to "professional competitions"? The GOP doesn't ban transgender women from participating in professional sports, it's always teenagers who, as one poster (orwelldesign?) pointed out usually is just a kid wanting to play sport with their friends. A trans girl being singled out and told she can be on a baseball team with other girls - lots of whom are probably her friends - is unimaginably cruel. "You're different from your friends in ways that don't matter to them, go fuck off and die."
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I really can understand the anti-violence stance--up to a point (which you haven't defined).
You have a LOT of work to do to convince me not to tell everyone I know, as loudly and as often as it comes up, to repudiate Nazi ideology and adherents to that ideology.
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This is the thing they have genuine trouble with. They don't want to be nice to you. They want to use your dead name and pronouns to invoke your dysphoria, to other you, to harass you, and to make you feel bad and as if you are so outside the norm they're not obligated to extend to you even the basic courtesy of calling you by what you introduce yourself as.
And that's fucking evil.
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ApplePaladin
Ars Praefectus
It's really, really not.
Being LGBTQ+ is not a choice. It's an innate, born-this-way characteristic that's beyond the person's control. It's like race or disability. In some ways small and large it defines who that person is (and, because of how our society works, the opportunities, challenges, and experiences they will face). Not only is it not a choice, but it also doesn't have any actual negative effect on other members of society. One person being LGBTQ+ doesn't harm any other person. LGBTQ+ people don't have an agenda or stated goal of harming other people. Where LGBTQ+ people want to change the world, the goals they try to achieve are always based on saving lives and bringing more equity to our society. Being LGBTQ+ is just living life as a human being.
Being a Nazi is a choice. It has nothing to do with how someone is born. It's also an explicitly violent choice. Choosing to be a Nazi is choosing to endorce violence and genocide against other groups of people. There is no form of being a Nazi that doesn't involve targeting other human beings for violence, whether that violence takes overt forms like assault and murder or that violence takes more subtle forms like harassment, doxxing, etc. Being a Nazi is choosing violence. It's a commitment to violence. Lest we forget, those who choose to live by the sword die by the sword.
If I see someone on the street wearing a trans pride pin on their shirt I'm going to think they're probably a pretty OK, normal person. I might even say "hi."
If I someone on the street with a swastika armband on I'm going to be prepared to defend myself because that person is intent on engaging in violence.
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
Nah, punch Nazis.
The whole "let's be bigger people" thing is the same level of thinking as the general "everything should be a meritocracy". In other words: it doesn't, can't, and never will, survive contact with reality. If I want to kill you because of some immutable characteristic, and you're unwilling to kill me to prevent it, I'm going to win, eventually. It's a great theory that requires the other side to be invested in the same goals and share the same willingness to engage. But there are people that aren't, and they'll gladly try to make any efforts to stop them sound immoral. But the morality of an action is not judged based purely on the action itself, but upon the circumstances. Plenty of bad-faith people like to pretend otherwise, which is a common manipulative trick that disarms otherwise intelligent people, and it presupposes that context isn't a thing.
Simple example: bad-faith people pretend that "liberals" can't complain about the moderation change of Twitter, because they proclaimed that before, those people were all about allowing private companies to dictate their social media. The inherent dishonesty in that is that those people still support the right of the company to moderate, but disagree with who is the target of the moderation. Moderation is morally neutral. What you choose to moderate is not.
A Nazi beating on a man because they are Jewish is not the same as a person beating on a Nazi because they're a Nazi. Calling for the violent suppression of an ideology that promotes the mass slaughter of innocent people isn't the same as calling for the violent suppression of an ideology that promotes accepting others. "But you used violence". Yeah, and? Nazis and the people who fought them both used bullets. That doesn't fucking make them equally evil. One side was literal Nazis. I'll grant that there are some actions that cannot be justified under nearly any circumstance, but the low bar that some people on taking actions is one that actually allows fascism to spread. If you're spending 3 years convincing one Nazi not to be a Nazi and they've recruited 50 new shitheels, you're losing. Plain and simple, your inaction is benefiting them. Not by choice, but by squeemishness.
It doesn't mean that the person saying "oh, let's not sink to their level" is a Nazi. It could mean that they've been suckered by a simplistic view of the world, one that inherently benefits those willing to do bad things. Or it could mean that they're one of the bad-faith people who like to normalize Nazis by equating their actions with those that counter them. Which one you are matters to a certain degree, but it's a useless view of the world, either way. I have punched Nazis. I didn't do so entirely for good reasons (personal demons are a hell of a thing, eh?), but it worked. Not one of those fucks likely changed their minds. They sure as shit didn't bother anybody else around that area for a while, and likely had a little more trouble finding people willing to come get their ass beat. One night of fighting did more good for actual people than any of the seemingly-nicer things. That's the difference between theory and reality.
If a Nazi beats on someone for being gay, unprovoked and I beat on a Nazi for beating a Nazi, unprovoked, we are not moral equals.
"BuT yOu UsEd ThE sAmE tOoL". Yeah, to different fucking ends.
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EvilClaire
Seniorius Lurkius
I think we both know that we're not talking about people legitmatey asking questionings. This is not a "we're not always going to agree" issue. You've intentionally left bad actors free to roam and in turn give them a legit platform.
It's your job and platform... You're dug in.
This is not a safe space what so ever at this point.
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
It's kinda irrelevant whether this is well-meaning stupidity or bad-faith normalization of fascist violence, because it amounts to the same thing:
bullshit.
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The TERF my friend Cass knew, was indeed someone who believed themselves an actual feminist, and may well have been. Unfortunately, as seems to be a distressing trend when TERFs get involved, is all the other things they can say supporting their supposed feminism.
While this person claimed to be a feminist, for example, they had issues with people stating, "We should fix patriarchy in America" with all concerned living in America - her bent was that - and I quote - "India has a far worse partriarchy and misogyny problem, so we should fix them before we fix us to save more women." As a black woman, she also had issues with defunding the police to make way for community care initiatives so that cops don't get stuck trying to fix problems they're not equipped for because - and I quote again, having heard this directly from her - "Police are all that's saving black women from abusive mates, so I don't want to defund them!"
Side note: The way I know this person is indeed a TERF is very telling. She specifically also said that trans women aren't women.
Now, there is a tiny grain of truth in both of the examples from Mrs. Nameless TERF's occasional showing of her true colors.
Yes, women across the world - trans and otherwise - are in grave danger at every single moment of every single day, that's true. However, as individuals and citizens of a nation, we have limits to what we can exude influence on. As an American, I can't tell Indians to get their tech support scamming under control, let alone how they treat women. As an American, I can influence through a variety of measures how my nation treats women and opens up their rights. So, I should do that.
Yes, law enforcement is necessary for a well-functioning society. However, law enforcement should not be the go-to solution for all problems, especially not in communities of color who have a long and bloody history of repression and outright murder by said law enforcement. We need ways for people to choose to do the right thing, before we bring people who have a virtual license to kill into any situation where we're not prepared as a society for loss of life.
My first contact with TERFs was here on Ars during the Trump years, and I'll never forget it - due to the sheer level of bad-faith argument and lack of empathy for others, I actually mistook my first TERF for a Trumpist, and ponied them accordingly. Then, someone corrected me and shared a Contrapoints video about TERFs with me that really helped clear things up.
Addendum: I no longer play D&D with the person whose stuff I'm quoting, by the way. I had many issues with her, and she wound up leaving the Strixhaven campaign I was running. While she is indeed a TERF, she's also a generally painful person to deal with who was literally trying to sabotage it from day one.
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I don't want to punch Nazis for existing. I want to punch them because they're fucking Nazis. Nobody's born a Nazi. Being a Nazi is not an inherent feature of someone's ethnicity, genetics, development. It is a choice to embrace a supremacist ideology that holds that society must be cleansed by violence of the morally, socially, ethnically, and/or genetically impure elements that threaten the purity of the superior in-group.
And as a disabled half-Jew with an autistic son, a nonwhite spouse, a trans niece, and a lesbian sister and sister in law, I do not have the luxury of assuming that a Nazi is just existing, just vibing, and doesn't actually wish death and obliteration on me and my people. So assuming you mean well and have the luck to not share my concerns, I invite you to to stay in your lane.
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ApplePaladin
Ars Praefectus
I read it. You're making a shit argument, and the part you said people would skip over doesn't invalidate the shittiness of your argument. Do better.
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AmanoJyaku
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Same. In fact, I made anti-trans comments, and made excuses like "they're not normal" or some such bullshit.
Here's the thing: no one tried to reach me. If they had, I would have listened. I wouldn't have understood the experiences of trans people. But I would have understood the pain they endured, because I understood the pain of other groups.
And it's because I understood the pain of other groups that I began to reflect on queer rights, and my role in violating those rights.
This is where I have to call you out. These people are telling who they are. None of what they say is supported by any fact anywhere. I know, because I researched it. Gender identity, gender roles, etc... are all made up. Science says so.
I had to admit to myself my bigotry came from a place of personal discomfort. Once I did that, I began to accept people for the human beings they are. That was 30 years ago, and we've learned so much since then. Anyone still clinging to queerphobic bigotry, and attempting to use science to justify it, is screaming "I don't want to learn".
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So you think I'm lazy for associating exclusively with people who don't want me dead or segregated, and think the belief that I should be dead or segregated is a legitimate difference of belief that I should be comfortable with engaging with.
What the fuck is wrong with you.
You're fucking right it's hard. They want to kill me and my family and would do it if given the chance. I don't want to discuss that with them. The human rights of me and my family and people like us are not actually up for debate or discussion. Until they grant that, without exception or reservation, there is no basis for a discussion or for my even coexisting with them without the tension of imminent violence.
You just don't get this, and you refuse to listen to those of use for whom the existence of these beliefs is an existential threat. That includes you too, by the way.
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Elon Musk: The universe's answer to the question, "What if a six year old was a billionaire?"
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Jesus fuck - "emotional baggage" - the emotional baggage of a history of genocide, hatred, monstrous cruelty, the destruction of science and works of literature, white supremacy, patriarchy, and fascism - emotional fucking baggage.
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Emotional baggage? No. It's a philosophy that explicitly calls for exterminating large swathes of people for the crime of just existing.
The fact you call something like that "emotional baggage", and that you claim being trans and being a nazi is equivalent "It's as bad as punching somebody for existing while gay/trans/jew as it is punching somebody who wants to exterminate gays/trans/jews".
Being a nazi is inherently violent, because the ideology is inherently violent. There is no such thing as a non-violent, non-genocidal nazi. Because violence and genocide are core to the ideology.
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So, I have to say that this is really weird.
This is the 2nd time in 24 hours you've quoted me to respond to something I didn't say. Just like I requested the first time, please don't do that. It's not civil. And I believe it's something you wouldn't let go by if someone did it to your posts.
Perhaps I'm not expressing myself clearly. And if so, I'd appreciate questions or suggestions on how to do that better.
I gave 3 examples of posts that were not civil. I said that two of them got moderation action while one did not. I suggested that the moderation on uncivil posts rule was not being applied consistently and requested more moderation not less. I'd like to see all three posts subject to moderation.
You responded using the examples of the two posts that did get moderation action and appeared to imply that I didn't understand that those two posts did get moderated. Just like you did earlier in the thread when you ignored the uncivil hate post, you ignored the quoted uncivil hate post again. Almost as if it didn't exist.
Very strange. But, also very clear.
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Probably because, again, the only discussion you want to have is to disrespect and dehumanize trans people.
Because you disparaging trans people is more civil?
The only intellectually dishonest ones here are the ones who say that trans people should have to constantly debate their right to exist in perpetuity. Do Better.
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