Did he win or something?
The building blocks of a society which views a subset of all people as a second class citizens, well that’s exactly the kind of thing I’d like to see torn down.
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Citation needed.
Try asking a trans person what their experiences in society are like and if they feel treated with the same level of respect as everyone else.
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I take it you’ve decided that kicking transgender people out of the military isn’t evidence of prejudice.
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I’m sure they mostly don’t. I’m not disputing being trans puts one at a social disadvantage which is further compounded by any other negative factor that may apply to their situation. It would be nice to remedy that.
But if the message is supposed to be “Trans people face a murder epidemic” - they don’t. Not if the statistics you have presented are accurate. Their risk does not appear to be significantly higher than that of any other person in the US.
What are you talking about? Where do I say that?
Well, if your back of envelope stats say so…
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There is nothing “back of envelope” about that statistic. I used the number of murders you gave me, in a record year, and rounded them up. The population of the US is known. The homicide rate is known. The share of people who identify as trans is probably the least reliable number, but 0.3% is cited quite often. If you have anything better, I’ll be happy to use it. The result is that the murder rate for this group does not seem to be significantly out of line with the average.
The number of relevant individual murders is quite low which increases variance, but that cuts both ways.
Unless this was misplaced you’re disputing the idea that trans people are being treated as second-class citizens.
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The only basic building block that’s being removed here is society’s long-standing instance on conformity as regards gender (amongst other characteristics and lifestyles: see also neurotypicality and adherence to organised religion and interracial marriages). Whatever potential (and, given the relatively static percentages of non-breeders across time and taking into account macroeconomic circumstance, unlikely) losses we might see will be more than offset by gains in human happiness that come from living uncloseted and open lives. I think we’ll be able to handle fewer unhappy people, unhappy marriages, and unhappy children produced from unhappy families.
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Well, not by the military:
The thing with unforeseen consequences is that they are unforeseen. This trend, if real, could significantly affect the family structure which has already undergone major changes in the last 70 or so years, with birthrates falling well below replication levels in many Western countries.
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Well, he managed to get elected to judicial positions, and would have won the latest race had he not also been a child molester and faced a heroic effort of Democratic organizing. Even so, it was way too fucking close and had it been any other sort of race, he would have won, thanks to gerrymandering. If it makes you feel any better (worse), substitute “Trump” or “King” for “Moore.” It’s not like more extreme bigoted Republican candidates are failing to get elected, for the most part. Not to mention the Republican party getting scared white cis-het men to vote against their economic self-interests has been the whole core of the party for a while now…
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I don’t claim to be a seer, but I’m not terribly worried, either. Birthrates fall well below the replacement rate when most of society is either both highly prosperous and educated or (at the other end) when most of society sees no chance for economic and social mobility for their children. In contrast, the percentage of homosexual and asexual people has remained relatively static whether the society demanded conformity or embraced diversity and ultimately has little effect.
The family structure has indeed gone through major changes, but only in the last 40 or so years when people realised that a) they weren’t obliged to remain in toxic ones and b) they could choose their own darned families, and not just via church- and state-sanctioned monogamous marriage. The decline of the American nuclear family doesn’t necessarily mean that the American birthrate will fall. People will still have heterosexual sex and children even if they’re not married or gender conforming, and will have more diverse family structures available in which the children can be raised (more choice leading to more happiness).
These days the only people whinging about falling birthrates and the collapse of “traditional family values” are religious fundies, ethno-nationalists, and Libertarians shedding crocodile tears over the potential collapse of a Social Security system they want to see destroyed anyhow. None of those groups are known for prioritising human happiness over power and money.
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Only its Commander-In-Chief. And the fact that trans people had to go to court to prove their worthiness to serve speaks to the prejudice they face.
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The stats on trans murders reported - and the Day of Remembrance- have been murders due to anti- trans violence. Not just murders.
Friends of mine started this project and they had to mention that many times to people trying to report trans people murdered in robberies, the trans person who was a terror victim on the Korean jet liner even suicides.
I understand that not every person reporting deaths gets that - but no - it’s not every trans person being murdered in that #. It’s hate related murders.
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The issue wasn’t prejudice, it was being treated as “second class citizens.”
But since we are in this touchy area of gendered rights and obligations and unintended consequences, please tell me: How do you envision competitive sports should operate under this paradigm of unfettered, fluid, subjectively constructed gender identity?
What will stop second tier men competitors from declaring themselves trans women for the occasion, switching categories and pushing cis women out of the field? Mind you, they of course won’t undergo any surgery, hormone therapy or shave their beards (you can’t possibly demand that they subject their innermost gender identity to someone else’s oppressive standards) and, since gender, as we all know, is fluid, will most likely happen to revert to cis-male identification once their careers are over. But they will proudly represent womanhood on the field and track never the less! After all, there is a lot of money involved.
I’m really curious about your proposed solution to this. Do you think some sort of a test should be administered to determine whether claimants are really trans? Perhaps a committee should decide whether someone is worthy of transitioning in this manner? Or do you suggest that there should be some social mechanism shaming and discouraging people from switching their identities? Maybe cis women just have to take a hike? Or would you rather opt to bar trans people from competitive sports altogether? Or relegate them to their own category?
EDIT: Sorry, this isn’t fair of me. What I’m mostly opposing here are the postmodern attempts to dismantle all societal categories (to which the trans rights issue is substantively incidental, if handy) and you have given no indication that you hold such position.
Fucking good. It needed to.
Well, see, we want the “right” kind of people breeding, not the “wrong” kind of people… /s
And especially not women’s happiness.
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