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.
Checkraise would you accept being defined as a Muslim hater if you refused to implement Sharia law in your country?
Because this is what you are doing for people that are against legislation that makes gender theory claims legally binding for everyone
A 7 year old with a penis believes they're a girl. Am I supposed to fight her parents or disown them as friends because of fear of peer pressure?
A 7 year old with a penis believes they're a girl. Am I supposed to fight her parents or disown them as friends because of fear of peer pressure?
No, you are just supposed not to consider any self identification of a 7y old as "truth".
You wouldn't write that your kids have a pirate friend even if they were friend with a 7y old that goes around claiming to everyone he is a pirate, would you?
Treating claims by a 7y old as truth is actually very demeaning for actually trans people, especially if the 7y old changes his mind a lot on the topic in the following years.
It gives ammo to people who think the whole topic is bogus, I hope you can see that.
Now the parents are going to do what they prefer on this but in some cases, depending on what the parents do about this topic, you could certainly disagree with their parenting style as you would with anything else about parenting.
Whether to tell them or not that you disagree is another topic entirely.
No, you are just supposed not to consider any self identification of a 7y old as "truth".
You wouldn't write that your kids have a pirate friend even if they were friend with a 7y old that goes around claiming to everyone he is a pirate, would you?
Treating claims by a 7y old as truth is actually very demeaning for actually trans people, especially if the 7y old changes his mind a lot on the topic in the following years.
It gives ammo to peopl
My point isn't that a 7 year old's truth is a universal truism. My point is that I don't care.
No, you are just supposed not to consider any self identification of a 7y old as "truth".
You wouldn't write that your kids have a pirate friend even if they were friend with a 7y old that goes around claiming to everyone he is a pirate, would you?
Treating claims by a 7y old as truth is actually very demeaning for actually trans people, especially if the 7y old changes his mind a lot on the topic in the following years.
It gives ammo to peopl
A 7yo cannot self identify in any meaningful way. They can only make a very shallow attempt at it because they are almost completely identified with the social world. Their attempt at self identification is going to be highly dependent on their socialization.
The problem is many adults in society cannot self identify in any meaningful way either. As demonstrated in this thread, there is a significant segment who have trouble either distinguishing the self from other identities or affirming the self even exists.
Seems irresponsible to think this
How could this happen? The kid tells the parents he feels like he’s a girl? And someone told him he’s trans?
Or his parents asked him, are you trans? And he said yes
Jw
I'm not sure how it went down behind closed doors other than the kid insists they're a girl. If I were to guess, I don't think the kid knows what "trans" is.
A 7 year old with a penis believes they're a girl. Am I supposed to fight her parents or disown them as friends because of fear of peer pressure?
I would tell them that’s a normal feeling for a 7 year old, and I’d let them express themselves however they want.
That doesn’t mean they are trans lmao
Probably, but that's not my kid and none of my boys do say they're a girl, so not my problem to solve
Does it apply to anything, or there is a threshold of events where other considerations would apply and you would feel society at large, and in this case you because your are privy to information about the situation, should do something to save a kid from unacceptable situations?
Checkraise would you accept being defined as a Muslim hater if you refused to implement Sharia law in your country?
Because this is what you are doing for people that are against legislation that makes gender theory claims legally binding for everyone
I’m not calling him a trans hater because of his position on trans women playing in women’s sports, because that’s my position as well. I’m calling him that because he’s calling them “men in dresses”.
Harassment against a protected class already has legislation surrounding it. The supreme court broadly interprets sex discrimination in the civil rights act as including sexual orientation and gender identity.
Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.
Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the Act’s consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.
Justice Gorsuch in BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY.
I think that we need to strike a good balance on these issues. People should have a broad right to their opinions on trans people, but trans people also have a right to have a suitable work environment. The more superior someone is, the more impactful that harassment is.
The Horror is representative of many people in western society who are trying to live a normal life and do what is right. They’ve been led to believe if they align themselves with the civil rights story, then they will be on the right path. Unfortunately, reality is more complex than this.
Trans is a reality check. The moral struggle is no longer optional. The simple heuristics are no longer viable.
I agree
Care to share what you told your kids?
If you told him that the kid is trans, why?
Do you think it’s responsible to affirm when a 7yr old calls themselves trans to your kids?
We said that this kid is a girl and prefers to be called "she". The kids have all grown up together and it wasn't a tough sell on my kids at all.
We didn't use the word "trans" at all. Not on purpose. It just didn't come up. We just said "[this kid's name] is a girl". The kid happens to have a gender neutral name, so it didn't raise any questions among my kids.
The kid we're talking about doesn't use the word "trans". They just live as a girl with the pinks, purples, dolls, dresses, long hair, and such. I don't know what you mean by "responsible".
Does it apply to anything, or there is a threshold of events where other considerations would apply and you would feel society at large, and in this case you because your are privy to information about the situation, should do something to save a kid from unacceptable situations?
I don't feel an obligation to "do something to save a kid" here, no.
The Horror is representative of many people in western society who are trying to live a normal life and do what is right. They’ve been led to believe if they align themselves with the civil rights story, then they will be on the right path. Unfortunately, reality is more complex than this.
Trans is a reality check. The moral struggle is no longer optional. The simple heuristics are no longer viable.
I'm more indifferent than 'trying to do what is right'
