The costs of trans visibility
Yesterday, Dylan Mulvaney broke her silence: https://www.tiktok.com/@dylanmulvaney/vi....
For context, this is a trans influencer who built a 10 million strong following on TikTok. She took a brand deal with budweiser to post an ad on an instagram, and the anti-trans right went absolutely ballistic, calling for a boycott, condemning the company, and to some perhaps unknowable degree it influenced that Budweiser sales dropped by a 1/4 and
. Dylan speaks more personally about the effect of the hatred on her.
What strikes me about this story is that it is just about visibility. This isn't inclusion in sports or gender-affirming care for minors, it was just that a trans person was visible. This wasn't even visibility in a TV commerical that a poor right-winger is forced to see, it was an ad on her own instagram page. We're all in our own social media algorithm influenced bubbles, but from my vantage point it really has seemed that in the last year or so things have just gotten worse for trans people and the backlash to even minor visibility is growing.
We need to do better.
I actually do think this is a fair point. The argument for a book like Gender Queer being included in a school library is that it could be very useful and insightful for someone growing up who relates to the author. It's lumped under sex ed but it's not about education into the physical act of sex but rather an education into the experience of growing up feeling like an outcast due to sexual/gender orientation.
My arguments in this thread ar
someone sucking off a strap-on doesn't meet your criteria of porn?
The definition of porn is that is produced for the specific purpose of stimulating sexual excitement. Given that that section talks about how it actually wasn't exciting in the way they were expecting at all it's pretty hard to claim that the intent was to stimulate excitement.
It is sexual imagery but it is not pornography.
Right.
Of course they do, that's what I've been saying all along.
If you don't think what kinds of materials are included in a library fall under policy, I'll need to give another "Cmon Bobo".
No, operational matters such as what books should be in the school library definitely should not be in policy. I can only imagine what a policy manual that included details like that would look like. What should be in policy is what the process for resource selection looks like, which would likely include whose hands those decisions would be in, and some very overarching guidance - resources that are inclusive, appropriate, support the district's goals, etc. So in a big picture sense, there would be something that covers "what kinds of materials" are used, but it would be extremely non-prescriptive. If that's all you meant, then we're on the same page there at least.
*I put "bans" in quotes because there are no bans happening. All these materials can be found elsewhere. What is happening is the choice on what is available in a school library is being removed from the librarians to a higher authority (rightly or wrongly).
Materials being available elsewhere don't change a ban being a ban. Materials are chosen to be in schools not because they can't be obtained elsewhere, but because they were felt to be important enough to be more readily available for students, or used in the classroom. Banning them has an impact, which is why it's done.
Of course librarians have no special training that qualifies them to make choices like this - they are organizers and administrators.
I can't speak for every jurisdiction, but teacher-librarians here most definitely have special training that qualifies them to make choices like this. I'd be pretty surprised if that wasn't the case in many other places.
Nope.
por·nog·ra·phy
/pôrˈnäɡrəfē/
noun
printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.
they've apparently forgotten what its like to be a teenage boy. imagine having a cartoon of someone sucking off a chick wearing a strapon in the ****ing school library lmao
We don't have to imagine it, they've been in school libraries across the continent for years, and the only problem I'm aware of them creating is when some group gets outraged and demands they be removed.
you and i along with all of our mates spent 75%+ of english lit looking up **** and piss and **** in the dictionary. this is fact and i will accept no argument on it.
OK. Did this cause a big issue of some kind, or did you eventually get bored with that and move on?
imagine what we would've done with the HEY WHY NOT TASTE YOUR OWN VAGINA SLIME? cartoon
honestly
Again, we don't have to imagine. The answer would be, to my knowledge - nothing significantly negative.
To elaborate a little further, our district has dozens of copies of this book. They've been checked out a handful of times over the last few years. And there have been no reports of students gathering in a dark corner of the library to titter over them or masturbate or anything else one might be concerned is going on. About the only reason I could see for removing them would be that they aren't used all that often, but it could be that those handful of times they were checked out, and other times they were quietly read in a corner of the library, have been very helpful for students who don't see themselves in a lot of books.
Don't get me wrong, I completely get why people might have a sharp reaction to the book, and there will be many school districts/schools that have decided they'd rather not use it. But I also don't think it's worthy of a whole lot of outrage and community members screaming about pornography in our schools - although we have seen a very small number of people in our district that have done that very thing. And then they moved on.
Different groups have different issues and needs. For example vibrators are a health issue for many gay men , and for many straight women.
If your position is that sex education is ok but only when it’s discussing cishet male needs and not the issues pertinent to other orientations and genders then that position is discriminatory.
Libraries have always had material with nudity and discussion of sexual acts since the beginning of libraries.
I'll spell it out for you. Physical libraries are by definition a finite space. It might be news to you, but there are a lot of books in this world. Choices need to be made on what is physically in the libraries' catalogues. Not so hard, is it. The question is - who has ultimate authority over those choices?
The head librarian, generally.
So now we know why everyone is trans all of the sudden.
WTF?
So in a big picture sense, there would be something that covers "what kinds of materials" are used, but it would be extremely non-prescriptive. If that's all you meant, then we're on the same page there at least.
I think we are. I think on the policy continuum from "Just buy some books, we don't care" to "Every individual book needs to be approved" we're each probably quite a distance from either end but at a different place.
Different groups have different issues and needs. For example vibrators are a health issue for many gay men , and for many straight women.
If your position is that sex education is ok but only when it’s discussing cishet male needs and not the issues pertinent to other orientations and genders then that position is discriminatory.
Libraries have always had material with nudity and discussion of sexual acts since the beginning of libraries.
how is a vibrator a health issue? like, it must be cleaned?
It would have been crazy because it would have been so far outside of anything we would have had easy access to. That's the entire point though. Nowadays it would be worthy of some degree of titillation in the same way looking up rude words in the dictionary or innuendo in Shakespeare might have been to us. But that's the extent of it because it's something that any teenager has access to whenever they want.
going off your argument that kids have access to whatever they want, then why don't the kids who feel the need to connect to this borderline smut just pull it up on their own phones instead of subjecting the other 98% of kids to it?
if this specialized sexual education is so important, then maybe the authors of these books should give them away for free to those in such dire need to not feel alone.
Kids can access manuals to make the perfect Molotov and internet forums full of revolutionaries which is why it's proper for teachers to train kids for guerrilla antifa fight against the government and to fill school libraries with all the material needed to become an Hamas freedom fighter
going off your argument that kids have access to whatever they want, then why don't the kids who feel the need to connect to this borderline smut just pull it up on their own phones instead of subjecting the other 98% of kids to it?
if this specialized sexual education is so important, then maybe the authors of these books should give them away for free to those in such dire need to not feel alone.
Because they want teachers to be able to discuss that material with the kids to groom them
Because they want teachers to be able to discuss that material with the kids to groom them
i do think this is a situation where a group that sees itself as marginalized is doing what it can to increase its numbers and therefore power. i dont think the vast majority of these teachers are grooming kids for direct sex, but i do think they are doing the dirty work for the far left.
i do think this is a situation where a group that sees itself as marginalized is doing what it can to increase its numbers and therefore power. i dont think the vast majority of these teachers are grooming kids for direct sex, but i do think they are doing the dirty work for the far left.
Of course it doesn't need to be the vast majority of teachers, one is enough.
i was taught sex ed by living in the world. it's not really a complicated subject. it should be taught in science class for about three days.
I was later taught in health class as a high school freshman, but by then I knew everything already.
The only thing that class added was the chance to watch a close-up movie of a baby being born. That made at least a third of the classroom of boys queasy, and may have actually prevented a few pregnancies. It certainly convinced me that I never wanted to see that again.
Happy 5k posts ya'll
My claim is that children should have access to high-quality age appropriate sex ed materials. They all have access to one thing - porn. But porn is terrible for sex ed for a long list of reasons. And so we should teach sex ed in schools and have sex ed related books in libraries, both school and non-school alike so that kids can have access to these sex ed materials if they wish. What seems rather silly is people who ge
I don't object to some sex ed books being available in school libraries, but I'm sure that stuff is all available on the internet as well.
I do'nt know that it needs to have graphic imagery, more what is the problem precisely if it does have graphic imagery? In the link in question the medium for the stories being told literally is a graphic novel which of course is a popular medium for kids these ages and might be more accessible or engaging than say a regular novel. So sure, describing a period doesn't necessarily need to have an image of someone's nightmare of blood all ov
I disagree about that image in particular, it seems much more likely to scare children than to educate them. I'm prone to nightmares myself, and I won't be surprised if I'm dreaming about that tonight.
I was later taught in health class as a high school freshman, but by then I knew everything already.
The only thing that class added was the chance to watch a close-up movie of a baby being born. That made at least a third of the classroom of boys queasy, and may have actually prevented a few pregnancies. It certainly convinced me that I never wanted to see that again.
penis
vagina
when p goes in v a baby comes out. babies can ruin your life so wear a condom.
end of class.
not to mention any reasonable parent will find the opportune time to explain this to their kid.
are kids today so warped from nut allergies that they need a semester on this stuff?
NHS bans puberty blockers in England.
This BBC interview with Tavistock Governor Dr David Bell is well worth a listen
This expert makes two interesting points:
Penetration of ideology that caused all other children problems to be framed as gender problems hmmm... I wonder which ideology that is.
"The majority of children will desist" IE will stop self identifying as trans.
Is this expert one of the experts uke and bobo would listen to, if not why not, if yes then what do we do when experts vehemently, violently disagree with each others about topics, which is far more common than people want to admit in the social sciences?
Because they want teachers to be able to discuss that material with the kids to groom them
What an absolutely ridiculous and paranoid idea. Is there any evidence that points you in the direction of some conspiracy to groom children to be trans for some reason instead of those working with children actually thinking this is the support they need? Is there any actual evidence of teachers trying to convince kids that they are trans?
What an absolutely ridiculous and paranoid idea. Is there any evidence that points you in the direction of some conspiracy to groom children to be trans for some reason instead of those working with children actually thinking this is the support they need? Is there any actual evidence of teachers trying to convince kids that they are trans?
The presence of that book and others like that in elementary school libraries.
I didn't say "groom to be trans", they groom in general, and at the margin for very small (absolute, but not relative) numbers it can increase the number of sef identified trans kids, but that's not even necessarily the main reason they are doing this (the sexual explicit books with young kids).
They want to normalize their sexual fetishes in society probably, or something else even more nefarious which i can't prove so i won't mention in detail.
I mean i prove to you they put books about sucking strapon dildos in a gay couple, with graphic imagery, in elementary school libraries, and you ask me if there is any evidence about their will to groom children.
Do you agree it's monstrous beyond belief that those books were in elementary school libraries? and that whomever took that decision is inimical to the core tenets of education at a minimum, if not straight up a child abuser?
Tbh i think it's incredible there aren't many people in jail already for this
NHS bans puberty blockers in England.
This BBC interview with Tavistock Governor Dr David Bell is well worth a listen
It’s actually false to say that puberty blockers have been banned in england. Puberty blockers are not banned. Rather, it bans their prescription at gender clinics to transgender children. The NHS still currently allows puberty blockers for cisgender children, the original use case being to delay precocious puberty.
A more accurate and honest headline would be “Conservative activists ban medicine for children because they think they are the wrong type of children”.
Similar to what happened with IVF in alabama.
