It has to do with age self-identification…he self-identifies as a social age of 49, and wants his ID to reflect it. The argument as to whether this is a valid position is (he claims, and I would agree) equivalent to that for gender self-identification. Where i would disagree is that he should not be allowed to change his ID, but this is for pragmatic reasons rather than due to invalidating his claim to identity.
You’ve explicitly said his arguments are equally valid. They are not.
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Unfortunately my English is not good enough to translate all the things this man has said and done in the past. He has made anti-gay remarks (and his “strong” seed “could not produce a gay child”). Right now he wants to father new children (“without the burden of the woman”!) so he was looking for - and has found - two “surrogate mothers”. Of course it had to be done “the natural way”, no plastic cups for this macho. Maybe someone here fluent in Dutch and English can translate this (and other) article(s). The guy is a creep and a fool.
A (regional) newspaper article in Dutch:
https://www.gelderlander.nl/arnhem/jonge-god-emile-ratelband-69-begint-aan-achtste-en-negende-kind-ik-ben-bewustzijnsverruimer~a1faec5c/
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He fucking said that he’s changing his age to get younger women… he said that. So, he’s literally lying to potential sexual partners about his age. That is what he’s doing. That’s lying to get someone in bed. That’s gross.
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THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT HE’S TRYING TO DO!!!
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He does sound like quite the fuck-stick.
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I should have said “non-normative” instead of “weird”, the only reason I didn’t is because it feels too jargony. But if I’ve offended anyone by calling them weird, I apologize.
For sure. The lives of marginalized people are at stake and that’s not to be taken lightly. We have to be serious, strategic, and caring about the way we approach these issues.
All I can say is that some gay advocates were using this line of reasoning to marginalize trans struggle a decade ago, and we should be careful to avoid making the same mistake.
I agree about false equivalence, but we should be careful to avoid conceiving of social identity struggles as zero-sum. That is, we should reject the idea that recognition and respect for one identity can only come at the expense of others. That’s the logic of white supremacy, which is why right-wing trollies are doing this: to pull us into their world-view.
We should maintain a focus and emphasis on the most urgent and widespread forms of oppression, but we can do this while also embracing the possibility of an infinite spectrum of identities and oppressions. This is not only the most caring approach, it’s the most strategic since it allows our movements to expand over time.
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Philosophically speaking, an argument is valid if the truth of the premises logically guarantees the truth of the conclusion. Either an argument is valid or it is not. There is no “more or less valid”. The logical structure of his argument is equally valid. His circumstances most certainly are not equal…I am sure we would both agree on that.
If you think everyone on dating apps is honest about their weight, their income, their height, their photograph, their age, their cock size etc…oh boy are you in for some disappointment
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Who knew transphobic topics brought in the transphobia!
Seriously though, I expect that trolls gon’ troll, but the number of people who aren’t outright trolls pretending his main goal isn’t to be hateful is astounding.
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It is a mistake to take this guy as sincere.
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Who says they’re not “outright trollies?”
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There are plenty of those, I mean the ones who claim it’s “mostly” because he’s a creep who wants to date young women. While true that he’s a creep, they’re giving a born-again incel far too many excuses for how terrible he is. He’s being given press solely for “wacky” trans hate, depressing that BB picked this up for a human interest story and signal-boosted fascist propaganda.
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I think this person is probably a trolley. Personally I try to deal with trans trollies who think they are being clever by treating them as if they were being totally sincere and showing them compassion and doing everything I can to accommodate their (possibly faux) requests. When it comes to gender, this produces massive discomfort among the sort of men (it’s men) who trolley trans people because it is actually very important to them that they aren’t identified as women (which is kind of an object lesson in what being cis is since they are unaware they are that). It also might occasionally mean being nice to a genuinely delusional person (though none of us are actually being kind or unkind to this person unless they are in the thread).
This guy has chosen what he regards as an analogue that he probably isn’t uncomfortable with, so maybe my gut reaction of “just take him at face value even though I don’t believe him” is misplaced.
This I 100% agree with. Ultimately this is up to the courts in the Netherlands and honestly I think they’ll do just fine with it. I was thinking about posting something on my blog about this, but I’m not going to. (Not that my blog is a relevant level of “signal boost”)
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Clickbait is as clickbait does; there’s not much we can do but choose not to click on it.
That said, yes, it’s a shame that a story about such an obvious energy leech is being given any oxygen at all… but the lengths some people will go to to try to defend antisocial behavior is what’s really disheartening.
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Straight, cisgendered, rich, Christian, white dudes always get the benefit of the doubt…
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