Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

slab!

how would the trans/religion analogy operate?

i was making that exact analogy in a super-secret evil chat only the other day

"so much music i like rn is by trans women (interestingly not trans men)
so whatever reality these people are creating, it is aesthetically coherent and productive
i like the term they often use for themselves: 'cryptid'
it implies magic, alchemy, mystery
almost as if they are all priestesses of some unusual religion
for me, trans acceptance is about allowing trans people the room to create their identity, it is almost like religious acceptance"

ppl *should* be marginalized from debates for trying to bring that bullshit up

I've tried to imagine who you envision participating in this 'debate', what is to be concluded, who is to be persuaded to the eventual conclusions, and why it would matter to anyone outside of the small group allowed to take part. otoh, if it is a discussion, not a debate, then it might do some good to discuss these issues with people who don't already agree. at least they'll be exposed to new thinking.

you're probably born with a religion but you can change it whenever you want. changing it may cost you a lot, emotionally or relationally. Changing it might make you feel more like yourself. You may find that what you try doesn't fit. You may find yourself with the zealotry of the recently converted. You might feel strongly about whatever religion you are. You may ascribe to it but not feel strongly about it. You may not have feelings about it at all. You would find it odd to have to choose between a Christian and Muslim bathroom when you aren't Christian or Muslim, but you pick the one that people will expect to find you in to avoid a fight.

^v much agree with this good and liberal post

if rusho is correct and there's a sort of leap of faith that needs to be made for ppl who basically don't understand or can't quite come to grips with the logic of transness because it contradicts [the western canon or whatever descriptor you like] or is simply too far afield from their own lived experience, but also don't want to needlessly come into conflict with an oppressed group, then that to me sounds similar to a religious accommodation in practice if not in theory

that experience gap is definitely real to me. I have a decent # of trans and nb friends and comrades IRL and I do my best to show compassion and respect and etc etc but at the end of the day a major part of their experience is inaccessible to me; on occasion I feel like I can get it, fleetingly, bet then it slips away from me somehow? my hope is that a lack of precise understanding doesn't preclude solidarity, because imo we're a long way from everyone catching up (as I think this thread proves)

capitalism does enough to keep us alienated as it is.

(this is not me saying "hey trans ppl ease up" or whatever, just trying to feel out if only for myself the chasms where they may exist)

if rusho is correct and there's a sort of leap of faith that needs to be made for ppl who basically don't understand or can't quite come to grips with the logic of transness because it contradicts [the western canon or whatever descriptor you like] or is simply too far afield from their own lived experience, but also don't want to needlessly come into conflict with an oppressed group, then that to me sounds similar to a religious accommodation in practice if not in theory

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Sunday, July 12, 2020 4:42 PM

If the people who don't understand need to take a leap of faith, that sounds more like religious conversion than religious accommodation.

not really? I try not to say "god damn it" at my memere's not because I accept that God is real and I just don't get it for whatever reason, just that God is a fundamental part of my memere's reality. God's realness or non realness isn't relevant to that scenario

what do you do when there's a discussion about how society is ordered and you don't agree with your memere? do you avoid saying anything that would sound like it implies that you don't think her god is real because it would offend her or deny her existence?

agree to disagree cause I love her and she's not writing policy?

eventually memere is gonna show up at a city council meeting and agree to disagree is not going to be an option the council members can always take

the difference being I can imagine conservative catholics coming up with terrible, harmful prescriptions and there are no serious proposals involving making society friendlier to trans ppl that irks me really xp

honestly if memere made it out to a city council meeting it would mean she'd become remarkably spry for her age and I'd just be impressed

Simon I’m not sure if u are grasping the gist of the analogy

no I was taking it somewhere else purely for my own benefit and I'll be off now

not really? I try not to say "god damn it" at my memere's not because I accept that God is real and I just don't get it for whatever reason, just that God is a fundamental part of my memere's reality. God's realness or non realness isn't relevant to that scenario

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Sunday, July 12, 2020 5:10 PM

It doesn't seem like you've taken any leap of faith in this case. You're just trying to be considerate of someone else who's taken a leap that you haven't.

hey y'all, i took a nap, some quick catching up here, i'm just gonna combine all this in one post

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"so much music i like rn is by trans women (interestingly not trans men)

― imago"

yeah i have observed this as well and i do think it's unfortunate, i think trans men are often marginalized and relegated to the corners of trans narratives. i recommend the recent netflix doc "disclosure" where a number of trans men, as well as trans women, talk about their particular experiences of erasure and marginalization. i try to do my best to support trans men but since i inevitably come at things from the perspective of being a trans woman i frequently don't do a very good job of it

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proxy analogies for gender: speaking as a white trans woman, i am totally unequipped to discuss the nuances of race and gender identity. if you're curious about it, i suggest listening to trans poc about their experiences, to the extent they feel comfortable sharing with you.

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"I've tried to imagine who you envision participating in this 'debate', what is to be concluded, who is to be persuaded to the eventual conclusions, and why it would matter to anyone outside of the small group allowed to take part. otoh, if it is a discussion, not a debate, then it might do some good to discuss these issues with people who don't already agree. at least they'll be exposed to new thinking.

― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless)"

i am intrigued by the difference you bring up between "discussion" and "debate". the feeling i get from reading your post, and it's just an inkling, is that the sort of "debate" you're talking about is a fundamentally liberal/Enlightenment institution, the sort of thing where issues are decided through the skillful and clever use of rhetoric, where what happens is determined by the person who has the most convincing argument.

i'm not sure i can think of any example whatsoever wherein this is a good idea. why not just determine policy by playing a basketball game against each other? it seems to me to have about as much relevance or bearing.

_discussion_, on the other hand, i feel like is generally healthy - it gives people the opportunity to listen to each other and come to conclusions. discussions, though, shouldn't necessarily be free and open to all. i feel like the best discussions happen internally between people who have skin in the game. i'm not sure i see a value in discussing gender issues in-depth with cis people. i think a far better way of handling it is coming to a collective understanding among ourselves, and then presenting our conclusions as best we can to cis people - who we are, what we want, how to treat us with respect and dignity. if a trans person has a problem with how i present trans experience, i definitely want to be respectful and open and listen to them, but the best place to do that isn't necessarily in a room filled with a bunch of cis people, some of whom might not fully understand the issues, others of whom might have a desire to "teach the controversy".

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"i thought you thought pathologizing debate opponents was bad, perhaps even liberal???

― j."

j., i feel like you don't really understand how frustrating it is for someone like me to talk to someone like you. there are so so so so so many implicit assumptions that you're bringing to the table. i can no more give impromptu graduate-level seminars on intersectional discourse than you can give impromptu graduate-level seminars on the history of humanist thought. that's why we keep saying "it's not our responsibility to explain things to you", because this is goddamn difficult work and what cis people expect of us is often just not reasonable or fair.

the stuff i've been saying on this thread, if you can learn from it, if anybody can learn from it, i'm super fucking happy, but, and i don't mean any offence by this, i'm not doing it to educate you, i'm not doing it because it's my _responsibility_ to convince you of the validity of my experiences. it's not. it's not the responsibility of any of us. i'm doing it because it's cathartic, i'm doing it because i spend a lot of time working on and processing and controlling some very intense feelings. i'm doing it because lj poked me enough with his pointy rhetoric stick that it started spilling out. i'm doing it because other people on the thread have expressed gratitude and appreciation for what i'm saying. this shit isn't about you. i feel like it's important to treat other people with kindness and respect as much as i can, and honestly, i feel like i'm doing a decent job at fulfilling that responsibility towards you. i'm not going to apologize for the occasional outburst of snark because i'm not sorry, because i don't believe it was wrong of me to do so.

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"if rusho is correct and there's a sort of leap of faith that needs to be made for ppl who basically don't understand or can't quite come to grips with the logic of transness because it contradicts [the western canon or whatever descriptor you like] or is simply too far afield from their own lived experience, but also don't want to needlessly come into conflict with an oppressed group, then that to me sounds similar to a religious accommodation in practice if not in theory

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.)"

i would actively reject your phrasing, since you invoked me directly. i do not think that what i am proposing require a "leap of faith". i believe that cis people can evaluate the utility and reliability of trans narratives from the _outcomes_ they produce, just like i evaluate the utility and reliability of religions from the outcomes they produce. i am not without mysticism, but i find it to be a poor basis for coexistence. i am asking not for faith but for _observation_ and _listening_, and a willing to discard axiomatic beliefs, religious or secular, that do not accord with the evidence. my experience is that a lot of liberals (and of course not _just_ liberals, but that's specifically the remit of what i'm getting at here) are a lot better at talking than they are at listening.

Thanks for your posts in this thread, Kate.

yes

kate, it seems like you're the one imputing loads of assumptions to me, as you have been doing intermittently throughout the past few days, without my contesting them all. i don't reject your experiences as invalid, i just don't think anyone can or maybe even should escape the conversation over shared understandings through which society changes (which involves trying to hammer out a lot of things that bridge over differences in experiences). i don't see it as a certain kind of institutionalized structure and i don't think it has clear-cut criteria for success or failure; however it fares will just depend on how well we can conduct it for the benefit of everyone. this possibility that you mentioned seems like something that not happened (for analogous cases) and never will happen:

i think a far better way of handling it is coming to a collective understanding among ourselves, and then presenting our conclusions as best we can to cis people - who we are, what we want, how to treat us with respect and dignity.

maybe i'm wrong about that and certain events in the history of progressive efforts around race and sex and sexuality count as such collective but separately-arrived-at understandings, seems like there's a case to be made both ways. but it seems to me more probable that we have what we have always had, piecemeal consensuses among many people of different persuasions and with different material interests, changing over time. those consensuses are more or less resilient but as we have seen in the past decade, they are vulnerable. you think i'm making this about me, but i don't think this is about me or about you (in particular). we're in the freeze peach and creepy liberalism thread. i take it that one of the broader issues on the table is the resiliencies and vulnerabilities of an imperfectly shared, inconsistently maintained framework for shared understanding that encompasses a lot more than the people in this room, and i think it's not necessarily wrong to worry that certain ways of trying to further the progress of movements for social reform can have adverse effects on that shared framework.

Sounds…conservative

i think it's not necessarily wrong to worry that certain ways of trying to further the progress of movements for social reform can have adverse effects on that shared framework.

Of course it's not wrong to worry and think about strategy and praxis, but you seem to have a knack for acting like a big cis moderate who doesn't actually give a shit about what trans people are saying or their dignity otherwise, instead going on about abstract concepts that pervade western liberal democracy and have left a trail of blood in their wake, which you also seem to want to ignore.

So your attempts at good faith argument or discussion don't make much sense to a lot of us.

what are some of the abstract concepts you think you have utterly abandoned, or made perfectly concrete, or whatever it is you actually think when you're not just doing this tough-activist act?

thanks again everybody for all your encouragement and positive feedback :)

j., thank you for your contributions to this thread. just fyi, right now i'm not planning on responding to your latest post. hope you have a great rest of your day!

Me? What?

cool your jets, j. you are getting pushback of various levels of thoughtfulness, but that did slip into ad hominem (disregarding some ad hominems flung your way by hit-and-run posters who should be disregarded).

Xpost

Mostly I get high, read Deleuze, and write weird poetry.

I don't think categorizing your position as one of a cis moderate is inaccurate. Much of what you've written seems to hand-wring over methods of achieving equality and dignity for trans people instead of dealing with the demonstrable fact that trans people are consistently denied equality and dignity.

why does expanding equal rights and equal dignity to trans people -- legally and socially -- demand we also denounce "western liberal democracy"?

sincerely,
an idiot

i hate this 'controversy' so much. why wasn't it over in a day. why has it been in my twitter feed for a fucking WEEK. it's so boring watching these pompous people twitch endlessly about it online.

otoh did anyone link the tom scocca piece yet? it's good.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/harpers-letter-reality-debate.html

xp lol i'm outta here

are we saying that each self-identified group should have a right to "self-determination" regarding how they should be spoken of? and the notion of "universal" definitions of terms like sex and gender, in principle, are offensive?

All definitions offend me

Whatever the poverty of our knowledge in this respect, it is certain that the question of the sign is itself more or less, or in any event something other, than a sign of the times.

Lol.

this thread wasn't initially addressing it, but it's hard now not to see it from a trans point of view

Even by the standards of Twitter the speed with which the phrase "cancel culture" became utterly meaningless is impressive

The Lincoln Project becomes part of cancel culture -- idea isn't to get rid of Trump but punish anyone who agrees with Trump (and disagrees with Weaver!) on the issues--Hawley, Cotton, etc.? https://t.co/Em2mjOgYRz

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) July 12, 2020

that was a derrida quote.

as an undergraduate i wrote a thesis about whether his deconstruction of "western metaphysics" was a liberationist project or a nihilistic one. i concluded it was neither of these. it was actually naively optimistic, because he seemed to think something "better" exists on the "other side" of our language/the economy of concepts that we use to imperfectly understand the world, and express our yearning for intangible but urgent ideals such as justice. he was trying to give an account of how ideals, more than anything, were "always already" contradicted from within and that our whole system of moral reasoning was a house of cards. like, for derrida the logical positivist project of "clarifying our terms," more than anything else, was a ruse.

but still, derrida wasn't quite nietzschean, he didn't really delight in exposing these conceptual gaps and inconsistencies, or at least not in a triumphalist way. he seemed to feel that they pointed to something that might be important, even though they were in themselves bankrupt. like kafka, he felt "there is hope but not for us," maybe. something like benjamin's notion of "weak messianic power" sustained his project, but he didn't really define this as clearly or memorably as kafka or benjamin. when derrida says, for instance, "“I speak only one language, and it is not my own," he is marking out this ideal of a language that would be his own, a kind of authentic experience, but if he were to actually describe this sort of longing in definite terms it would immediately, from his perspective, evaporate, probably.

anyway, this was all really frustrating and i ended college wishing i had instead studied engineering or something.

the moral of the story is that it is impossible to escape inherited concepts. you can't think about politics, for instance, without concepts like freedom or equality, or in any case i can't. and these very ideas were used to sustain a violent social order, that's true. but they aren't *just that* they are also signposts to a better world than the one we have. for instance, you can critique society by showing how it does not, in practice, secure freedom and equality even though it promises these things. and the discourse of trans rights, at least in the united states, very much exists within this tradition, it's about people asserting their right to self-determination, equality under the law and the freedom to live the life they want. and these ideals, which are as noble as they come (i don't shy away from normative claims), exist alongside the ideal of free speech not in opposition to it.

like, unless you have a different "language" to replace this stuff with you can't really just throw it overboard. so i just think this opposition between the free speechers and the wokesters is false, honestly. both are drawing from the same repository of concepts when they defend their positions.

why does expanding equal rights and equal dignity to trans people -- legally and socially -- demand we also denounce "western liberal democracy"?

― treeship.

because the process by which trans rights have been denied - by transmedicalism, by TERFs - is a product of "western liberal democracy", of the process of Enlightened rational debate, working _as intended_. our exclusion is not due to a failure of the implementation of the norms of such an ideology, but has been a predictable and replicable and result of those norms. a system that consistently produces injustice, whatever ideals it professes, is not a just system, and my insistence on this places me necessarily in opposition to rationalist Enlightenment norms.

my feeling is that so many of us stan the hammer and pickle not because of any particular commitment to theory but because of what we experience when we start to live as trans. i have encountered tremendous difficulty reconciling the liberal framework, the framework in which i was educated, raised, taught, with my process of becoming. i do not know how it would be possible for me to transition without actively working to free myself from the constraints of that particular framework.

also, please don't call yourself an idiot. appropriating the symbols of abuse and degradation to apply to yourself does not serve to exculpate you, particularly in light of my understanding of abuse as a cycle, of something which we are taught, which we internalize, and which we then pass on to others. you may be ignorant in some ways of the realities of trans life, but that is not a cause for shame, it is a natural state of being, and i celebrate you to the extent to which you sincerely and honestly seek to learn from the experiences of others.

i was sort of joking i guess. i am not an idiot, but also not a philosophy professor. i have nothing but love for trans people and respect for the struggles they face. i am not trying to invalidate anyone's experiences.

however, i do think that communism, "the hammer and sickle," is also part of the enlightenment project. it's Hegel, it's the dialectic of freedom overcoming the contradictions of the liberal order (in theory).

you can't think about politics, for instance, without concepts like freedom or equality

― treeship.

i feel like you're perhaps overabstracting here?

"i was sort of joking i guess."

ok! part of how i talk to other people is to take everything someone says as if they mean it, and i feel like that's worked out pretty well for me, even if it does make me look like a pedant sometimes. thank you for clarifying.

"however, i do think that communism, "the hammer and sickle," is also part of the enlightenment project. it's Hegel, it's the dialectic of freedom overcoming the contradictions of the liberal order (in theory).

― treeship."

which means i should explain my reference - "hammer and pickle" wasn't a typo, it's sort of inside pool and i could see how that might have been unclear. i don't consider myself a marxist - i identify more as an intersectional leftist. it's more referring to the reputation a lot of us trans folk have towards being fairly radical left, which is a stereotype but like many stereotypes is, i think rooted in an underlying reality.

because the process by which trans rights have been denied - by transmedicalism, by TERFs - is a product of "western liberal democracy"

what is the status of trans people in cultural groups which specifically denounce "western liberal democracy", such as traditionalist Islamic cultures like Iran? what about in current Chinese culture, where "western liberal democracy" is anathema, as evidenced by the turmoil in Hong Kong and recently by Tiananmen Square? I can't say, but I have the impression that trans rights are not prized in these cultures.

Examining whether cultures which are highly divergent from western liberal democracy have equally denied trans rights, then what they share in common is not "western liberal democracy", but some other fundamental trait as yet unidentified in this discussion, apart from than by identifying its outcome.

iow, metaphorically: "beware! one train may hide another".

commonality = reliance on "traditional" gender roles / family structures to reify their respective projects?

because the process by which trans rights have been denied - by transmedicalism, by TERFs - is a product of "western liberal democracy"

what is the status of trans people in cultural groups which specifically denounce "western liberal democracy", such as traditionalist Islamic cultures like Iran? what about in current Chinese culture, where "western liberal democracy" is anathema, as evidenced by the turmoil in Hong Kong and recently by Tiananmen Square? I can't say, but I have the impression that trans rights are not prized in these cultures.

Examining whether cultures which are highly divergent from western liberal democracy have equally denied trans rights, then what they share in common is not "western liberal democracy", but some other fundamental trait as yet unidentified in this discussion, apart from than by identifying its outcome.

iow, metaphorically: "beware! one train may hide another".

― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless), Sunday, July 12, 2020 10:55 PM (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks Aimless, this is more or less the jist of what I came here to post but this thread keeps crashing my browser. OTM

Idk seems kinda racist

Ok that was mostly trolling just skip over that

It probably is kinda racist tho

I can't say, but I have the impression that trans rights are not prized in these cultures.

are you interested or are you just bringing it up to score sophistic points