N-word returns to British television

True story. It happened to my ex as a child. She thought she was dying.

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I haven’t done that, and it’s outside my personal experience. I knew someone who have had dozens of surgeries at a young age… seemed like quite the trip, and I totally understood their motivations after having learned about them. If I was truly motivated by compassion for his mental health, I would start by trying to understand his own motivations.

You know as someone who’s had sex reassignment surgery, the argument you are using sounds remarkably familiar to me.

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Even he’s skeeved out.

Polar_Express_Tom_Hanks

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Yowch! Chosen lifestyle is more or less exactly the same argument that religious bigots use to harsh on the queers. I get the low regard for his use of the slur, but if someone goes off all casually racist that seems like a poor justification for body policing.

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You don’t think there’s a difference between a transperson such as yourself changing their biological sex and someone endlessly pursuing an “ideal” image of perfection through cosmetic surgery? Those two things sound similar to you?

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What is familiar to me is precisely “I question the ethics of a doctor who is willing to enable [surgery I do not approve of] for profit as they can do real psychological harm to their patients.” I’ve that directed my way lots. (And sorry for not being more clear).

I am not at all familiar with the OP’s experiences with 50+ surgeries. But there’s lots of surgeries I am not familiar with.

I can certainly imagine non-psychologically impaired motivations. Like, I know stories of folks who treat serious serial body modification (not talking tattoos… surgical-level stuff) as a large on-going art project.

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Fine, the people who directed that argument at you and other transpersons are manifestly wrong, not because it’s their opinion but because they are bigots. It does not follow from that that there are no circumstances under which plastic surgery is unethical to perform.

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I think we agree there. :slight_smile:

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The problem isn’t this individual. The problem is having a TV show where the whole point is to closely follow people specifically chosen because they might behave offensively. This is a structural problem, and neither kicking someone off the show nor not kicking someone off the show are solutions to that.

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I wished somebody would explain the context more, I don’t want to watch the video

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Yo… I don’t want to further derail the thread, but it really seems like something has hit a sore nerve, and you’re lashing out due to some misplaced sense of empathy with the individual in question.

While you’re obviously allowed to feel however you want, just know that I really don’t appreciate the unfair implications you seem to be serving right now.

I’d hope that my comment history shows exactly where I stand when it comes to equality and intersectionality for pretty much everyone (except Nazis), but if it does not suffice, then I don’t know what to tell you.

I don’t have any real issues with whatever choices other people might make regarding their own bodies, and you are quite correct that it’s not actually any of my business. Nor do I have any unrealistic expectations that anyone “needs” to adhere to ‘my personal standards’ regarding their physical appearance.

But being compared to intolerant religious bigots because I dared criticize this person over the physical appearance that he chose, as if it actually correlates to one’s sexual preference or gender identity (both of which are NOT a choice) is both disingenuous and highly unfair.

Long story short; I don’t like shitty people who say and do shitty things, regardless to what identity labels may apply to them. No one ‘gets a pass’ on being shitty, not even if they happen to be a minority.

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Yes. Especially to knowing that you are solid. :slight_smile:

And yes to hit a nerve. (Obvs… I think not totally unrelated to a discussion we had about making fun of folks for their biology a spell back.)

Apologies for painting with too broad a brush. The “yowch” was specifically about using chosen body stuff to target.

You still get the auto-invite to all my parties. :slight_smile:

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No harm, no foul.

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I remember an episode of The Office when Gareth used that word, a couple times I think.

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Channel 5, Celebrity Big Brother and racial slurs.

Eurgh. It looks like they hit the trifecta of tastelessness. And broadcast all over the world, to remind the rest of the world about the ugly side of the UK’s popular culture. It isn’t all just charming eccentricity, baking, Doctor Who and romantic comedies. The UK can produce cheap, vile bitter nastiness on an industrial scale (Although, post-Brexit, we kind of knew that already).

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My point is that it seems odd to say that it returned when, sadly, it never went away in the first place.

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This show is watched in my house. As such I have seen some of it. This round they don’t have A-list celebs, or B, or C… You know when you get to the end of the alphabet and you have to decide if you want to double-up the letters like Excel or switch to Greek letters? They’re somewhere around there.

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there was an article in harpers 12-14 years ago about the ethics of extreme cosmetic surgery. iirc the article led with a doctor who was willing to construct bony wings on one patient and a pair of horns on another and then moved on to the extremes of human “beautification.” i’ll look back on that and post a link if i can find it.

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I would also expect that a well-fed AI programmed to maximize it’s Reality TV profile would hit on the N-word within a few weeks, if not days.

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