2024 Republican Primary

[Nimbly9]

[DJChameleon]

Tell them to leave everyone alone while your at it.  That'd be nice.

That would be nice but if the right wing could get a federal abortion ban they would love the government to do it. The right wing is all for small government involvement unless it applies to something they disagree with across the board them they want all the government involvement they can get.

[Nimbly9]

That would be nice but if the right wing could get a federal abortion ban they would love the government to do it. The right wing is all for small government involvement unless it applies to something they disagree with across the board them they want all the government involvement they can get.

Vote Green 2024

[DJChameleon]

Vote Green 2024

I would but Jill Stein is heavily involved in his campaign and I can't back him because of it. I also refuse to split the vote. That's how Trump will end up in office if people get into semantics about wanting to throw away their votes to a third party that has zero chances of winning.

[SGR]

[TheBig3]

He's running the table

[Psy-Fi]

I just saw a TV ad from Perry Johnson for President.

He looks like a creepy snake oil salesman.

[Jwb]

Sorry for the consistently belated replies. I been putting in a lot of hours.

Jwb, telling people that there's no differences between the races versus telling people that there's no biological distinction or meaning to men vs women and that people can be whatever they feel they are at any given moment (see: Neil DeGrasse Tyson's recent comments) is a VERY different policy sell, one that I don't think is ultimately going to go over well with people across a wide variety of demographics.

you can say that, but people back then still believed in racial segregation with just as much passion and urgency as is being expressed over trans issues today. if anything, they believed in their racial heirarchy even more deeply and defended it even more bitterly than their modern contemporaries with the trans  issues. 


 So the idea that its a bigger leap to get people today  to change their minds on the trans issues vs getting people in the 1950s south to change their minds on jim crow just isn't nearly as clear cut as you are presenting it.  You can't deny that people can change their minds drastically on these cultural issues over time.

You might say there's more of a fact of the matter with things like gender affirming care where a more scientific metric will be applied, and i don't even disagree with that. Because it's in the realm of science and healthcare, over time i do expect a basic scientific consensus to emerge. 

That's a big part of why i don't see the federalist solution as really appealing or stable long term. That depends strictly on the culture and opinions of the local constituency, not on actual science. 

So if you sincerely believe it's a practice that is leading to long term harm in children, it's pretty bizarre that your ideal compromise is to let the blue states continue to do so as long as their constituency still agrees with the policy.  Or apply the same to abortion.  A fetus is a fetus.  If you believe people are murdering babies, you really want to let them do so in the states where it's still a popular policy? There's an ideological incoherence on display in that type of federalism.

There's also a lot of back-pedaling going on in other places besides the U.S. in regards to the long-term viability of some kinds of gender affirming care, nations that are supposedly way ahead of us on these issues.  We are hearing very different messages from health authorities in Sweden and Norway and the U.K. versus the APA and left-leaning organizations over here. Why do you think that is?

I don't know that much about it tbh but things have changed pretty radically over last few decades. so it wouldn't surprise me if they get things wrong and revise them amidst so much drastic change.  I don't know why you're coming at me like I'm the fuckin spokesman for puberty blockers.

I'd wager a guess that we are more likely to see science progress to the point where gender dysphoria can actually be reversed or treated without affirmation than we are to see some kind of unilateral political acceptance of that kind of goalpost moving in society outside of blue states/cities.  Will likely cost less money compared to the years of treatments and doctor appointments and counseling. How long will that be? That's the million dollar question.


You are correct that people will still be born in conservative places that will get lumped under the LGBTQ spectrum somewhere, but you aren't looking at the endgame of where things will actually go.  This is a medical thing in the eyes of politicians and others, not an immutable characteristic like race.  We're within 10 years of eliminating aging and yet some think nobody will crack the code on aligning a person to their biological sex? It's not a matter of "if"...but "when".

this is a fascinating claim tbh. can you please expand on this?

The entire reason gender affirming care even exists is because dysphoria is acknowledged as a less-than-ideal state of existence that requires varying degrees of medical intervention.  But despite all the talk about how good affirmation is, today's solutions are still just another form of being put on pills for the rest of your life.  We're still in the stone age for all intents and purposes.  Our medical capabilities in treating cancers, for example, is a million lightyears ahead of the science around gender affirming care and we still don't produce good outcomes most of the time.

But as polarizing as something like that is, it'll just lead (at worst) to a begrudging national divorce where blue states will be a lot more permissive in regards to their John Money-inspired curriculums versus red states where they will continue to be extremely skeptical about those subjects, even at the expense of people's individual feelings.

But comparing something that even liberal Europe and liberal America can't agree on...I'd be interested in seeing what the U.S. will ultimately do at the federal level once all the chips are down.  I don't see a timeline where the government is going to convince families with kids that kinky public drag shows are some kind of necessity of life or that Pride parades where dudettes walk around fully naked and erect is the next great moral battlefield of our time, but you just never know how things will end up.

i would just point out that you started off arguing "just move," and now that I've destroyed that piece of insight you want to pivot to a straight up trans debate featuring kids at drag shows. what do you think, i want mandatory pride events at schools in conservative districts? You even know who you're talking to rn?

[Nimbly9]

You told me to think about the LGBT question so I was merely expanding upon that for you.  You didn't "destroy" anything.  I already made my point about the viability of moving and I still say it is the best option considering people have done some version of it for the entirety of human history.  The convenience or lack thereof of such a process isn't really all that relevant in the face of that truth.

It is always going to be a way more viable option to move somewhere else than expecting massive status quo shifts in the socioeconomics or politics of the region you live in. Your only here on this planet for a relatively short period of time anyway - is there really anyone out there who wants to spend all their time fighting uphill battles in a place they really don't want to be in? Aspiration and inspiration are very different things.

Trans issues and race issues strike me a very different things in the context of greater society.  Based on the sheer amount of conflict those discussions cause in regards to people's personal and/or spiritual beliefs, I think its more like abortion in that it will always be something with no middle ground.  I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that you will have way better luck trying to make a Klansman change his or her views on African-Americans than you would trying to get your typical conservative Muslim or someone from Liberia to accept that gender is fluid. 

My observations are not "incoherent".  I can tell blue states all day to go look at Sweden or tell the red states to chill out and they will never compromise because both sides believe that they are morally correct, not just ideologically correct.  Can the federal government figure it out? That's a tough one.

[Lexi Darling]

That stuff about "reversing gender dysphoria" is so horrifying to me as a prospect and I certainly hope it never comes to be. You do realize you're basically describing conversion therapy, right? Imagine hating trans identity so much that you want to rewire someone's mind to get rid of it.

In my experience, my dysphoria was so inextricably tied to my personality and my sense of self. Getting rid of my feeling that I was a girl wouldn't make me feel any more comfortable in male spaces and male identity, and if it did, then that just feels like creepy mind control shit.

I just want to know what is so terrible about someone identifying as a different gender that it would warrant that as a "solution".

[DJChameleon]

I just want to know what is so terrible about someone identifying as a different gender that it would warrant that as a "solution".

It's not really a solution it's just something to appease what they are uncomfortable with, which is being around different people.

I have this asshole acquaintance that thinks it's funny to constantly post memes about how drag queens/trans people are mentally ill for wanting to read to children. 

[Nimbly9]

That stuff about "reversing gender dysphoria" is so horrifying to me as a prospect and I certainly hope it never comes to be. You do realize you're basically describing conversion therapy, right? Imagine hating trans identity so much that you want to rewire someone's mind to get rid of it.

In my experience, my dysphoria was so inextricably tied to my personality and my sense of self. Getting rid of my feeling that I was a girl wouldn't make me feel any more comfortable in male spaces and male identity, and if it did, then that just feels like creepy mind control shit.

I just want to know what is so terrible about someone identifying as a different gender that it would warrant that as a "solution".

I don't think its a terrible thing.  As someone who dealt with a difficult condition myself growing up, I get it.  By the same token, I get why they'd see it as terrible.  But again, I'm not religious and I don't care as much about the distinctions between men and women or whether it is "right" or "wrong" to be a certain way.

As far as my medical talk goes..what I'm describing is a form of genetic therapy they would do before someone gets to puberty.  There isn't a single parent on the planet that would willingly have their kid be subjected to years of medication and other things if they know they can just align their sex and gender with a treatment or two early on. "Conversion therapy" is pseudo science.  And like I said, if you really think science won't go there, you just aren't paying attention.  Look at what they can already do with CRISPR.

We already have scientists that are trying to do things like womb transplants, but it doesn't take much to put two-and-two together in regards to what medical procedures are ultimately going to be embraced, because that's the way parents are.  Science and technology change society in ways that politics can't even begin to touch.  You'll have exceptions, but if people see being trans as a condition that requires ongoing long-term treatment and they know they can "fix" it early with no long term repercussions, they definitely will.

[jadis]

to get your typical conservative Muslim or someone from Liberia to accept that gender is fluid

Nothing to do with the topic but have you actually met someone from Liberia? If you have, I'd love to hear everything about it. 

[Nimbly9]

Nothing to do with the topic but have you actually met someone from Liberia? If you have, I'd love to hear everything about it. 

I have a female colleague in Nigeria who does a lot of work in that part of the world and...lets just say being gay or trans isn't exactly something people have a happy reaction to over there.  They make Conservative Christians look like Ocasio-Cortez.  Democracy already has its work cut out for it in that part of the world, but compared to there Florida is heaven on Earth.

[jadis]

Yeah it's easy to forget how strange the decoupling of sex and gender appears to non-Westerners. One of the great books on the subject opens with the words "Gender is the West's latest great ideological message to the rest of the world." I happen to think it's an important, fascinating and intellectually productive message but we would do well to remember how new and strange it is in the grand scheme of things.