Simple comic explains how not to derail conversations about gender identity

boing
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Basically the old people need to die off, and the kids will be more tolerant. Long term (even medium term, really, if you look at acceptance of homosexuality from 1980 to 2020) this system works. It has always worked.

This is why the idea of very long life scares me. If people regularly lived to 200, 300 years old then social change would be a lot slower because the old people in power would carry their biases and prejudices around longer. Logan’s Run had the right idea! Term limits for everyone!

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that’s somewhat harsh. speaking from my mid-50s i’m a lot more tolerant than the average youth to young adult, both in my state and nationally, but i also understand that my tendency to get more and more liberal as i age is not normative. i think there are probably individualized reasons why living much more than 150 would probably not be useful and if longevity meds or procedures became available i suspect that after an initial fad those people who chose it would report enough horrifying elements to it that it wouldn’t last long.

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There are liberal old people, but not many. The statistics always bear this out: the younger you are, the more liberal your social views. So social change is largely a function of time. Not that there isn’t stuff you can do today, there is, we can and should, but old powerful people with no term limits (literally or figuratively) would be disastrous for social change.

I, for one, am happy to hand the mantle to my kids when my time comes. Who wants to live forever?

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I dunno… I’d like to think that’s true, but there are still an awful lot of racists, homophobes, and transphobes lurking about, and not all them are old people. In a rational, progressive world, that could be true, but I’m not sure we live in that world.

I don’t think it’s that simple, though. Social change has to be made, it doesn’t just happen. Our evolving attitude on race came not just from the long arc of history, as King said, but from people pushing for change. You have to teach your children to be more open minded, because there are plenty of people willing to hand down their outmoded, backward views. Is there less of those people, sure, but it’s not just a function of times moving on, it’s a function of proactive movements of people pushing for change. History only matters in terms of how we make it, not just because stuff happens.

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I think it has to do with growing intellectually weary with age. We know that conservatism is linked to low IQ, and I’d bet hard money that the ones who stay liberal with age are the ones who stay mentally active: artists, educators, creative types and voracious readers.

Once you hit the point where you’re tired and don’t don’t care enough to think about much outside your own sphere, the simplistic answers of conservatism seem comforting.

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First, look at the stats I cited. It is a statistical fact that support for gay marriage trends strongly (declining strongly) with age. That is not my opinion. That is cold, hard, data. It is science.

If you have kids, one of the first things you learn is that kids do not want to take your shit – they want to think and do and make decisions for themselves. It’s kind of fascinating how that works. Almost like social change, and pushing back against the old order, is baked in. Which is kind of fucking awesome.

You can probably indoctrinate and brainwash your kids if you work hard enough at it, but it is amazing (to me at least) how good kids are at carving out space to decide for themselves about things and not taking your words and beliefs at face value. They always question and push back.

Ok, I will shut up now before I break into a rousing rendition of Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All”, but suffice it to say I am bullish on the future of the human race, and the rate of social change.

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Thanks so much for reminding me of the TV character Alex Keaton from Family Ties.

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Yes, that one and ensuing discussion. None of those people would volunteer to have done to them what they did to you despite what your suspicions are. Mindysan says it should be unacceptable to treat people this way. She’s right. So why are you doing it too?

I’m just not going to read an owner’s manual on how to talk to people, let alone memorize it. I’ll continue to treat everyone the way I always have: politely and with respect, and if I make a mistake I’ll apologize and try to correct it. Frankly, that’s all you have a right to ask.

All this nattering on about having a “conversation” is really just justifying the practice of angrily shouting down everyone who doesn’t conform to your ideal in every single way. It has nothing to do with an exchange of ideas. And I’ll say the same thing I said last time: You do not have a right to live in a world that never gives you offense. Acting offensively because you were offended is also not justified. It is just penny ante bullshit revengism. You do have the right to walk away from that which offends you, which is what I’m doing right now.

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You are acting neither politely, nor with respect. If that’s your goal, you are failing terribly at it and maybe ought to listen to others who are telling you you’re failing. On the other hand, if your goal is to sound rude and disrespectful, you are doing a stellar job and need to keep it up.

You keep saying this, but keep bringing the subject up.

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I have no doubt it’s more acceptable now and more young people are more open to it… my point is that this did not just happen. It was years of struggle by the LGBT community to work their way into the mainstream consciousness in a way that wasn’t a completely mockable stereotype. If it’s more accepted, it’s not because times change, it’s because people made them change.

Sure - they have their own minds and kids do rebel, but I’d argue that’s still a social process, not a default process of time. the whole concept of a teenager and all the cultural baggage that goes with it, is a 20th century idea that is tied to the rise of modern modes of consumption. See for example:

Kids having a time in their lives where their social relations are primarily with their own age group helps to contribute to this process, and this was really only possible in the way we think of it, in the modern era.

So, my think is that these things don’t happen, they are made to happen. You might have the statistics and I won’t dispute them, but it’s important to acknowledge how these statistics are made historically. they don’t just happen.

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Maybe, but what about this? It happens to trans people too.

Doing what? I have not called you anything abusive while you called people who are well documented as being at risk of abuse too sensitive (In your first comment too!). I certainly haven’t done to you any of the other things that I mentioned.

You are failing miserably, you have been nothing but agressive and abusive from the start both here and in the older thread. It doesn’t look like you have ever commented on any other transgender topic since BBS started, why has this one got you so upset?

That doesn’t work when transphobic behaviour is accepted by large sections of the general public. You just walk from one incident to the next until you finally decide to take a stand.

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Hang on! I’ve got it. You are derailing a thead about how not to derail conversations about gender identity.

Nice troll.

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You sure about that?

The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.

I can dig up more ancient – literally – examples if it helps :wink:

I am pretty sure kids telling their parents to fuck off is as old as time itself. And that is a good thing when it comes to social change. Well, except for Alex P. Keaton.

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this is why i dismiss people within a decade of my age group either way who go on rants about “kids these days.” you can find quotes from greek and roman writings that went on and on about the failings of the younger generation. i don’t buy into that shit even a little bit.

i’m a teacher and i tend to like the rebellious ones a lot more than my colleagues, as long as they aren’t violent or bullies. they remind me of me.

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Being a member of any minority group is often difficult. Whether the group is something visible like ethnic or religious or something not so visible like gender identity, whether the group exists in a relatively heterogeneous society or a homogeneous one and a number of other things can contribute to the difficulty or ease of the minority group’s existence. As @Mindysan33 pointed out, time is also a factor.

People today see NYC as a sort of mecca for minorities of all types. Its generally safe to be or to present oneself as something other than the norm but it wasn’t always that way. Pride parades haven’t always been around and Stonewall is considered important for a reason. Seinfeld’s ancestors were not always welcome either. In this respect I agree with @Mindysan33 that advocacy does require lots of patience and it seems to me this comic is created more for the in crowd than as an advocacy or even manners point.

Like @MikeTheBard I’m a member of a minority religion. Similar to what this comic presents, it is one with lots of technical terms that can be difficult for some insiders to understand and downright baffling for outsiders, even those who want to be friendly to us. I’m part of the mod team of a forum on this religion with over 10K users and we’ve made and expanded the FAQ, wiki, link and “what does this word mean” pages as much as possible but the truth is not everyone is going to read those things and people will jump into conversations and ask about the basics. Personally I don’t mind this. When I was new, it was only through a combination of lurking, researching and asking questions that I could get up to any decent level of knowledge. Again personally, I’d rather give the benefit of the doubt to someone curious enough to ask.

A few asides:

@the_borderer receiving death threats for who you are is something people probably don’t understand until it happens to them. What happened to me wasn’t “as bad” as what you describe but it sure would be nice if no one ever had to experience that.

@MikeTheBard I’ll take your hard money as someone who became more conservative with age and also point out that your “We know” comment was trollish.

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Apparently so.
From the article you linked:
(the use of the Socrates passage) “prompted Malcolm S. Forbes to write an editorial on youth.—Forbes, April 15, 1966, p. 11. In that same issue, under the heading “Side Lines,” pp. 5–6, is a summary of the efforts of researchers and scholars to confirm the wording of Socrates, or Plato, but without success. Evidently, the quotation is spurious…”

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Well, it’s a good thing nobody is saying this, then.

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Well, that’s talking about children, not necessarily teenagers, which are indeed, I think a modern invention. For much of history once you were old enough to have children, your family probably wanted you married. So no time for an extended youth to explore your options in life. There is also probably differences along class lines. Despite Socrates bitching about children, I feel confident I’m on solid ground historically speaking.

Plus, all the classics (Greeks and Roman philosophers) are being read through the eyes of the enlightenment and our modern vantage point. We’re reading it through our point of view, not through the POV of a Greek. And if @pixleshifter is correct, and the quote is in dispute, there is that. Plus, we get much of Socrates via Plato, his pupil. And wasn’t that how philosophers made their living - teaching children of the elite? So wouldn’t they want to highlight the need for a teacher in the first place? A quote like that would certainly underscore the need for good instruction from a talented tutor.

I don’t want to suggest that there was never conflict between children and their parents, but I don’t think there was a sense of social unity within a “cohort” like we think of today until the modern era.

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A couple of days ago, one of your colleagues slapped a label on me and assumed that, having so labeled me, she knew everything there is to know about me.

If you insist on carving the world of humanity up into microniches, slapping labels on them and assuming that the labels you have chosen explain the world you see, that seems like a problem with you, not with me. If the labels you had chosen were, let’s say, ngger, spc, kke or crcker, we’d immediately recognize that as bigotry.

But bigotry does not reside in the words themselves. Bigorty is a mental state. It resides in the act of labeling itself, and the assumption that the labels you choose to apply to others count as understanding them. Please don’t expect other people to participate in that.

I have indeed disagreed with you, but I have been neither intemperate in my disagreement nor have I resorted to shouting or name calling. If you perceive disagreement as rudeness and disrespect, again that seems like a problem with you, not me.

You keep saying you want to have a conversation but that entails listening to others’ points of view, considering them, trying to understand them and responding in a calm and reasoned way, much like what I have been doing here. What you seem to want instead is capitulation, that everyone should do what you tell them to do, and that isn’t a conversation. It is, in fact, a good way to make sure no one ever listens to your concerns. I guess, from your point of view, it really is a one way street.

It is also a practice that is driving people on the left away from you. Not in the sense that anyone actively wishes you harm, but simply in the sense that argumentativeness eventually gets irritating and no one likes being irritated. See, for example, here:

I’m probably the most liberal person you’ve ever run across, a fact not at all captured in the label your colleague applied to me. I’m happy to let anyone anywhere do anything they want with anyone they want so long as no nonconsenting people or animals are harmed. But I don’t want to have anything to do with this “conversation” because it is not an attempt to achieve genuine understanding. It is rather an attempt to dictate behavior, something you have no right to do.

And that, in the end, is why I’m walking away. Have a nice day.

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Considering this entire thing started by you refusing to listen to what other people had to say, and instead throwing a giant childish fit that other people had things to say AT ALL, no, that’s not what you’re doing here.

This whole thing started because you literally refused to listen to people talk about how they’d like to be treated. You REFUSED to.

So no, you don’t get to claim you’re listening. Because you aren’t. You’re preaching, and then getting huffy and angry when people try to get a word in otherwise, demanding they listen to you while doing absolutely zero listening of your own.

I’ve lost count. How many times have you claimed this? You saying you’re “walking away” is about equivalent to you saying you want a conversation - a lie so obvious it’s downright hilarious.

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