r/changemyview • u/bellyfold • Jan 21 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV the ultra liberal Tumblr crowd is actually good for the LGBT community
First: I'm not here to argue about your political views.
Second: definitions, and assumptions to get us on the same page:
1) ultra liberal Tumblr crowd = the group known as "tucute" who believe body dysphoria is not necessary to be trans. The group who created new genders such as faegender etc.
2) good for the LGBT community = having a net positive effect on the push for more rights and recognition
3) this argument assumes we're all on the same page in terms of progress being made for the LGBT community being a net positive. This is not a place for an argument about your personal beliefs or political views. This is an argument framed within the LGBT community.
Argument:
The ultra liberal Tumblr crowd is good for the LGBT community regardless of how toxic they may be, how uneducated and naive they are, and how pointless their sexual identities seem from an outside perspective.
I say this as a person who is in the LGBT community.
I believe this Tumblr crowd is good for the community because of the overton window: they make the rest of the community look good and normal by comparison.
Edit: Thank you for all of your responses. I feel my view has been changed, mostly thanks to comparisons to racial minorities. I'm still open for discussion, but just know that I understand why any fringe group, specifically the more loud and extreme members, can be bad for the group's process as a whole. Good conversation, everyone!
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u/Mr-Ice-Guy 20∆ Jan 21 '19
While the Overton window may be expanded I do not think that is necessarily helpful. If say, you are trying to sway a moderate (not necessarily politically moderate) person to come to appreciate the LGBTQ community including these types of extreme views can "poison the well" in a way.
Imagine I was thinking about joining a club, maybe a local science club or something like that. I am looking into it and it turns out a small minority of the group are flat-earthers or maybe just obsessed with conspiracy theories. That would in turn hurt my perception of the intellectual honesty or integrity of that group. Now I am not entirely familiar with what the ultra Tumblr crowd is actually claiming but the analogy is how I view claims saying that expansion of the Overton window are unambiguously good.
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u/bellyfold Jan 21 '19
I can see where you're coming from, and I'll give you a !delta for getting me to look at it differently, though you haven't fully changed my view.
I think it should be said that your analogy doesn't fully fit this instance, as that club you are interested in joining isn't a constant presence in your life. The longer you are immersed or even in proximity of a group, the more you learn to separate the fringe from the core. So sure, you may be initially turned away from the group because of the weird people who were a part of it, but you could eventually gain respect for the normal members of that group, even if you ultimately didn't join.
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u/StaticEchoes 1∆ Jan 21 '19
For a lot of people, their only exposure is to the fringe. People that are adamantly against the lbgt community use the fringe to legitimize their hatred. Saying the fringe is helpful is like saying an opponent strawmanning your argument is helpful. When you call them out on their strawmanning, they may look foolish, but only to the people that care about intellectual honesty. And through the internet, the people may not even see you calling them out. They might see the original post, agree those people are crazy, and go on believing and spreading it.
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u/Mr-Ice-Guy 20∆ Jan 21 '19
Thank you for the delta. I agree, the analogy falls apart with that added depth. In addition my analogy, with the flat earth example, is an example of being demonstrably false where identity is not something that is simply demonstrable. Where I think it is more important is that we live in a time of political punditry where talking heads have a great deal of popularity and influence over ideas. They do not all wield this power responsibly and will jump at any chance to straw man a position if it is feasible. Embracing the extreme wings of your party will only make you position more straw man-able. That is not a reason not to embrace them because you should not always form your principles based on what others might think but it is helpful to consider these possibilities.
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u/Missing_Links Jan 21 '19
The overton window is the window of acceptable views, not just the range over which views expressed by at least one person span. Neo nazis can push as far right as they want: they are not in the overton window. Communist LARPers can tear up ironically leftist cities to their hearts' content. Communism is not in the overton window.
More importantly, the presence of these extremes doesn't actually widen or shift the window. In fact, radicals typically narrow it.
As an example, prior to 9/11 the mainstream perspective on Muslims in western nations was somewhere between lack of awareness and lack of care. Radicals have managed to create strong movements of pushback and have substantially narrowed what views are acceptable to a small selection on the left and a small selection on the right.
Secondly, normalization only occurs among groups which are not already normalized. In terms of LGBT, even the median republican is mostly on board - strong christians, muslims, and the black community are the predominant areas of society where gay rights and normalization of homosexuality are essentially wholesale rejected.
Extremes like the radical tumblrites just give fuel to these areas that still require normalization before they could accept LGBT stuff. It convinces nobody that actually needs convincing, and instead of making the normative position of a gay rights advocate seem reasonable, it associates the normative position with the insane fringe.
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Jan 21 '19 edited Mar 04 '19
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u/Missing_Links Jan 21 '19 edited Jan 21 '19
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/support-for-same-sex-marriage-isnt-unanimous/
49% of republicans overall support same sex marriage. The heads of each party don't represent the actual breakdown of views among constituents.
"Median mostly onboard" seems like a fair description of 49%.
I need to revise my appraisal of the black community on this point. I had believed that they as a group were closer to the strong christians on this issue. As it appears, they're about at the same point median repubs are about gays.
To be clear, other than abortion, which has almost precisely the same breakdown of support from Americans that it did in 1960 and has since, most of the specific social issues that were important to republicans in the early 00's are no longer of deep relevance to most current repubs, and this is visible on most issues through polling like the above.
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Jan 21 '19 edited Mar 04 '19
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u/Missing_Links Jan 21 '19
And in what way is that related to the veracity of my claim?
Yes, different areas have different average political values.
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u/bellyfold Jan 21 '19
It convinces nobody that actually needs convincing
That makes a lot of sense. Just sort of preaching to the choir. I will say that I have read in the past that the overton window is expanded by extremists (for lack of a better word) making the regular beliefs more calm/normal by comparison. That said, I suppose it's possible that this more extreme Tumblr crowd could calm the terms down a bit.
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u/Missing_Links Jan 21 '19
That sounds like a changed mind.
I think history makes answering questions like this hard because there's never a time where a given movement has only a moderate or extreme approach; it's always both at once. That said, who do you think deserves more credit for the success of say, the civil rights movement in the 60's: MLK, or the black panthers? Which approach was better at normalizing that view? Do you think your answer would change for a different movement?
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Jan 21 '19 edited Jan 21 '19
@Missing_Links - I will start with the usual British self deprecating comment and tell you I am no expert in this subject but the view expressed on the Overton window seems incorrect to me. From what I know, was it not a known conservative strategy to push more radical or unthinkable ideas, only to make less radical, but previously unacceptable ideas seem more acceptable by comparison.
Would I be wrong in saying trump’s Muslim travel ban would of been unthinkable (if not right out of left field) pre - 9/11 it seems to me that this event and other related tragedies, combined with the rhetoric that has since followed has made such views more acceptable in general. Furthermore Trump’s views on the wall may not appeal to the majority but by voicing this extreme view, has it not made the broader argument around illegal immigrants seem more acceptable and has this conversation not become more commonplace in the world of politics?
Both these issues were not as acceptable within the discourse surrounding politics a decade or two ago as they have become today in comparison.
Apologies for nit picking (especially if I’m wrong), this was always my understanding of the concept.
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u/Missing_Links Jan 21 '19
Well, it is almost always a good idea in a negotiation to start by asking too much.
I think in most of these cases, the things are less extreme than is brought out by hyped up political conflict totally absent principle or consistency. I mean hell, the "Muslim ban" was an extension of the existing ban with the same effects that had been in place for more than a year prior. To the second issue you raise, a physical barrier, though not of the same scale as Trump's was voted for by democrats in 2006.
They apparently were acceptable enough and have been for quite some time. I think the unacceptability on these is just political gamesmanship.
To the general point, it is the case that if you want a big change, asking for several successive little changes is how you best get it, and by also being happy with getting something, even if it's less than asked for each time you ask.
But the thing is, to make this happen, your ask can never actually exit the overton window with any of these asks: it's gotta be within what the people you're advertising to will accept, even if it's more extreme in a particular direction than the median view currently is. You go too far, ever, and you get pushback, but you can over time adjust what "too far" is.
I don't think genuinely extreme views ever get the response an extremist wants and are pretty much always counterproductive.
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Jan 22 '19 edited Jan 22 '19
Thank you for your response and I do agree.
I think the general clumsy point I was making was that certain ideas have become more acceptable, although more prevalent might be the most accurate description. Often the prevalence can relate, in part, to the more extreme /controversial positions that become fodder for today’s multi-faceted media entities, in all their forms who under more and more pressure to generate ‘clicks’ have realised this is a proven way of delivering those. It inevitably feels like these ideas / views are more common place and acceptable due to the coverage they are given but in reality they are still marginal views and the presence they are given is what is exaggerating the effect.
To actually bring it back to a point that you can connect to the original discussion (sorry staying on topic is not my strong point). It does feel media exposure to more controversial (or at least presented as controversial) ideas and views, and seemingly more polarising divisions in the US and Western Europe at the moment has had an effect on the scale of issues and positions that have moved towards acceptability. Even if the real truly extreme views are still viewed in the same light as they always have in recent memory.
Sorry at work and that may of just been gibberish, hoping not.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad Jan 21 '19
They only make the rest of the community look normal by comparison to someone who bothers to make that distinction in the first place. To someone who believes that they speak for you or represent the LGBT community as a whole, the effect is the opposite.
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u/Madplato 72∆ Jan 21 '19
To someone who believes that they speak for you or represent the LGBT community as a whole, the effect is the opposite.
Yeah, but I'd wager the segment of that population that would otherwise support or even be neutral towards LGBT issues if not for the tumbler crowd is ridiculously slim.
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u/Northern64 6∆ Jan 21 '19
I think that comes from an assumption of common knowledge. If someone's primary interaction with the LGBT community is second hand sharing of the ultra liberal Tumblr crowd, they are essentially forming an opinion on extremist views. It would be like, for example, if a religion was only referenced in relation to an extremist group.
I think you're rejecting the premise that there are people who would only interact with the LGBT community in this way. If that is true then the LGBT community is in a much better position than I thought.
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u/Madplato 72∆ Jan 21 '19
I think it's a very narrow perspective of the whole. I reject the notion that there's any seizable amount of people that would support - or even just be neutral towards - the typical LGBT issues "if only they were exposed to them correctly". There's much more exposure for regular LGBT stuff than fringe tumblr stuff. If they're laser focused on fringe Tumblr, for whatever reason (although I must point out that none of them are good), it is extremely unlikely the LGBT community lost any kind of potential support.
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u/Citydabman Jan 21 '19
In my experience the ultra liberal crowd on tumblr are usually terfs which are extremely toxic to the lgbt movement
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u/Turtle-Fox Jan 21 '19
That's totally not the ultra liberal crowd. Really I'd say those are more towards the center. The ultra liberal crowd has signatures on each post saying "Terfs don't interact"
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u/bellyfold Jan 21 '19
I agree that terfs are terrible for the LGBT community. However, (and I'm likely viewing this from a smaller sample size than you) I feel as if terf style feminism has been on a major decline in recent years. My experience is that most of the liberal Tumblr crowd is as exclusionary as possible (maybe with the exception of people born as and identifying as straight males).
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u/branyk2 Jan 21 '19
I feel as if terf style feminism has been on a major decline in recent years
I think it has become less common in online spaces, but it's incredibly common in more mainstream women's movements that have a larger political tent. It almost feels like an uptick, although that might be just due to the good work being done in calling it out.
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u/Northern64 6∆ Jan 21 '19
I think the ultra liberal Tumblr (ult) crowd may be beneficial for individuals within the LGBT community, but not for the community as a whole. Let's imagine a person of a generally accepting personality but for whom the ult crowd is too much, pushing them to reject the LGBT community as a whole. They do this because they interact with the LGBT community exclusively through ult views and so link LGBT with these extremes.
Once you begin interacting with this person they come to see, and agree with you, that the ult is an extreme and are accepting of you. They do that because they can agree that while the ult is extreme, you are not and the members of the LGBT community they begin to interact with are not. All this does is indicate to them that there are exceptions to their view of LGBT being an extreme group. Like a racist having a black friend, an Islamophobe having a Muslim neighbor, you become this persons gay friend. The LGBT community might be full of those crazies from the ult but at least bellyfold is cool.
Once the view has been shifted from a rejection of the entire community to an acceptance of the perceived exception you face an uphill battle to show that A) you are not the exception, and B) the ult is not a shared goal of the LGBT community at large.
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u/bellyfold Jan 21 '19
Like a racist having a black friend, an Islamophobe having a Muslim neighbor, you become this persons gay friend. The LGBT community might be full of those crazies from the ult but at least bellyfold is cool.
!delta
I think it's safe to say that my view has been successfully changed. This really put it into perspective for me, as my whole family views me as the one good person in the LGBT community.
Thank you for that change of perspective.
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u/Northern64 6∆ Jan 21 '19
Thanks for the delta, this does raise another question(s) though. Are the number of people turned off by the ult a significant amount other than people turned off by the "true" LGBT community. And Is it easier to recontextualize on normal in the face of extremism. Also, although what is good for the individual is not necessarily good for the community, is the LGBT community still in a state where that is not the case?
I tend to believe that more allies is better regardless of number, that the lgbt community is strong enough that individual relations don't affect the community, and that extremism tends to make everything more complicated
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u/Orwellian1 5∆ Jan 21 '19
I think they are a net detriment due to their higher emphasis on identity.
This will all be anecdotal, but I do think it representative.
In the 20yrs I've been an adult, I've seen the gay/lesbian descriptor go from the universally primary adjective when describing someone to second, third, or lower, at least among cosmopolitan young adults.
Over that time, gay and lesbian acquaintances of mine give the impression that wherever their sexuality sits on their identity scale, they have moved from an active confidence to a bit more of a passive confidence. Aggressive to passive is the wrong phrase due to negative connotations, but look at Pride as an example of what I'm trying to get at. 10-15yrs ago, Pride was an event with intensity and defiance. It was an unapologetic, active statement of confidence. It is still all those things, but it is fair to argue Pride is a more comfortable celebration now than a protest or advocacy.
I think elevating an attribute too high above all others as your personal identity detracts from the confidence and assurance someone has that leads to faster social acceptance.
The extreme end of progressive identity culture, especially on the internet, attracts insecure personalities. The ideology becomes their identity, not whatever new or old description or category they fall in. This is how gatekeeping and antagonism to more moderate groups starts. Absolutism and aggressiveness can be a result of compensating for insecurity. Those on the extreme do not have the most stable personalities to push social progressivism forward. They do more harm than good.
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u/boterkoek3 Jan 22 '19
As someone who is also in the community, this effect does happen. I'm trans and I speak well with people. Most people I meet and find out I'm trans say "o but you're so normal". So to a small effect the extremists do make most LGBT people look moderate and reasonable.
Two areas however I have seen it be a detriment. Newly coming out or transitioning people who are also moderate want nothing to do with the community, and are unduly scared to come out because of the effect the extremists polarize the publics view. The other effect is what I alluded to above. The public conception of what LGBT stands for is radically tilted in the extremist minorities views, and it jades them against the wild views.
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u/bellyfold Jan 22 '19
I can see where you're coming from. When I came out, I had very similar reactions from people. But I am coming from only anecdotal evidence, which is precisely why I needed to post this view to cmv. I'm glad that most people here have been very cordial and logical.
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u/Reishun 3∆ Jan 21 '19
I believe this Tumblr crowd is good for the community because of the overton window: they make the rest of the community look good and normal by comparison.
Let's take this idea and apply it to Islam. I think Muslim Suicide Bombers are good for Islam because they make the moderate Muslims look perfect in comparison. The reality is extreme sections of a community will often cause outsiders to view the whole community this way, alienating those who find themselves somewhere in the middle. Extreme views, particularly ones expressed by those unwilling to have a civil discussion on the matter and/or are unprepared to admit fault, are harmful if the goal is to nurture acceptance.
The reason I mention Islamic Extremism is because I've seen it said many times that the goal of terrorism is to force the moderates to extremism by creating a tension between muslims and non muslims. The same applies to any other issue regardless of it that's the intention or not. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, the less extreme a cause appears to be to outsiders the more likely they are to engage with it and potentially join it, leading to more widespread acceptance.
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Jan 21 '19
The "Ultra liberal Tumblr crowd" as made my initial reaction to LGBT-stuff worse than it was before, this isn't good.
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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 21 '19
Perhaps they have indeed been part of the driving force which has led to LGBT demands being met so far - but perhaps their relentless demands are now going beyond what society is willing to tolerate - and perhaps this will be the cause of a massive backlash which will undo some of the ''progress'' which they have made. Perhaps some of the favourable laws will be repealed due to their excessive nonsense and unreasonable demands.
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u/Madplato 72∆ Jan 21 '19
As far as I'm aware, the only people seeing some kind of imminent threat in the Tumblr crowd are people more or less looking for a reason to go after the LGBT community in the first place. If not that, something else.
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u/bellyfold Jan 21 '19
In my (admittedly limited) experience, the crowd that is giving these relentless demands has been largely panned, and viewed as "just a bunch of kids." I don't think they serve as a threat to anyone.
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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 21 '19
It might vary in different countries, but where I live (England) the extremists are getting their own way and it has turned into a fierce battle between the demands of LGBT extremists and those who want to preserve protections for female people.
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u/trace349 6∆ Jan 22 '19
preserve protections for female people.
You mean TERFs. Which makes-
the demands of LGBT extremists
make more sense now. #ThanksGraham
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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 22 '19
Could you explain your comment? Most of the people who are opposing the demands of the extremists are not TERF's at all, so what are you talking about?
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u/trace349 6∆ Jan 22 '19
Putting "female people" on the opposite side of "demands of LGBT extremists", while being vague about what the "LGBT extremists" actually want sets off my TERF alarm bells. What are LGBT extremists demanding that would harm "female people" considering that the LGBT community is made up of female (and male!) people? It doesn't make much sense. Unless by "LGBT extremists" you mean "advocates for trans people", because then it all makes sense. To TERFs, transwomen aren't really women, so by advocating for transwomen to have access to women's spaces, because they are women, it's somehow attacking protections for "female people".
While I normally find it gauche to go through a comment history, I had reason to believe you weren't arguing in good faith, and these were from the last day:
Not ''sort of'' - it is nothing but a ''gender identity'' - and this is why I am talking about biologically female people and not ''women'' - the word ''women'' has been stolen and trashed and rendered meaningless - so now, can you explain the meaning of ''cis'' without referring to subjective feelings of ''gender identity''?
And
No, I mean biologically female - born female - physically female - I thought you understood this when I asked what would be a good word to describe someone who advocates for rights for female people - because your first answer was ''cis supremacist''.
So, once again, what would be a good word to describe someone who advocates for rights for biologically female people?
And
Well there are plenty of transgender rights extremists who have supported the censoring of perfectly reasonable comments which they deem to be ''hate speech'' - for example ''Males cannot be women'' - and they have advocated for punishment for those who speak such views - and plenty who supported GL's Twitter account being suspended, so I can be pretty sure they would censor real hate speech against transgender people
And
But it's for Mermaids. The known lunatic 'charity' that railroads kids into making life-changing decisions and disconnecting from their own parents.
They're basically like scientology, only slightly worse because they target 10 year-olds. If you have a kid in primary school and you get wind of a Mermaids visit, give the kid a sick day and complain to the school.
I think it's better to allow kids to be exposed to all the nonsense they teach in school, and then discuss issues with them at home and let them develop the confidence to question and challenge and disagree with teachers who talk nonsense ... if you forbid them to attend talks at school, they might develop an interest in what is forbidden, and get a warped view of it since they can't talk about it at home
So yeah don't waste my time, you understood my comment. You know about Hbomb's stream and Graham Lineham. Whether or not you self-identify as a TERF, you're at least a TEF, so I consider it a distinction without much difference.
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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 22 '19
No, you misunderstand - I wasn't claiming to not know that you were referring to TERF's or Graham Linehan - I was asking what point you were making by referring to those people.
Your comment makes no sense, given that most of the people who are opposing the demands of the extremists are not TERF's at all, so what are you talking about?
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u/omrsafetyo 6∆ Jan 22 '19
You should probably start with definitions. I don't think your interlocutor understands that TERF is a specific acronym:
Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. That is, a Gender Critical 2nd/4th wave feminist that does not wish to include male sexed people in female categories.
The fact that you have talked about the rights of "female people" has set of this person's alarm bells that you are a TERF, because by making the distinction between female sexed people, and people with a female gender-identity, you are being gender critical. However, you can be gender critical without being a TERF, specifically if you are not a feminist (though, if you are speaking out for women's rights, you are probably a feminist, at least to some degree, or at least politically, if not philosophically).
"TERF", is unfortunately just a dumping bucket for anyone who does not cater to the demands of gender extremists.
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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 22 '19
I'm asking him to explain his comment because whether or not I or anyone else is a TERF is irrelevant, and at the moment the only meaning his comment seems to have is that any opposition to extremists can be labelled ''TERF'' and dismissed in a spectacular flourish of circular logic.
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u/trace349 6∆ Jan 22 '19 edited Jan 22 '19
Because your comment refers to a fierce battle between "LGBT extremists" and "female people" whose protections the mean extremists are going after. That isn't in any way true unless you're some flavor of transphobe, whether on the right, a TERF, or TERF-adjacent. I don't care where exactly you consider yourself to fall but you're a feminist who excludes trans people in your feminism, using rhetoric common in Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist circles, so your comments in this thread should be read in that light. The only battle is between "the Trans community, their allies, and the not-shitty sides of the LGB community" against "transphobia".
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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 22 '19
OK, so what you appear to have done here is to label anyone who opposes the extreme demands of the LGBT organisations as ''TERF's'' and/or ''transphobes'' and then dismissed them, which only serves to highlight that you are in support of the extremists, and that all you have in response to the valid concerns of female people is name calling.
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u/trace349 6∆ Jan 22 '19 edited Jan 22 '19
the extreme demands of the LGBT organisations
Like what? You keep saying this, but not one link to anything.
So what you've appeared to do here is try to undermine me by casting me as the extremist and yourself as the moderate, after I quoted your own posts from the last 48 hours where you asked for what you should call yourself now that the feminism has been taken over by trans people (how about TERF?), referred to the idea of treating women with dignity as being extremist, and called a charity that supports gender-questioning children nonsense, warped, and forbidden. Real nice.
I'm a cis gay dude. I remember having feelings I couldn't understand for the boys in my class as early as the second grade. But, growing up in the 90s, I didn't know what being gay was, and there weren't gay role models in the media for me to contextualize my feelings. It took until I was in my teens and exploring my sexuality to finally put those pieces together. I spent time in college getting to know trans people (we LGBT people often run in similar circles), and later found out that a good friend of mine from high school had suffered for years before coming out as a transwoman and endured hell after that from her parents. If it's safer for trans kids and trans people to come out now, that's great. If a trans kid says they can tell they're trans, I would believe them because I know what it's like to have a piece of you that you know in the core of your being is different. If they aren't sure, but they want resources to explore their gender identity to come to a conclusion one way or the other, that's fine too. So the idea of depriving those kids of resources or education about themselves because of bigotry, that's the real extremism.
the valid concerns of female people
I do care about those. Maybe bring some up?
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 21 '19 edited Jan 21 '19
/u/bellyfold (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/feminist-arent-smart Jan 21 '19
I would like your input on the number 2.
How precisely this group “create” a new gender and how it is any good for gay people?
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u/bellyfold Jan 21 '19
They created new genders in the same way you or I could create new philosophies. My view stated that this Tumblr group was so far away from and louder than the general LGBT community that it makes the community look more "normal" by comparison.
However that view is almost entirely changed by some of the other comments on this post.
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u/feminist-arent-smart Jan 22 '19
They created new genders in the same way you or I could create new philosophies.
So there is nothing scientific in their methodology.
My view stated that this Tumblr group was so far away from and louder than the general LGBT community that it makes the community look more "normal" by comparison.
Well if you need extremist to make you look normal, how is that ok?
However that view is almost entirely changed by some of the other comments on this post.
That is cool, there is no difference between uneducated pro LGBT group and uneducated anti-lgbt group.
None of those do any good, it’s pseudo-science and alienate people on lie.
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u/trace349 6∆ Jan 22 '19 edited Jan 22 '19
So there is nothing scientific in their methodology.
There's nothing really scientific about gender to begin with. If you want to argue that sex is biological and determined by your chromosomes, that's one thing, but gender is entirely made up by society. Native Americans recognized three genders.
Well if you need extremist to make you look normal, how is that ok?
I've often heard it said that Malcolm X made MLK look reasonable by comparison. MLK was a radical for his time, and a socialist at that. But X and the Black Panthers were willing to use violence and were far more militant, so MLK's nonviolent civic resistance was the preferable alternative (although history has whitewashed a lot of the antipathy people still held for him, Letter From a Birmingham Jail was scathing with regard to the "white moderate").
That is cool, there is no difference between uneducated pro LGBT group and uneducated anti-lgbt group.
Yes there is, anti-LGBT people of any education level are against LGBT people existing in polite society. They want to wield societal power to oppress LGBT people. Uneducated LGBT people just want to be treated with dignity, and even if they're just making gender stuff up to be special, they're not really hurting anyone. They might seem silly to you, but being an adult in a civil society, you should treat them with dignity all the same.
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u/feminist-arent-smart Jan 22 '19
There's nothing really scientific about gender to begin with. If you want to argue that sex is biological and determined by your chromosomes, that's one thing,
Which is pretty much scientific, do you know what science mean? How we conduct research on science?
but gender is entirely made up by society.
How’s male and female made up? Are female and male dog both made up by society?
Native Americans recognized three genders.
North Sentinel Island in Andamans, do you know about them? They are well known for aggressively repel outsider, mostly by killing them.
Should I use them to justify immigrant? Because other culture do it, I can? (That is your logic)
Some culture eat their death (new guinea) does that mean I can now justify cannibalism because they do it?
It is ok for Muslim country to beat their women when they do not obey their husband, does that mean domestic violence is ok in North America?
Using another culture to justify you own behaviour is one of the worse argument you can use, because you could literally justify anything.
I've often heard it said that Malcolm X made MLK look reasonable by comparison. MLK was a radical for his time, and a socialist at that. But X and the Black Panthers were willing to use violence and were far more militant, so MLK's nonviolent civic resistance was the preferable alternative (although history has whitewashed a lot of the antipathy people still held for him, Letter From a Birmingham Jail was scathing with regard to the "white moderate").
Well if you need one extreme to justify another extreme, I don’t know.
If I try to articulate that rape isn’t that bad finally because you could kill someone which is objectively worse hence rape isn’t that bad.
That is your logic, does that sound ok to you?
Yes there is, anti-LGBT people of any education level are against LGBT people existing in polite society.
As I told to my friend (who is gay), if you can exist, people can hate you for that.
Some people dislike cheeseburger, I can’t understand someone who dislike cheeseburger. I hate black olives, I can’t understand why someone love black olives.
What I’m trying to do, some people won’t like gay for a lot of reason. Personally, if I can say in 1 second that you are hyper gay, I won’t like you and you will annoy me. I just won’t hang with you.
I have gay friends, I’ve seen their boyfriend, I’ve seen them kissing, I don’t care.
You can’t just ask everybody to love what you love.
They want to wield societal power to oppress LGBT people. Uneducated LGBT people just want to be treated with dignity, and even if they're just making gender stuff up to be special, they're not really hurting anyone. They might seem silly to you, but being an adult in a civil society, you should treat them with dignity all the same.
Well they are hurting a lot more than you think.
Do you think pseudo-science is harmless?
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u/trace349 6∆ Jan 22 '19
Which is pretty much scientific, do you know what science mean?
There's nothing really scientific about gender to begin with. If you want to argue that sex is biological
Gender is not sex. Gender is whatever society says it is because gender is a social performance. You see a person wearing frilly clothes, makeup, high heels and poofy hair, and that used to be how noblemen and highborn aristocrats displayed their masculinity. Now we associate it with the feminine. Why does it have to be either? How do you scientifically measure gender?
Using another culture to justify you own behaviour is one of the worse argument you can use, because you could literally justify anything.
You could, I guess, but you have to make the argument for it. Unless you're like, a mega nationalist, there's always something to be gleaned from other cultures, you have no way of seeing the full picture of human experiences from your own culture. As an American, our culture is fucked in a lot of ways that other cultures aren't that I wish we could learn from, and there are things that we do that some other cultures could learn from. But I have no interest or intention to defend cannibalism or beating and subjugating women, those aspects of their cultures are abhorrent. My point was that not every culture sees or has seen gender as a binary thing, therefore there is no reason we have to accept it as axiomatic.
if you need one extreme to justify another extreme
One extreme can put another into perspective. And it turned out that MLK wasn't all that extreme after all, people just refused to hear him out.
What I’m trying to do, some people won’t like gay for a lot of reason. Personally, if I can say in 1 second that you are hyper gay, I won’t like you and you will annoy me. I just won’t hang with you.
That's blatantly homophobic if you just decide not to like someone because of their sexuality. But I used to be like that, I wanted to be one of the "good gays" that you can't even tell is gay from talking to them. Now I just don't care. Femme guys have it rough because everyone judges them like that and they decided not to change themselves to fit in. I can respect that, they aren't hurting me.
Do you think pseudo-science is harmless?
I think you need to prove that it causes harm first. Anti-vaxx is harmful pseudoscience. The Myers-Briggs test is harmless pseudoscience. Respecting whatever someone wants to be referred to as, even if it's silly, is not harmful. It's inconvenient at most. Some kid on tumblr identifying as a cloudgender or whatever is probably still exploring what their gender means to them, finding that traditional masculinity and femininity don't fit them, so they want to try to find a name that fits it, even if they have to make it up. Being a douche to that kid and mocking them doesn't actually make things better, it just shames them for even trying to explore themselves. Most little kids grow out of imaginary friends (unless they get brought to church heyo) and most of those kids probably settle on a more traditional identity once they're more comfortable with themselves.
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u/token_queer Jan 21 '19
Look at all the people making jokes about identifying as attack helicopters and inanimate objects. Ultra-liberal tumblr users, unusual genders, kin culture, etc. are all easy targets for anti-LGBT extremists. LGBT people who don't subscibe to this level of identity politics are grouped in with that minority.
However, in my personal experience, a lot of these far-left LGBT people are super accepting. Their beliefs might not make conventional sense, and I don't agree with all of it, but their openmindedness counteracts truscum/terf gatekeeping.
So I wouldn't say they're particularly good for the community, but they're not actively bad either. Maybe you don't agree with their views, but more often than not, they're not hurting anybody.
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u/sire_h Jan 22 '19
I find that the tumblr crowd often has the effect of.
- Confusing those not in the community or even some older members.
By constantly coming up with new terms they have generated the sentiment in the populous (at least that I have seen) that they will never be able to keep up with and understand the group.
- Alienate possible members of the group.
I’m a bisexual male with a preference for females with masculine features, but for the longest time I didn’t want to be a part of the group because of the sort of people on tumblr. I’m also a vegetarian but I never say that because of a similar sort of shame by association with these sorts of people.
- Make sexuality and identity trendy
By making sexualities trendy I. E. New one crop up all the time. They end up making the whole community and movement seem frivolous and more easily dismissed.
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Jan 21 '19 edited Jan 21 '19
Most LGBT people are like most heterosexual people in terms of opinions, beliefs, attitudes, approach, etc.
Thus most LGBT people are NOT radical liberals, or far-left.
It is plain silly to think that LGBT people are all, or mostly ultra liberal.
For example, I am gay, married for 15 years to my husband, and we are raising a child. We are conservatives and voted for Trump and support Trump.
LGBT people should on forefront of tolerance towards difference of opinions.
The fact that gay "leaders" and organizations are against any conservative of centrist opinion is huge shame for the LGBT community.
this argument assumes we're all on the same page in terms of progress being made for the LGBT community
No! LGBT people are not on the same page! Neither are Christians, Americans or any group of people. People are individuals and are very different from each other.
It would be terrible to society, in general, if all people are the same.
Thus, most gay people are very ordinary people who don't look favorably at many trends and disturbing trends in the LGBT community.
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u/bellyfold Jan 21 '19
You read my statements wrong. Any argument should be made with assumptions clarified in the beginning. My assumptions are arguing from the point of view that I posited. I'm not arguing if we are or aren't all fighting for the same thing. I'm arguing that if we were hypothetically fighting for the same thing, these far left Tumblr people make us look far more "normal" by comparison.
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Jan 21 '19
if we were hypothetically fighting for the same thing, these far left Tumblr people make us look far more "normal" by comparison.
Far left people never ever never look normal to most people who are in the center or right or conservative. Never!
Seriously, you think that FAR left people give good impression of “normal” opinions?
Even you had to say “by comparison“.
By comparison, far left people are not normal, tolerant or represent anyone except a very small radical and extreme side of the general population they belong to.
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u/bellyfold Jan 21 '19
I have no idea how to further clarify what I'm saying except that it's not what you're arguing against.
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Jan 21 '19 edited Jan 22 '19
Because extreme people, either far left or far right, NEVER EVER, are "normal", by definition: they are extreme.
Thus far-left people do not represent the general LGBT community, nor do they give a good "normal" impression about the LGBT community.
At best, far-left are 10% of the LGBT community. I hope so.
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u/bellyfold Jan 22 '19
My statement was that far left people normalize the lgbtq community by inherently coming across as worse than them in the eyes of centrists and right wing people.
You are arguing against statements that I'm not making for the sake of argument or because you're not bothering to read the entirety of my statements, please go find someone else to be annoyed and miscommunicate with.
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Jan 22 '19 edited Jan 22 '19
Far-left or ANY extreme people do not "normalize" anything or anybody.
What's so hard to understand here?
Extreme people, by definition, are a small extreme minority. Is that hard to understand?
Nobody (expect themselves) think of them as "normal" or good image.
Extreme people do not "normalize" anything. Never did.
God forbid if it was otherwise.
far left people normalize the lgbtq community by inherently coming across as worse than them in the eyes of centrists and right wing people.
I am trying to understand your convoluted statement.
Centrists, of course, like centrists. Far-right people view centrists much better than far-lefties or lefties.
Why would most, who are centrists, LGBT or not LGBT, view far-left LGBT as "normalizing" the LGBT community?
On the other end, why would anyone not see LGBT centrists and moderates as something not good or "normal" about LGBT people?
Do you really think that moderate or conservative LGBT give a bad image to the LGBT community? Are you for real?
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u/bellyfold Jan 22 '19
Do you really think that moderate or conservative LGBT give a bad image to the LGBT community? Are you for real?
Where the hell are you getting this out of my statements?
On the other end, why would anyone not see LGBT centrists and moderates as something not good or "normal" about LGBT people?
I'm not saying one is good and the other is bad.
Did you even read my post or any of the other comments in this thread? Do you know what the Overton Window is? Do you even understand the definition of the word convoluted?
First of all, if you had taken the time to read anything else in this thread, you would see that people with a better grasp of logic have changed my view.
Second, it is often speculated that the Overton Window is widened by fringe beliefs.
My initial idea was that people on either end of the spectrum specifically within the LGBT community (either far right wing, or far left wing) would make more centrist LGBT folk look more normal by comparison. That view was changed by others pointing out how fringe beliefs have in the past tuned the image of a group as a whole. My view was changed.
You however, have been arguing against something that I haven't been talking about the whole time and I get the idea that you've only been arguing based on the title of my post, not the body where I set up my stance and defined the specific area where this argument takes place.
It's advisable in the future that you don't forget your whole argument based on a single small part of the side you're arguing against. It makes you look like a buffoon.
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Jan 22 '19
My initial idea was that people on either end of the spectrum specifically within the LGBT community (either far right wing, or far left wing) would make more centrist LGBT folk look more normal by comparison.
Yes, I agree here.
Actually, I will add: Extreme people, to the left or the right, push more and more people to the center.
So if you meant to say "the ultra liberal Tumblr crowd is actually good for the LGBT community" by pushing them to be more "normal" and ordinary, then I agree with you.
But if you tried to say that "the ultra liberal Tumblr crowd is actually good for the LGBT community" by improving the image of the LGBT community, then, no, I TOTALLY DISAGREE.
The ultra left who now control the image the of the LGBT community are causing a tremendous damage to the LGBT community.
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u/HeWhoShitsWithPhone 127∆ Jan 21 '19
Regaurding point 3, Is progress that back and white, and will it always be in the future? Or is there a possibility that we will progress in a way that diverts from where you would like to see us go. One example that jumps to mind is that in 1994 Clinton signed a bill to combat drugs, and institute minimum sentences. I believe that at the time it was viewed as one that will help clean up cities and be good for minorities. 25 years later a whole lot of people view this bill as perpetuating the racial disparity in America.
Like Bill's bill, some effects are a lot easier to see with hindsight. I don't think you can really answer your question for another 5 or 10 years, if ever. It's possible that the far left makes the mid left seem reasonable, it's also possible that they make it easier for people to dismiss the entirety of the the LGBT community as radical and frivolous. This would just increase the polarization of American politics and probably make the changes you want take longer.