Why isn't Hans Georg Moeller considered gender critical?
I recently came across several videos of Hans Georg Moeller. Although I got the reference from a leftist source, and there were no early signs to deter me from engaging with his work, I reach the conclusion that his discourse is detrimental to trans activism and unsafe for trans people. Disclaimer: I am no expert in his work, and I watched a couple of his videos. So take what I say here with a grain of salt, if you want. But I think that activists and trans people should be aware that this is probably a problematic philosopher, exerting some influence in leftist transphobe spaces. And in doing so, following the links to his videos provided none of the usual warnings and red flags that are present when entering critter territory. I would rather have people be warned that this philosopher if not "gender-critical" (which I believe) is "gender-critical adjacent", and this should inform whether you want to engage with his ideas or not (which I advise not).
My opinion is formed by the following clues:
- In his video on Contrapoints' Pronouns he mostly refers to texts that are written by gender critical authors. He never cites a transfeminist scholar.
- He frames transness as a symptom of overinvestment to extremely online profiles, and he has written at least one paper about it ("From Identities to Profiles").
- He engages the topic of "wokeism" as an extension of identity politics. This is not in itself damning in this particular case. But there are some deeper problems with it, which relate to broader trivialization of TERF shit in leftist intellectuals.
In discussing "wokeism" he seems to be iffy with established gender terminology, for instance he says "she has all of her identities on, she is cisgender, bisexual and all that". You know what, "cisgender" is not an identity extravaganza, it is an established term to refer to people that are not trans, what MAGAts insist is "normal".
On the other hand he is not quite restrained in inventing novel terminology about gender issues. Gender sincerity, gender authenticity, etc. Again, coming up with terms could be justified if he wants to add other layers of useful abstraction, but in this case I thought this is just obfuscating things that are already known and have simple, intuitive names already: Performativity, gender roles, gender identity, gender expression, gender non-conformity.
There should be no problem to these decades-old terms that are available in numerous sociological dictionaries and reference websites. The only problem is that chuds don't want to hear those terms. And boy were there chuds in the comment section!
An easy objection here could be that Moeller does sth virtuous, by inventing this terminology he makes trans concepts more accessible to people that despise "gender ideology". But is that so? If you translate his argument in the common tongue, he simply says that trans people internalize and perform gender roles, while utterly missing the point that cis people do too. And, at the same time, borderline perpetuating the myth that trans people reproduce stereotypes. All in all, his verbosity tells us nothing new or interesting, rather than providing entry points of legitimacy to more outspoken gender-critical voices, and giving the average chud the vague confidence that Contrapoints and Thorn have somehow been "debunked".
This reactionary ideological function of Moellers' flies under the radar of some trans-positive viewers all the same. Being referred by leftists, and unprimed by the usual walls of red flags that come with other anti-trans commentators, it is easy to tilt your head and listen closely, setting yourself up for an equally alienating, if not traumatic, experience. This friendly guy does not throw the typical dogwhistles people have developed knee-jerk reactions to. He does not purposefully misgender people (although he slips up, but well, true allies tend to not slip up), and he does not seem to make his whole personality about being a dick to trans people. He discusses hijras as a third gender to make his point of "gender sincerity" (ie hijras do not subvert gender roles).
It is easy then to not understand that you are exposed to a re-framing and subverting of trans advocates' assumptions, and introduced to the idea that these assumptions might not be warranted at all. A trans woman in the comments even says "Good analysis, it is a pity he reaches a wrong conclusion." Well perhaps it is not an accident. This has historically been an attack vector of transphobes, with payroll think-tank pseudo-intellectuals, who push the idea that "sex change is absurd and infeasible" in more palatable ways to less supremacists audiences. Well, one of the intended audiences are leftists.
But what is his conclusion? Here goes: People are extremely online and overinvest to their online profiles. Technology has reached a point where people seek body modifications to match their internet selfs. Trans people should invest less to bioengineering solutions (ie transition) and learn to be happy as gender-subversive cis individuals. (An opinion we immediately register as transphobic when it comes from right wing commentators). This is a gender critical position and a usual justification for conversion therapy and persecution of affirming one's identity even by verbally using pronouns. So I don't really care about how you reach your conclusion, if your conclusion is trans genocide, especially with all that is happening right now.
That is not to say that his conclusion is justified. Heck, it is not even "just" a logical leap from his previous arguments. Did he reach that conclusion with propositional calculus, or backwards inference? No, he reached it by renaming things arbitrarily and furnishing the novel terminology with established anti-trans authors and frameworks. Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsey, Kathleen Stock, Mary Harrington, and what have you. Ah, yes, Slavoj Zizek, whom he links in the video description as a good follow up. Well guess what, Zizek holds really bad positions on trans people. And guys like Zizek and Moelller made me think "ah that's the ideological man-womb of way so many leftist transphobes".
To sum up, Moeller: rejects the established terminology, ignores trans scholars and mainstream medical concepts about trans people, bisects Contrapoints and Abigail Thorn videos with self-styled verbal abstractions, responds to these abstractions with TERF references and assumptions, and reaches widely acknowledged as gender-critical conclusions, sprinkling some "trans is the edge case of hegemonic individuation" psychobabble to win over the leftists.
My quick response to the "individuation/identity politics" reactionary buzzwords is that when the system targets you for being homosexual and imprisons you, it is not an individual thing. When the system comes over to your continent to capture and enslave you, it is not an individual thing. And so on and so forth. You are targeted on the exact grounds of not being a white hetero cis male of Germanic origin. Moeller knows that (he says that his red hair do not constitute an "identity") but chooses to ignore it, and portrays these group-based oppressions as irrelevant in modern discourse. This is the archetypal anti-woke position, that there is no institutional violence and oppression lingering on from patriarchy, slavery, segregation, colonialism, homosexual persecution. "Everybody is free and equal now, right? The tables even are turned over now, it is the minorities that oppress us, etc, etc".
Despite Hans Georg Moeller can easily fly under the radar of a trans inclusive person as legitimate discourse, he relies upon transphobic sources and reaches typical transphobic conclusions with way less rigor than his verbiage advertises. On top of that, his other analyses, which I won't discuss now, bear even more sad links to extremist reactionary discourse. For instance, his critique of German guilt-fetishism about the Holocaust, which he considers a driving force (beside identity politics) of "wokeism", apparently resembles comments Musk made at the AfD rally ("Germans should stop feeling guilty about the past etc").
Having looked around I nowhere find Moeller being listed as a problematic scholar, but my analysis of him so far has persuaded me that he is a Jordan Peterson of the left, and I would not like any trans person fall prey to his palatable enabling of harmful and alienating discourses.
You know there is a specific type of person who holds 95% percent Nazi views, but is pointing fingers in all directions when an actual Nazi is called out as a Nazi. It is the same type of person that says he hates rapists most of all things, but never admits there is enough proof of sexual misconduct about any actual rapist. That person is the next door m'fer that enables fascism and patriarchy throughout history, and he is complicit to both.
I think I did post it there too. But yes I would like suggestion about where else I could post. Thanks.
knew they were being scapegoated
Actually the "International Jewry" bullshit is very much like the "WOKEism/Gender Ideology/DEI" shit we see today: If you replace "Aryan" with "White/American" as well, it is pretty much the exact same thing. This started gradually taking over the state apparatus, with many Germans jumping on the train around 1936. By that point people would be sarcastic and cynical towards the attempts of the state to be more "Aryan", but at the same time the Jews were construed as alien and curious, and Germans would stop meeting them, so they were made into an out-group first, then vilified.
A good source on this that does not focus on the Holocaust per se is A Social History of the Third Reich.
this "It's just rhetoric, right?"-stage
If you consider that the "Hitler's prophecy" was uttered in 1939 and several more times after that, but it didn't even make front pages, then yes. But keep in mind not all historians agree on that. Some say that the "vernichten/ausrotten" (exterminate/kill) rhetoric was ubiquitous in Hitler's, Himmler's, and Goebels' speeches, and that German people knew where this was going. I am not decided yet, and I want to believe the first, but I have read strong arguments about the Nazis having been explicit in their genocidal plans from the very start. (eg Jeffrey Herf "The Jewish War")
emigrating and leaving everything behind
Not everyone can emigrate. Some people are too poor to emigrate. Even then, and I keep on the Holocaust story, the Saint Lewis incident shows that people were not welcome to emigrate (in the US, which is no coincidence), and they were sent back! In the US some people think that the federalist situation will allow states (California etc) to keep doing their thing, but the fascists now have the federal government, and the militias. So we don't know for how long the progressive states will continue be free. Then if you speak for actually emigrating abroad, that would be even more difficult for quite a lot of people.
What trans advocates got wrong about bathrooms: a warning for Europe
geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/25037238
> Note: I was writing this text throughout the past week. Yesterday Trump signed an executive order (Erin Reed breaks it down here) which forbids changing one's appearance to conform with the “opposite biological sex”. I spent all my big words in the text. TL;DR Bathroom bans are an entry point to criminalizing being trans, which now must be crystal clear that it was. > > Two common comebacks with which trans advocates respond to respond to the scourge of bathroom bans are the following: On one hand, it is not feasible to confirm people’s assigned sex for an act so mundane as visiting a public restroom. On the other, enforcing the bans cause cisgender people to be questioned and harassed if they do not meet expectations of how a member of their assigned sex should look like. > > Trans advocate organizations, and some Democrats, during an early 2025 hearing of an anti-trans sports ban, correctly stated that such a ban will open up opportunities to perverts to interact with children to “inspect their gender”. > > > The legislation has an “intrusive focus on scrutiny of students’ bodies,” according to over 400 human rights organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD and Advocates for Trans Equality. The groups issued an open letter to the legislature in opposition to the laws, which they said “invite scrutiny and harassment of any other student perceived by anyone as not conforming to sex stereotypes.” > > According to trans man scholar Jack Halberstam[^1], masculine, androgynous, butch, women, trans men, all face policing a women restrooms as well, despite being assigned female at birth. Bathroom bans enforce gender role stereotypes: rather than biological sex, it is feminine self-presentation that it is enforced. Even expected statistical variation within cisgender women, such as height, can also make a person target to gender policing vigilantes. To bring this point home, many cis-passing trans women are not questioned in women restrooms, whereas butch cis women are. It is not chromosomes or genitals that are beholden in these cases, but perceived femininity. > > But if appearance is not a conclusive estimate of a person’s assigned sex at birth, advocates continue, the only way to enforce bathroom bans is to have genital inspectors, public restroom permits and certificates, which are impractical and defeat the very concerns of dignity and safety, which are the very issues supposedly stemming from "allowing" trans women in female bathrooms. > > By the same coin, enforcing restroom use according to chromosomes or genitals will mandate that trans men use female restrooms, which itself reverses the problem. The right suggests that self-determination will allow any man enter female restrooms by “faking” trans in order to commit sex crimes. But this would also be true if the bans are upheld: trans men are then forced into female bathrooms, and yet again there will be masculine-looking people walking in freely into female restrooms (you know, like male janitors do all the time). > > Thus bathroom bans are correctly fenced off as absurd, self-defeating, and eventually pointless. Advocates are absolutely correct in their analysis, and I agree to all the arguments I cite above. > > # How are they then wrong? > > Advocates fail to realize that what the right really wants is to delegitimize the public existence of people whose appearances are not consistent with their assigned sex at birth. Florida attempted to designate to present oneself as the opposite gender in public as a sex crime. It also sought to pass laws that assert that all artistic impersonations of a sex different than the performers are inherently obscene. > > Bathroom ban proposals stipulate a problem about which they fearmonger, without a shred of evidence that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, in stark comparison with the problem of trans women being harassed, and raped in male prisons, or even cis women that are mistaken for trans sometimes. This is a real problem that we could be addressing the past decade if the right did not choose this avenue of trans vilification and demagoguery. > > But we have a greater problem here[^2], which is a threat to democracy itself. The bathroom bans, which do not appear in isolation but bundled together with several other measures that prohibit being trans/in public/altogether, do not address any real problem, as they do not address the real problems of children and cisgender women, whose reproductive rights and credibility in case of real sex crimes perpetrated en masse by cisgender men, they want to stripe away. > > Here is why I think bathroom bans are entry points to the corrosion of democratic values. > > If people are to use exclusively the restrooms that match their assigned at birth sex, then all people must be the sex that they are perceived to be. Trans advocates were not paranoid enough to imagine that the right wants to wipe trans people out of public life to such a degree, that no ambiguity about a person's sex can further be possible, except for those "extremely rare genetic accidents" Ben Shapiro keeps talking about. > > Public erasure, however, of transgender and gender-nonconforming people amounts to the enforcement of cisgenderism by a state that defines sex as a natural binary with no exceptions, and no behavioral, nor performative, nor psychological deviations from the norm. This take is inconsistent with modern understanding of sex biology and endocrinology, the psychology and phenomenology of gender expression and gender identity. It wants to perpetuate for trans identities to be medicalized and intersex people be erased. It aims to enforce strict gender roles, identities, and expressions, coded on the appearance of external genitalia at the time of birth. It wants to hinter any progress in the societal issues brought up by professionals and activists surrounding trans and intersex people. > > # Gender non-conforming expression is a fundamental freedom > > The elimination of sex and gender variation and non-conformity is incompatible with fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of expression, and the freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex. In fact, the same actors and organizations do not attack sex and gender minorities alone. They consistently mock and delegitimize a number of other accommodations we have established as a decent society, such as racial equity, reproductive rights, disability measures, and accessibility. > > This broader attack to fundamental protections shows it is not only bathroom bans that are embedded into a broader picture of plans of trans genocide, but it is also trans genocide itself that is embedded into a broader picture of a rightwing attack to established democratic freedoms, which entail freedom of speech, reproductive rights, religious freedoms, protection from discrimination. > > Advocates fail to reflect on the horrific divide in assumptions: they assume a world order in which trans people can freely move and exist in the public space without the knowledge of cis people. When proposing the bans, the right assumes a world where trans people will not be allowed to exist at all, and they now have the means to implement this world order. > > Bathroom bans are a gambit to attack fundamental pillars of constitutional law and human rights protections in western societies and they seem very consistent and well thought out in their conception: No one should be allowed to appear to be a different sex that the "biological reality"[^3], and this should be enforced by the state. But for this to be enforced by the state, fundamental rights and protections should be abandoned, including the rights of children and cisgender women. > > Bathroom bans are to be understood as coal mine canaries of the rise of totalitarianism in Western Societies. > > [^1]: Female Masculinity (book) > [^2]: In fact, Trump's fresh executive order will force trans women (and some cis ones too) into male prisons. > [^3]: I literally arrived to this conclusion a couple days before Trump's executive order. I wish I had realized sooner.
What trans advocates got wrong about bathrooms: a warning for Europe
geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/25037238
> Note: I was writing this text throughout the past week. Yesterday Trump signed an executive order (Erin Reed breaks it down here) which forbids changing one's appearance to conform with the “opposite biological sex”. I spent all my big words in the text. TL;DR Bathroom bans are an entry point to criminalizing being trans, which now must be crystal clear that it was. > > Two common comebacks with which trans advocates respond to respond to the scourge of bathroom bans are the following: On one hand, it is not feasible to confirm people’s assigned sex for an act so mundane as visiting a public restroom. On the other, enforcing the bans cause cisgender people to be questioned and harassed if they do not meet expectations of how a member of their assigned sex should look like. > > Trans advocate organizations, and some Democrats, during an early 2025 hearing of an anti-trans sports ban, correctly stated that such a ban will open up opportunities to perverts to interact with children to “inspect their gender”. > > > The legislation has an “intrusive focus on scrutiny of students’ bodies,” according to over 400 human rights organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD and Advocates for Trans Equality. The groups issued an open letter to the legislature in opposition to the laws, which they said “invite scrutiny and harassment of any other student perceived by anyone as not conforming to sex stereotypes.” > > According to trans man scholar Jack Halberstam[^1], masculine, androgynous, butch, women, trans men, all face policing a women restrooms as well, despite being assigned female at birth. Bathroom bans enforce gender role stereotypes: rather than biological sex, it is feminine self-presentation that it is enforced. Even expected statistical variation within cisgender women, such as height, can also make a person target to gender policing vigilantes. To bring this point home, many cis-passing trans women are not questioned in women restrooms, whereas butch cis women are. It is not chromosomes or genitals that are beholden in these cases, but perceived femininity. > > But if appearance is not a conclusive estimate of a person’s assigned sex at birth, advocates continue, the only way to enforce bathroom bans is to have genital inspectors, public restroom permits and certificates, which are impractical and defeat the very concerns of dignity and safety, which are the very issues supposedly stemming from "allowing" trans women in female bathrooms. > > By the same coin, enforcing restroom use according to chromosomes or genitals will mandate that trans men use female restrooms, which itself reverses the problem. The right suggests that self-determination will allow any man enter female restrooms by “faking” trans in order to commit sex crimes. But this would also be true if the bans are upheld: trans men are then forced into female bathrooms, and yet again there will be masculine-looking people walking in freely into female restrooms (you know, like male janitors do all the time). > > Thus bathroom bans are correctly fenced off as absurd, self-defeating, and eventually pointless. Advocates are absolutely correct in their analysis, and I agree to all the arguments I cite above. > > # How are they then wrong? > > Advocates fail to realize that what the right really wants is to delegitimize the public existence of people whose appearances are not consistent with their assigned sex at birth. Florida attempted to designate to present oneself as the opposite gender in public as a sex crime. It also sought to pass laws that assert that all artistic impersonations of a sex different than the performers are inherently obscene. > > Bathroom ban proposals stipulate a problem about which they fearmonger, without a shred of evidence that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, in stark comparison with the problem of trans women being harassed, and raped in male prisons, or even cis women that are mistaken for trans sometimes. This is a real problem that we could be addressing the past decade if the right did not choose this avenue of trans vilification and demagoguery. > > But we have a greater problem here[^2], which is a threat to democracy itself. The bathroom bans, which do not appear in isolation but bundled together with several other measures that prohibit being trans/in public/altogether, do not address any real problem, as they do not address the real problems of children and cisgender women, whose reproductive rights and credibility in case of real sex crimes perpetrated en masse by cisgender men, they want to stripe away. > > Here is why I think bathroom bans are entry points to the corrosion of democratic values. > > If people are to use exclusively the restrooms that match their assigned at birth sex, then all people must be the sex that they are perceived to be. Trans advocates were not paranoid enough to imagine that the right wants to wipe trans people out of public life to such a degree, that no ambiguity about a person's sex can further be possible, except for those "extremely rare genetic accidents" Ben Shapiro keeps talking about. > > Public erasure, however, of transgender and gender-nonconforming people amounts to the enforcement of cisgenderism by a state that defines sex as a natural binary with no exceptions, and no behavioral, nor performative, nor psychological deviations from the norm. This take is inconsistent with modern understanding of sex biology and endocrinology, the psychology and phenomenology of gender expression and gender identity. It wants to perpetuate for trans identities to be medicalized and intersex people be erased. It aims to enforce strict gender roles, identities, and expressions, coded on the appearance of external genitalia at the time of birth. It wants to hinter any progress in the societal issues brought up by professionals and activists surrounding trans and intersex people. > > # Gender non-conforming expression is a fundamental freedom > > The elimination of sex and gender variation and non-conformity is incompatible with fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of expression, and the freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex. In fact, the same actors and organizations do not attack sex and gender minorities alone. They consistently mock and delegitimize a number of other accommodations we have established as a decent society, such as racial equity, reproductive rights, disability measures, and accessibility. > > This broader attack to fundamental protections shows it is not only bathroom bans that are embedded into a broader picture of plans of trans genocide, but it is also trans genocide itself that is embedded into a broader picture of a rightwing attack to established democratic freedoms, which entail freedom of speech, reproductive rights, religious freedoms, protection from discrimination. > > Advocates fail to reflect on the horrific divide in assumptions: they assume a world order in which trans people can freely move and exist in the public space without the knowledge of cis people. When proposing the bans, the right assumes a world where trans people will not be allowed to exist at all, and they now have the means to implement this world order. > > Bathroom bans are a gambit to attack fundamental pillars of constitutional law and human rights protections in western societies and they seem very consistent and well thought out in their conception: No one should be allowed to appear to be a different sex that the "biological reality"[^3], and this should be enforced by the state. But for this to be enforced by the state, fundamental rights and protections should be abandoned, including the rights of children and cisgender women. > > Bathroom bans are to be understood as coal mine canaries of the rise of totalitarianism in Western Societies. > > [^1]: Female Masculinity (book) > [^2]: In fact, Trump's fresh executive order will force trans women (and some cis ones too) into male prisons. > [^3]: I literally arrived to this conclusion a couple days before Trump's executive order. I wish I had realized sooner.
What trans advocates got wrong about bathrooms: a warning for Europe
geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/25037238
> Note: I was writing this text throughout the past week. Yesterday Trump signed an executive order (Erin Reed breaks it down here) which forbids changing one's appearance to conform with the “opposite biological sex”. I spent all my big words in the text. TL;DR Bathroom bans are an entry point to criminalizing being trans, which now must be crystal clear that it was. > > Two common comebacks with which trans advocates respond to respond to the scourge of bathroom bans are the following: On one hand, it is not feasible to confirm people’s assigned sex for an act so mundane as visiting a public restroom. On the other, enforcing the bans cause cisgender people to be questioned and harassed if they do not meet expectations of how a member of their assigned sex should look like. > > Trans advocate organizations, and some Democrats, during an early 2025 hearing of an anti-trans sports ban, correctly stated that such a ban will open up opportunities to perverts to interact with children to “inspect their gender”. > > > The legislation has an “intrusive focus on scrutiny of students’ bodies,” according to over 400 human rights organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD and Advocates for Trans Equality. The groups issued an open letter to the legislature in opposition to the laws, which they said “invite scrutiny and harassment of any other student perceived by anyone as not conforming to sex stereotypes.” > > According to trans man scholar Jack Halberstam[^1], masculine, androgynous, butch, women, trans men, all face policing a women restrooms as well, despite being assigned female at birth. Bathroom bans enforce gender role stereotypes: rather than biological sex, it is feminine self-presentation that it is enforced. Even expected statistical variation within cisgender women, such as height, can also make a person target to gender policing vigilantes. To bring this point home, many cis-passing trans women are not questioned in women restrooms, whereas butch cis women are. It is not chromosomes or genitals that are beholden in these cases, but perceived femininity. > > But if appearance is not a conclusive estimate of a person’s assigned sex at birth, advocates continue, the only way to enforce bathroom bans is to have genital inspectors, public restroom permits and certificates, which are impractical and defeat the very concerns of dignity and safety, which are the very issues supposedly stemming from "allowing" trans women in female bathrooms. > > By the same coin, enforcing restroom use according to chromosomes or genitals will mandate that trans men use female restrooms, which itself reverses the problem. The right suggests that self-determination will allow any man enter female restrooms by “faking” trans in order to commit sex crimes. But this would also be true if the bans are upheld: trans men are then forced into female bathrooms, and yet again there will be masculine-looking people walking in freely into female restrooms (you know, like male janitors do all the time). > > Thus bathroom bans are correctly fenced off as absurd, self-defeating, and eventually pointless. Advocates are absolutely correct in their analysis, and I agree to all the arguments I cite above. > > # How are they then wrong? > > Advocates fail to realize that what the right really wants is to delegitimize the public existence of people whose appearances are not consistent with their assigned sex at birth. Florida attempted to designate to present oneself as the opposite gender in public as a sex crime. It also sought to pass laws that assert that all artistic impersonations of a sex different than the performers are inherently obscene. > > Bathroom ban proposals stipulate a problem about which they fearmonger, without a shred of evidence that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, in stark comparison with the problem of trans women being harassed, and raped in male prisons, or even cis women that are mistaken for trans sometimes. This is a real problem that we could be addressing the past decade if the right did not choose this avenue of trans vilification and demagoguery. > > But we have a greater problem here[^2], which is a threat to democracy itself. The bathroom bans, which do not appear in isolation but bundled together with several other measures that prohibit being trans/in public/altogether, do not address any real problem, as they do not address the real problems of children and cisgender women, whose reproductive rights and credibility in case of real sex crimes perpetrated en masse by cisgender men, they want to stripe away. > > Here is why I think bathroom bans are entry points to the corrosion of democratic values. > > If people are to use exclusively the restrooms that match their assigned at birth sex, then all people must be the sex that they are perceived to be. Trans advocates were not paranoid enough to imagine that the right wants to wipe trans people out of public life to such a degree, that no ambiguity about a person's sex can further be possible, except for those "extremely rare genetic accidents" Ben Shapiro keeps talking about. > > Public erasure, however, of transgender and gender-nonconforming people amounts to the enforcement of cisgenderism by a state that defines sex as a natural binary with no exceptions, and no behavioral, nor performative, nor psychological deviations from the norm. This take is inconsistent with modern understanding of sex biology and endocrinology, the psychology and phenomenology of gender expression and gender identity. It wants to perpetuate for trans identities to be medicalized and intersex people be erased. It aims to enforce strict gender roles, identities, and expressions, coded on the appearance of external genitalia at the time of birth. It wants to hinter any progress in the societal issues brought up by professionals and activists surrounding trans and intersex people. > > # Gender non-conforming expression is a fundamental freedom > > The elimination of sex and gender variation and non-conformity is incompatible with fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of expression, and the freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex. In fact, the same actors and organizations do not attack sex and gender minorities alone. They consistently mock and delegitimize a number of other accommodations we have established as a decent society, such as racial equity, reproductive rights, disability measures, and accessibility. > > This broader attack to fundamental protections shows it is not only bathroom bans that are embedded into a broader picture of plans of trans genocide, but it is also trans genocide itself that is embedded into a broader picture of a rightwing attack to established democratic freedoms, which entail freedom of speech, reproductive rights, religious freedoms, protection from discrimination. > > Advocates fail to reflect on the horrific divide in assumptions: they assume a world order in which trans people can freely move and exist in the public space without the knowledge of cis people. When proposing the bans, the right assumes a world where trans people will not be allowed to exist at all, and they now have the means to implement this world order. > > Bathroom bans are a gambit to attack fundamental pillars of constitutional law and human rights protections in western societies and they seem very consistent and well thought out in their conception: No one should be allowed to appear to be a different sex that the "biological reality"[^3], and this should be enforced by the state. But for this to be enforced by the state, fundamental rights and protections should be abandoned, including the rights of children and cisgender women. > > Bathroom bans are to be understood as coal mine canaries of the rise of totalitarianism in Western Societies. > > [^1]: Female Masculinity (book) > [^2]: In fact, Trump's fresh executive order will force trans women (and some cis ones too) into male prisons. > [^3]: I literally arrived to this conclusion a couple days before Trump's executive order. I wish I had realized sooner.
What trans advocates got wrong about bathrooms: a warning for Europe
Note: I was writing this text throughout the past week. Yesterday Trump signed an executive order (Erin Reed breaks it down here) which forbids changing one's appearance to conform with the “opposite biological sex”. I spent all my big words in the text. TL;DR Bathroom bans are an entry point to criminalizing being trans, which now must be crystal clear that it was.
Two common comebacks with which trans advocates respond to respond to the scourge of bathroom bans are the following: On one hand, it is not feasible to confirm people’s assigned sex for an act so mundane as visiting a public restroom. On the other, enforcing the bans cause cisgender people to be questioned and harassed if they do not meet expectations of how a member of their assigned sex should look like.
Trans advocate organizations, and some Democrats, during an early 2025 hearing of an anti-trans sports ban, correctly stated that such a ban will open up opportunities to perverts to interact with children to “inspect their gender”.
> The legislation has an “intrusive focus on scrutiny of students’ bodies,” according to over 400 human rights organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD and Advocates for Trans Equality. The groups issued an open letter to the legislature in opposition to the laws, which they said “invite scrutiny and harassment of any other student perceived by anyone as not conforming to sex stereotypes.”
According to trans man scholar Jack Halberstam[^1], masculine, androgynous, butch, women, trans men, all face policing a women restrooms as well, despite being assigned female at birth. Bathroom bans enforce gender role stereotypes: rather than biological sex, it is feminine self-presentation that it is enforced. Even expected statistical variation within cisgender women, such as height, can also make a person target to gender policing vigilantes. To bring this point home, many cis-passing trans women are not questioned in women restrooms, whereas butch cis women are. It is not chromosomes or genitals that are beholden in these cases, but perceived femininity.
But if appearance is not a conclusive estimate of a person’s assigned sex at birth, advocates continue, the only way to enforce bathroom bans is to have genital inspectors, public restroom permits and certificates, which are impractical and defeat the very concerns of dignity and safety, which are the very issues supposedly stemming from "allowing" trans women in female bathrooms.
By the same coin, enforcing restroom use according to chromosomes or genitals will mandate that trans men use female restrooms, which itself reverses the problem. The right suggests that self-determination will allow any man enter female restrooms by “faking” trans in order to commit sex crimes. But this would also be true if the bans are upheld: trans men are then forced into female bathrooms, and yet again there will be masculine-looking people walking in freely into female restrooms (you know, like male janitors do all the time).
Thus bathroom bans are correctly fenced off as absurd, self-defeating, and eventually pointless. Advocates are absolutely correct in their analysis, and I agree to all the arguments I cite above.
How are they then wrong?
Advocates fail to realize that what the right really wants is to delegitimize the public existence of people whose appearances are not consistent with their assigned sex at birth. Florida attempted to designate to present oneself as the opposite gender in public as a sex crime. It also sought to pass laws that assert that all artistic impersonations of a sex different than the performers are inherently obscene.
Bathroom ban proposals stipulate a problem about which they fearmonger, without a shred of evidence that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, in stark comparison with the problem of trans women being harassed, and raped in male prisons, or even cis women that are mistaken for trans sometimes. This is a real problem that we could be addressing the past decade if the right did not choose this avenue of trans vilification and demagoguery.
But we have a greater problem here[^2], which is a threat to democracy itself. The bathroom bans, which do not appear in isolation but bundled together with several other measures that prohibit being trans/in public/altogether, do not address any real problem, as they do not address the real problems of children and cisgender women, whose reproductive rights and credibility in case of real sex crimes perpetrated en masse by cisgender men, they want to stripe away.
Here is why I think bathroom bans are entry points to the corrosion of democratic values.
If people are to use exclusively the restrooms that match their assigned at birth sex, then all people must be the sex that they are perceived to be. Trans advocates were not paranoid enough to imagine that the right wants to wipe trans people out of public life to such a degree, that no ambiguity about a person's sex can further be possible, except for those "extremely rare genetic accidents" Ben Shapiro keeps talking about.
Public erasure, however, of transgender and gender-nonconforming people amounts to the enforcement of cisgenderism by a state that defines sex as a natural binary with no exceptions, and no behavioral, nor performative, nor psychological deviations from the norm. This take is inconsistent with modern understanding of sex biology and endocrinology, the psychology and phenomenology of gender expression and gender identity. It wants to perpetuate for trans identities to be medicalized and intersex people be erased. It aims to enforce strict gender roles, identities, and expressions, coded on the appearance of external genitalia at the time of birth. It wants to hinter any progress in the societal issues brought up by professionals and activists surrounding trans and intersex people.
Gender non-conforming expression is a fundamental freedom
The elimination of sex and gender variation and non-conformity is incompatible with fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of expression, and the freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex. In fact, the same actors and organizations do not attack sex and gender minorities alone. They consistently mock and delegitimize a number of other accommodations we have established as a decent society, such as racial equity, reproductive rights, disability measures, and accessibility.
This broader attack to fundamental protections shows it is not only bathroom bans that are embedded into a broader picture of plans of trans genocide, but it is also trans genocide itself that is embedded into a broader picture of a rightwing attack to established democratic freedoms, which entail freedom of speech, reproductive rights, religious freedoms, protection from discrimination.
Advocates fail to reflect on the horrific divide in assumptions: they assume a world order in which trans people can freely move and exist in the public space without the knowledge of cis people. When proposing the bans, the right assumes a world where trans people will not be allowed to exist at all, and they now have the means to implement this world order.
Bathroom bans are a gambit to attack fundamental pillars of constitutional law and human rights protections in western societies and they seem very consistent and well thought out in their conception: No one should be allowed to appear to be a different sex that the "biological reality"[^3], and this should be enforced by the state. But for this to be enforced by the state, fundamental rights and protections should be abandoned, including the rights of children and cisgender women.
Bathroom bans are to be understood as coal mine canaries of the rise of totalitarianism in Western Societies.
[^1]: Female Masculinity (book) [^2]: In fact, Trump's fresh executive order will force trans women (and some cis ones too) into male prisons. [^3]: I literally arrived to this conclusion a couple days before Trump's executive order. I wish I had realized sooner.
If you read Holocaust survivors memoirs you will learn many things.
During Operation Reinhard the killing centers were unthinkable and also veiled under strict secrecy. The information was so unbelievable that although there was early intelligence out of Chelmno for gassing vans, and later Slovak escapees published a document detailing the operation of Auschwitz-Birkenau II, it was met with disbelief and treated similar to a conspiracy theory. Wartime propaganda made this worse, by spreading so many rumors that people could not know what to believe.
The killing process was so barbaric that even prisoners who had witnessed it while doing other tasks in the camps, were in denial about it, as per their own memoirs. When Rogerie, member of French Resistance / primary witness against Holocaust Deniers, arrived in Auschwitz the first thing the French doctor told him was that the gassings were taking place, and he did not believe it until he saw with his own eyes. Even today are pretty foggy about what exactly happened in and around gas chambers.
The Nazi deception and subterfuge apparatus was so ubiquitous that in lots of cases people thought they were going to take showers. The killing centers were idyllic in appearance, and were made to the last detail to look like innocuous intermediary stops. Nobody escaped these places with the sole exception of the Sobibor uprising, and the Slovak Birkenau escapees. Churchill only came to know about the gassings around the time of the Nazi negotiations with Hungary about deporting Hungarian Jews to Birkenau, which was later in the war. The Sonderkommando photographs were taken during the cremation of the bodies of Hungarian Jews. Those three sources were the only hard evidence about the gassings up to late 1943, I think. It was a very well protected wartime state secret.
This is not to say that there were no rumors about it, nor that it wasn't common knowledge among certain segments of the German population. But, for many Jewish people what we now know was a wild conspiracy theory they thought too stupid to believe. They also had some more everyday shit to worry about. They were facing boycotts, pogroms, malnutrition, and were deported into ghettos and camps. Some were better off, for example in villages, and they didn't want to live as refugees in Ukraine.
Nazis had installed Jewish Councils to take care of such villages, and these councils were selecting people for camps, believing it would be just very hard labor. Wealthier families could pay the councils off to evade recruitment. When Operation Reinhard started the villages were surrounded by Trawniki men in the early hours and they would round up as many Jewish people as they could fit in the trucks. At this point people would start hiding in attics and special hideouts in the homes, while the Nazis started moving vast numbers of people from ghettos into Jewish villages, where they would be soon taken by the Trawniki's to the killing centers.
At this point it would be almost impossible to escape the villages alive. Some survivors report they tried, but not succeed. But people did not have sufficient and/or reliable information to act on before it was too late. Jews from other European countries, like Dutch, Greek, etc, they would ride a train from their hometown and end up in a gas chamber in a matter of days. Most of the victims from outside Poland would have had a few short minutes available to realize what had happened to them.
In fact, nobody talks much about this period apart from survivors. They all express the same concern: Don't let this be forgotten. It can happen anywhere, and it will definitely happen again, if not by the exact same means, by equally barbaric ones. If you read the whole thing from the 1930s prison camps up to Operation Reinhard killing centers you can have a rough idea about how they will go about it.
Probably they will build the deportation camps for illegal immigrants, make gender non-conformity a sex crime, get trans people in the prison labor system, then upgrade many prison to work camps. At the same time by prohibiting transition and denying healthcare they will decimate trans people by suicide or malpractice, and when they have the opportunity, for instance: during time of war, they might as well build gas chambers because deportees are too many to humanely deport, and put trans people and leftists there as well. I mean, they have followed the Nazi playbook to the letter so far, why would they stop now?
Sounds crazy, right? It sounded as much crazy in 1942, but it is true.
“To suggest being LGBTQ+ is the result of mental illness is factually false and pushes dangerous misinformation. Homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association in 1973, and transgender identities were similarly removed from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of mental disorders in 2019.
“These decisions were based on decades of rigorous scientific research and advocacy, affirming that sexual orientation and gender identity are natural variations of human diversity, not pathologies. Leading organisations, including WHO, [the] American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association, recognise this as fact.
“Allowing such statements to proliferate is more than a policy failure, it actively contributes to a hostile, unsafe environment on Meta’s platforms. It normalises rhetoric that emboldens perpetrators of abuse, harassment and violence, both online and offline.” https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/01/14/meta-facebook-hate-speech-criticism-equality-amplified/
“To suggest being LGBTQ+ is the result of mental illness is factually false and pushes dangerous misinformation. Homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association in 1973, and transgender identities were similarly removed from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of mental disorders in 2019.
“These decisions were based on decades of rigorous scientific research and advocacy, affirming that sexual orientation and gender identity are natural variations of human diversity, not pathologies. Leading organisations, including WHO, [the] American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association, recognise this as fact.
“Allowing such statements to proliferate is more than a policy failure, it actively contributes to a hostile, unsafe environment on Meta’s platforms. It normalises rhetoric that emboldens perpetrators of abuse, harassment and violence, both online and offline.” https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/01/14/meta-facebook-hate-speech-criticism-equality-amplified/
Lavabit
Connection to Edward Snowden
Lavabit received media attention in July 2013 when it was revealed that Edward Snowden was using the Lavabit email address [email protected] to invite human rights lawyers and activists to a press conference during his confinement at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow.[16] The day after Snowden revealed his identity, the United States federal government served a court order, dated June 10, 2013, and issued under 18 USC 2703(d), a 1994 amendment of the Stored Communications Act, asking for metadata on a customer who was unnamed. Kevin Poulsen of Wired wrote that "the timing and circumstances suggest" that Snowden was this customer.[17] In July 2013 the federal government obtained a search warrant demanding that Lavabit give away the private SSL keys to its service, affecting all Lavabit users.[18] A 2016 redaction error confirmed that Edward Snowden was the target.[2]
But what is the status now? Also, I think in the years to come the jurisdiction will also play a role. If the service is in the soil of a country that can subpoeana the encryption keys, then nobody is really safe.
So much for MAGAts' defend of ScIEnCe againsts tRanGEnDeRiZum
Imagine responding like that to any Lemmy post:
*Proton endorses Trump
*K
*Gaza ceasefire
*I'm baby
*The Right:* The market should be free to decide.
*The Market:* Decides
*The Right*: OUtrAgEOuS
Safer.
Well, they handed out activists' metadata in the past, for the French authorities. In their position of an e2ee provider who controls both ends as a default, they are in a position where the can fuck people over. This is exactly what Snowden described as someone pointing a gun at you while saying "Relax, I am not gonna use it against you."
So much for safety.
Ah, and my original point was: it is either safe or unsafe, the word saf_er_ means nothing during a genocide.
Indeed. My take on the Democrats in the post-election era is here. Feel free to comment there as well.
Ecofascists. That is the term.
It send a chill down my spine nonetheless
The little man does some heavy lifting
Well, then them part of the problem, aren't they.
Have a look at this analysis. The author shows that this is a very weak response to the deeper underpinnings of the "nothing to hide" argument. After all, you cannot argue people's personal preferences.
I think one of the ways to go, with everything happening right now, is that Meta can infer who is gay and/or had aborted a pregnancy and hand these predictions over to an ultranationalist secret service. So, your personal indifference to privacy amounts to a genocidal police state for your fellow citizens.
This is why the backlash against "gender ideology" was the perfect Trojan for the rise of fascism
It was:
- Easy to hide behind the prevailing cisgenderism, the core idea behind transphobia, according to which only cisgender people's gender identities are genuine and valid.
- Easy to hide in an anti-intellectualism, that conceals all nuance, and reinforces the most vulgar and stigmatizing, pathologizing, and demonizing stereotypes for transgender people.
- Easy to embed in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, and link to a broader list of topics in the conservative agenda: political correctness, climate change, vaccine skepticism.
> "If these institutions push something so outlandish that men can be hypersexual kitten and shit in special dollhouses, it is because there is Jewish-Marxist conspiracy at play, against the white man, against the Christian family".
Now all the instincts of the authoritarian that felt oppressed all these years are running rampant. They have got the power.
But the reasons we reached a point that trans identities were recognized and protected was nothing of the above. It was the protections on freedom of expression, free speech even religious freedom.
It was the protections resulting from the developments in anti-racist policies, the developments in anti-sexist policies, and the struggle of queer liberation, which itself drew from the labor movement, the feminist and black liberation movements.
The recognition of trans identities was an extension of all we think as pillars of democracy, and decent society for the past 30 or so years. It wasn't even subverting cisgenderism: It was mostly comprised of extensions to the rights and protections that capitalist courts have recognized to women, gay people, and generic freedoms in general, even paralleling freedoms of religious expression.
With the anti-trans rhetoric they have managed to de-legitimize all of these protections, and whoever thinks this is only lead to trans genocide and end there, is deplorably in error.
These people are not only conservative but outright backward, and profoundly undemocratic. They are against constitutional society, and they are against the rule of law.
They are corporate fascists, and they got here with four decades of plotting and agitating. I am sad and angry that we did not do all in our power to fight it, we instead ignored it, we let it happen.
Now we will have to witness the revival of hatred and irrationality, we will have to fight uphill, from a position of weakness and helplessness against their social media, their military, their sick, disgusting lack of reason and empathy.
NO PASSARAN
For pro-trans Ambassadors who want to Agitate in social media and raw material for Press Kits/Rapid Response Kits: A list of references and links
geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/24679007
> Remember it is important to repeat the messaging to the degree it is amplified to population segments that are the least likely to have heard those already. > > Make no concessions regarding the basic facts, the stronger the harder the longer it engages the target. > > # Remember this is an attack to Reason, to Scientific Inquiry, to Democracy, to the Environment, to Women Rights, and to Racialized People. Surrender no inch to the corporatist fascists. > > > Gender dysphoria: A concept designated in the DSM-5-TR as clinically significant distress or impairment related to gender incongruence, which may include desire to change primary and/or secondary sex characteristics. Not all transgender or gender diverse people experience gender dysphoria. > https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria > > > DSM-5 aims to avoid stigma and ensure clinical care for individuals who see and feel themselves to be a different gender than their assigned gender. It replaces the diagnostic name “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria,” as well as makes other important clarifications in the criteria. It is important to note that gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition. https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM-5-Gender-Dysphoria.pdf > > > Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria, which, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align. > > Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/03/politics/tennessee-gender-affirming-care/index.html > > > For transgender and gender-diverse youth who have gender dysphoria, delaying puberty might: > > - Improve mental well-being. > > - Ease depression and anxiety. > > - Improve social interactions with others. > > - Lower the need for future surgeries. > > - Ease thoughts or actions of self-harm. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075 > > > >Regardless of the controversy on how and when to administer treatments to trans and nonbinary kids, psychological science is very clear that gender-affirming care helps trans kids, said Singh. “It is unconscionable that politicians would label it as child abuse,” said Edwards-Leeper. A study out of the University of Washington discovered that among 104 trans and nonbinary youths ages 13 to 20, gender-affirming care lowered the odds of moderate to severe depression by 60% and suicidality by 73% (Tordoff, D. M., et al., JAMA Network Open, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2022). Another study, which used data from more than 27,000 people collected by the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (PDF, 2.22MB), showed that transgender youth who began hormone treatment in adolescence had fewer thoughts of suicide, were less likely to experience major mental health disorders, and had fewer problems with substance misuse than those who started hormones in adulthood (Turban, J. L., et al., PLOS ONE, Vol. 17, No. 1., 2022). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/07/advocating-transgender-nonbinary-youths > > # Defy Sex Binary > > > Sex, gender, and sexuality are all distinct from one another (although they are often related), and each exists on its own spectrum. Moreover, sex cannot be depicted as a simple, one-dimensional scale. In the world of DSDs, an individual may shift along the spectrum as development brings new biological factors into play. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/ > > # Misgendering, harassment not protected speech > > > The court went to great lengths to stress actual discrimination cases will continue to turn on their specific facts and that ‘gender critical’ speech, including but not limited to speech that misgenders trans and/or non-binary people, will continue to be subject to the laws of the land, including the provisions of the Equality Act. In practical terms, the impact of the decision is limited. In particular, the protected right does not extend to speech constituting harassment or discrimination against trans people. https://criticallegalthinking.com/2021/06/29/not-a-nazi-but-forstater-v-cgd-europe/ > > # Detransition myths > > >The study, conducted by experts from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, examines reported regret rates for dozens of surgeries as well as major life decisions and compares them to the regret rates for transgender surgeries. It finds that "there is lower regret after [gender-affirming surgery], which is less than 1%, than after many other decisions, both surgical and otherwise." It notes that surgeries such as tubal sterilization, assisted prostatectomy, body contouring, facial rejuvenation, and more all have regret rates more than 10 times as high as gender-affirming surgery. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/landmark-systematic-review-of-trans > > # Trans Athletes > > >As Katrina Karkazis, a senior visiting fellow and expert on testosterone and bioethics at Yale University explains, “Studies of testosterone levels in athletes do not show any clear, consistent relationship between testosterone and athletic performance. Sometimes testosterone is associated with better performance, but other studies show weak links or no links. And yet others show testosterone is associated with worse performance.” The bills’ premises lack scientific validity. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trans-girls-belong-on-girls-sports-teams/ > > # Misc Videos > For the most part of this video Vaush debunks every argument that puberty blockers are an experimental treatment https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=HhYruaFZEOI > > Vaush The best pro-trans arguments https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=sB6YNRn2pQQ > > Vaush 2 hours of pro trans arguments https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=HhYruaFZEOI > > Jon Stewart destroys ignorant GOP lawmaker for criminalizing youth transition https://iv.datura.network/watch?v=NPmjNYt71fk
For pro-trans Ambassadors who want to Agitate in social media and raw material for Press Kits/Rapid Response Kits: A list of references and links
geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/24679007
> Remember it is important to repeat the messaging to the degree it is amplified to population segments that are the least likely to have heard those already. > > Make no concessions regarding the basic facts, the stronger the harder the longer it engages the target. > > # Remember this is an attack to Reason, to Scientific Inquiry, to Democracy, to the Environment, to Women Rights, and to Racialized People. Surrender no inch to the corporatist fascists. > > > Gender dysphoria: A concept designated in the DSM-5-TR as clinically significant distress or impairment related to gender incongruence, which may include desire to change primary and/or secondary sex characteristics. Not all transgender or gender diverse people experience gender dysphoria. > https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria > > > DSM-5 aims to avoid stigma and ensure clinical care for individuals who see and feel themselves to be a different gender than their assigned gender. It replaces the diagnostic name “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria,” as well as makes other important clarifications in the criteria. It is important to note that gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition. https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM-5-Gender-Dysphoria.pdf > > > Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria, which, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align. > > Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/03/politics/tennessee-gender-affirming-care/index.html > > > For transgender and gender-diverse youth who have gender dysphoria, delaying puberty might: > > - Improve mental well-being. > > - Ease depression and anxiety. > > - Improve social interactions with others. > > - Lower the need for future surgeries. > > - Ease thoughts or actions of self-harm. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075 > > > >Regardless of the controversy on how and when to administer treatments to trans and nonbinary kids, psychological science is very clear that gender-affirming care helps trans kids, said Singh. “It is unconscionable that politicians would label it as child abuse,” said Edwards-Leeper. A study out of the University of Washington discovered that among 104 trans and nonbinary youths ages 13 to 20, gender-affirming care lowered the odds of moderate to severe depression by 60% and suicidality by 73% (Tordoff, D. M., et al., JAMA Network Open, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2022). Another study, which used data from more than 27,000 people collected by the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (PDF, 2.22MB), showed that transgender youth who began hormone treatment in adolescence had fewer thoughts of suicide, were less likely to experience major mental health disorders, and had fewer problems with substance misuse than those who started hormones in adulthood (Turban, J. L., et al., PLOS ONE, Vol. 17, No. 1., 2022). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/07/advocating-transgender-nonbinary-youths > > # Defy Sex Binary > > > Sex, gender, and sexuality are all distinct from one another (although they are often related), and each exists on its own spectrum. Moreover, sex cannot be depicted as a simple, one-dimensional scale. In the world of DSDs, an individual may shift along the spectrum as development brings new biological factors into play. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/ > > # Misgendering, harassment not protected speech > > > The court went to great lengths to stress actual discrimination cases will continue to turn on their specific facts and that ‘gender critical’ speech, including but not limited to speech that misgenders trans and/or non-binary people, will continue to be subject to the laws of the land, including the provisions of the Equality Act. In practical terms, the impact of the decision is limited. In particular, the protected right does not extend to speech constituting harassment or discrimination against trans people. https://criticallegalthinking.com/2021/06/29/not-a-nazi-but-forstater-v-cgd-europe/ > > # Detransition myths > > >The study, conducted by experts from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, examines reported regret rates for dozens of surgeries as well as major life decisions and compares them to the regret rates for transgender surgeries. It finds that "there is lower regret after [gender-affirming surgery], which is less than 1%, than after many other decisions, both surgical and otherwise." It notes that surgeries such as tubal sterilization, assisted prostatectomy, body contouring, facial rejuvenation, and more all have regret rates more than 10 times as high as gender-affirming surgery. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/landmark-systematic-review-of-trans > > # Trans Athletes > > >As Katrina Karkazis, a senior visiting fellow and expert on testosterone and bioethics at Yale University explains, “Studies of testosterone levels in athletes do not show any clear, consistent relationship between testosterone and athletic performance. Sometimes testosterone is associated with better performance, but other studies show weak links or no links. And yet others show testosterone is associated with worse performance.” The bills’ premises lack scientific validity. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trans-girls-belong-on-girls-sports-teams/ > > # Misc Videos > For the most part of this video Vaush debunks every argument that puberty blockers are an experimental treatment https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=HhYruaFZEOI > > Vaush The best pro-trans arguments https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=sB6YNRn2pQQ > > Vaush 2 hours of pro trans arguments https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=HhYruaFZEOI > > Jon Stewart destroys ignorant GOP lawmaker for criminalizing youth transition https://iv.datura.network/watch?v=NPmjNYt71fk
For pro-trans Ambassadors who want to Agitate in social media and raw material for Press Kits/Rapid Response Kits: A list of references and links
Remember it is important to repeat the messaging to the degree it is amplified to population segments that are the least likely to have heard those already.
Make no concessions regarding the basic facts, the stronger the harder the longer it engages the target.
Remember this is an attack to Reason, to Scientific Inquiry, to Democracy, to the Environment, to Women Rights, and to Racialized People. Surrender no inch to the corporatist fascists.
> Gender dysphoria: A concept designated in the DSM-5-TR as clinically significant distress or impairment related to gender incongruence, which may include desire to change primary and/or secondary sex characteristics. Not all transgender or gender diverse people experience gender dysphoria. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria
> DSM-5 aims to avoid stigma and ensure clinical care for individuals who see and feel themselves to be a different gender than their assigned gender. It replaces the diagnostic name “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria,” as well as makes other important clarifications in the criteria. It is important to note that gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition. https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM-5-Gender-Dysphoria.pdf
> Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria, which, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align. > Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/03/politics/tennessee-gender-affirming-care/index.html
> For transgender and gender-diverse youth who have gender dysphoria, delaying puberty might: > - Improve mental well-being. > - Ease depression and anxiety. > - Improve social interactions with others. > - Lower the need for future surgeries. > - Ease thoughts or actions of self-harm. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075
>Regardless of the controversy on how and when to administer treatments to trans and nonbinary kids, psychological science is very clear that gender-affirming care helps trans kids, said Singh. “It is unconscionable that politicians would label it as child abuse,” said Edwards-Leeper. A study out of the University of Washington discovered that among 104 trans and nonbinary youths ages 13 to 20, gender-affirming care lowered the odds of moderate to severe depression by 60% and suicidality by 73% (Tordoff, D. M., et al., JAMA Network Open, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2022). Another study, which used data from more than 27,000 people collected by the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (PDF, 2.22MB), showed that transgender youth who began hormone treatment in adolescence had fewer thoughts of suicide, were less likely to experience major mental health disorders, and had fewer problems with substance misuse than those who started hormones in adulthood (Turban, J. L., et al., PLOS ONE, Vol. 17, No. 1., 2022). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/07/advocating-transgender-nonbinary-youths
Defy Sex Binary
> Sex, gender, and sexuality are all distinct from one another (although they are often related), and each exists on its own spectrum. Moreover, sex cannot be depicted as a simple, one-dimensional scale. In the world of DSDs, an individual may shift along the spectrum as development brings new biological factors into play. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/
Misgendering, harassment not protected speech
> The court went to great lengths to stress actual discrimination cases will continue to turn on their specific facts and that ‘gender critical’ speech, including but not limited to speech that misgenders trans and/or non-binary people, will continue to be subject to the laws of the land, including the provisions of the Equality Act. In practical terms, the impact of the decision is limited. In particular, the protected right does not extend to speech constituting harassment or discrimination against trans people. https://criticallegalthinking.com/2021/06/29/not-a-nazi-but-forstater-v-cgd-europe/
Detransition myths
>The study, conducted by experts from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, examines reported regret rates for dozens of surgeries as well as major life decisions and compares them to the regret rates for transgender surgeries. It finds that "there is lower regret after [gender-affirming surgery], which is less than 1%, than after many other decisions, both surgical and otherwise." It notes that surgeries such as tubal sterilization, assisted prostatectomy, body contouring, facial rejuvenation, and more all have regret rates more than 10 times as high as gender-affirming surgery. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/landmark-systematic-review-of-trans
Trans Athletes
>As Katrina Karkazis, a senior visiting fellow and expert on testosterone and bioethics at Yale University explains, “Studies of testosterone levels in athletes do not show any clear, consistent relationship between testosterone and athletic performance. Sometimes testosterone is associated with better performance, but other studies show weak links or no links. And yet others show testosterone is associated with worse performance.” The bills’ premises lack scientific validity. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trans-girls-belong-on-girls-sports-teams/
Misc Videos
For the most part of this video Vaush debunks every argument that puberty blockers are an experimental treatment https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=HhYruaFZEOI
Vaush The best pro-trans arguments https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=sB6YNRn2pQQ
Vaush 2 hours of pro trans arguments https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=HhYruaFZEOI
Jon Stewart destroys ignorant GOP lawmaker for criminalizing youth transition https://iv.datura.network/watch?v=NPmjNYt71fk
Meta's anti-LGBT rules are closely knit to their ending the fact-checking: It is science denialism and linked to racism and vaccine skepticism.
Meta's anti-LGBT rules are closely knit to their ending the fact-checking: It is science denialism and linked to racism and vaccine skepticism.
Homosexuality and gender identity are not considered mental illnesses, Sex is not a binary, and Race is not connected to intelligence.
Bigots never liked science on these three, and now they use political power to impose their narrative.
Meta never moderated such discourse. Nor reddit nor twitter nor youtube. There was no censorship to end here. What this is, it is a free pass to punch down trans and gay people. It is incitement to violence, and Zuckerberg and Musk must go to the gallows for it.
Don't get me started on the toxic harassment these platforms have allowed against African and Carribean reparation activists, how they have destroyed the lives of feminists, and how they have named all Palestinians terrorists.
At this point race realists and gender essentialists have ensured political and technological control of the narrative.
There is no room for debating sealioning trolls on this one. If they don't understand the social dynamics against gender/sex/minorities at this moment, they are no better than brownshirts.
It is permabans and hooks and jabs all the way, for every single weird freak that backs this deranged hateful shit.
Suggesting Matrix as a channel for silly "keep-in-touch" group chats after occasional meet-ups and outings
I recently came up with a new way to get people involved in Matrix.
You know how people tend to make new group chats to keep in touch with people they met under specific circumstances, like holidays or conferences etc.
Some people even have specific group chats from their gym or sports team.
I thought this can be an opportunity to spread Matrix.
You can recommend going on Matrix when this moment comes up, and help people get set up on the spot.
Or if you are friends you can just pop over and say "let's set you up for this group chat I have going."
Don't get me wrong, it might sound shady and weird at times, especially if you seem too eager to interact with their phones.
But in principle I think it might be a time and place that people might be motivated to procrastinate less, and be more likely to use it. After all such group chats are always silly.
Downsides I already forsee
- Don't forget to make them store the secret key somewhere safe, where they will also remember storing after the hangover.
- You have to be well-prepared, know exactly what client and homeserver you will point people to, create the group chat yourself, and have the QR-code handy.
- You have to avoid talking points about all the technical advantages and privacy aspect, and stay with the silliness, so choose a client that has an abundance of pre-installed stickers.
Debunking centrism: In defense of extremism
Context This is my response to a discussion about Firefox collaborating with Ecosia, and the discussion that followed quickly went awry. Not only we need it seems to vote for Democrats[^1] no matter what their policies or our opinions are, but we also must support Firefox whatever its moves or shifts in values are, because of its nominal support for privacy in the W3C. But the political take this commenter took brings as back to the election debate we keep having on Lemmy. Like only recently I debated someone claiming that literally we should throw trans people under the bus because of utilitarianism (if Trump wins they say, global warming will kill way more people, and we are sacrificing those people for the "ideological purism" of protecting trans people).
So we see centrists are willing to sacrifice human life and demolish pillars of democracy to defend their centrist dogma, even reaching for far-fetched causality chains to make reality fit their trolley-problem meme obsession.
In defense of extremism
I don't want this post to just reiterate my response to the Firefox centrist. In fact, I was planning to write "in defense of extremism" with this main argument:
If Auschwitz II - Birkenau is peak capitalism, then anarchist extremist is virtuous. In terms of militarism, political intolerance, racial hatred, and labor exploitation, let alone the murder and stealing efficiency for which it most notorious.
An anarchist is by definition opposed to militarism, political intolerance, racial hatred, and labor exploitation. So anarchism is the logical opposition to all of these together, and there is no room for compromise with any of those:
- No middle ground for militarism
- No middle ground for racial hatred
- No middle ground for political intolerance including religion, sex and gender.
- No room for labor exploitation, in most historical cases supported by the above systems of oppression.
For these reasons I was planning to debunk centrism, since there is no middle ground between freedom and Birkenau, as there is no middle ground between sense and nonsense (eg like antivaxxers and medicine, there is simply no middle ground). Therefore, centrism is also morally wrong.
Responding to centrists
But the arguments I was playing around with in my head for the defense of extremism kept popping up in random discussions I had around Lemmy. Some of them were too good to waste on some rando centrist drawing parallels between Democrats and Firefox 😂. I kept the part that most easily generalizes to the defense of extremism, and best underscores the hypocrisy, intolerance, and immoral compromise of centrists, who are themselves biased ideologues with their own set of material interests.
Here goes:
> I am a pragmatist, you are an idealist.
- This is not what these words mean.
- You don't get to define what other people determine themselves as.
- I am ideologue with certain material interests, and you are an ideologue with a different set of interest, who is willing to solve equations with human lives.
- A centrist although presenting as non-ideologue, is willing to protect his moderation bias even with the lives of other people he thinks as ideological purists.
- By continuously compromising with the worst amongst the humanity for precious election points he makes society worse for all of us.
- The real meaning of centrism is that you are flexible with your red lines against fascism and corporatism, and weigh human lives according to their ideological distance from oneself.
> history shows that “radical solutions” are almost always a mirage
We have LibreWolf, Mullvad, TorBrowser, which are all Firefox forks of course. If we are talking about possible extinction of the gecko engine perhaps we could have this discussion anew, but because these other projects exist, not because we have to support any ill advised move Firefox makes that time and again alienates this community.
To further this argument, there is, well, open source in general, which many people frame by the same "moderate-biased" arguments you propose. Nonetheless it exists and thrives, and it is well shown that the GPL licenses are better for developers. All this happens because of what you dismiss as "idealists", since the era of Creative Commons, Independent Media Center, and the Internet Archive, up to the Tor Project, Tails, SciHub and all other good things the internet has to offer comes from ideologues. Even Lemmy that you are currently using.
The centrist as intolerant, purist and conservative
So whatever is outside the centrist's tunnel vision is just non-existent. That makes the centrist an extremist naive empiricist, lacking non only object constancy but also the intellectual sophistication to stipulate configurations of the world outside his immediate and temporary surroundings.
The blithe centrist happily leeches off to preach ad nauseam that middle ground with spooks, fascists and advertisers is a universal truth we must blindly succumb to. Then it is shown that the centrist is not just naive or misguided but actively hostile and dishonest (see first section of this comment for evidence of logical inconsistency and dishonesty[^2]) with people of different opinions, so they prove themselves not to be centrist at all, but diet fascists.
To sum up, in this post I have shown that:
- Centrists can be tactically motivated and intellectually dishonest.
- Centrist are in fact intolerant of views different than theirs.
- Centrists are immoral and undemocratic, in their pursuit of middle ground with perpetrators of exploitation and discrimination.
- Centrists are in fact extremist in their naive empiricism, tunnel vision, and glorification of the status quo that was given to them, which is by definition conservative.
Combining common terms from the above propositions: Centrists are tactically motivated, intellectually dishonest, intolerant to difference of opinion, indifferent to the rights of others, immoral and undemocratic apologists of exploitation and discrimination, extremist in their empiricism and conservatism.
Centrist? Better call them sentries of the status quo. Disclaimer: I hate centrists with a burning passion.
[^1]: I have made my point very clear in this post, including the contributions of others underneath. [^2]: The rest of the comment overlaps with the second part of this post.
Nancy Mace tried to sell transphobic wrapping paper & failed miserably
> she tried to get wrapping paper made, presumably to sell to raise campaign funds.
> the wrapping paper and it had a pattern that alternated between a graphic that reads,
Spoiler
“No [picture of balls] in our stalls,” and her campaign logo.
> “My team just informed me that no company would make this wrapping paper for us because it’s too ‘offensive,'” she wrote.
Spoiler
“What I find offensive is men in women’s bathrooms.”
> “A sitting Congresswomen using a disgusting and bigoted slur about Americans who staged a nonviolent protest,” responded Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL). “People who use this type of despicable language should not be leading anyone.”
Black Republicans feel left out of Trump’s 2nd-term picks - ABC News
As President-elect Donald Trump fills out his Cabinet and closest advisers, African American Republicans ask why more Black people haven’t been selected.

geteilt von: https://lemmy.world/post/22733756
> The stupidity just burns so much.
Website of toxic "man-fluencer" Andrew Tate hacked with rainbow and transgender flags
> Tate is currently facing several legal investigations in Romania and the U.K. for rape and child sex trafficking charges. In recent comments, he has said men who enjoy heterosexual sex purely for pleasure (rather than for creating children) are actually gay. He has also said that women belong in the home, are men’s property, and bear responsibility for when they are raped.
> Near the end of last month, hackers reportedly said they were able to access The Real World’s data through a site “vulnerability” — they described the site’s cybersecurity as “hilariously insecure.” The hackers then gained access to the site’s 221 public and 395 private chat servers and also “to upload emojis, delete attachments, crash everyone’s clients, and temporarily ban people,” the group said in a statement shared by The Daily Dot.
> One chatroom user’s comments complained about the “LGBTQ agenda,” and others complained that the chat servers are “useless” due to “all the spam.”
The confrontation came at the end of a week when Mace introduced controversial measures in Congress targeting transgender people.

> Khanna responded to Greer’s criticism. “I deeply respect Evan Greer’s activism and courageous advocacy for trans rights. During my exchange with Rep. Mace, I stood up for Rep. McBride and reaffirmed that everyone should be treated with respect," Khanna told The Advocate in an email. "I am open to dialogue about how we ensure the Kids Online Safety Act protects both LGBTQ rights and kids’ safety.”
> Mace’s actions are part of a larger Republican strategy to use trans rights as a wedge issue, particularly ahead of the incoming Trump administration. LGBTQ+ advocates argue that these attacks perpetuate harmful stereotypes while distracting from pressing issues like housing and healthcare.
People who claim that other languages beyond C, C++ are BS. What is their deal?
I have met a couple of them in real life, and a few I have met online. The sample is not significant enough to draw any conclusions about their point of view and background.
I am more than interested in your opinions about the personality and political makeup of people who express this type of pro-C bigotry.
YouTube is destroying its creators
YouTube is burning us up... and it's not sustainable for much longer. ✔ SUPPORT ✔ ▶Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/jessiegender ▶PayPal - paypal.me/jessiegender ✔ CITED WORKS✔ ▶Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back by Julia Serano ▶More Than a Glitch: Confronting Ra...

This one was kind of harrowing to watch. It seems that YouTube uses a number of methods to suppress speech for LGBTQIA+ creators. Demonetization, Age Restriction, Strikes, Copyright Takedowns, let alone undue ones. What's worse, the same fascist demagoges who claim "They won't debate me" use IP laws to silence criticism, and violate community guidelines by spreading vile hate speech against minorities, earning money in the process! It is infuriating, and also keep in mind there is CW:Transphobia and Racism mentioned in the video.