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The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

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Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#341
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem with trans people, but making someone like Rachel Levine woman of the year on the basis of her accomplishments does ignore something important. Namely that a lot of the 'woman of the X' awards are meant to inspire or encourage women in fields they are discouraged from, and that having been perceived as a male for a lot of her career meant that Levine didn't experience early career sexism and that so…

The question is whether a wrong (discrimination of women) can be fixed with another wrong (discrimination of transgender women) or should we just do what's right in the first place. The entire point is that we shouldn't build artificial obstacles anymore. The conservatives are obsessed with who's what color and gender, what they are doing in the bedroom or in the hospital, but we don't have to. None of this should ma…

Going forward, you're absolutely correct. I would have fewer objections to a Gen Z trans woman being woman of the year in 20-30 years, because odds are she could have transitioned young enough to be subject to sexism in her career and therefore yes, we should celebrate her overcoming that obstacle, just as we would a cis woman.

Also I have no problem with trans women receiving awards where they didn't have advantages for being AMAB.

> None of this should matter, not for an engineering job, not for anything.

It does now, though, and it has for the majority of the lives of people under the age of 20-25. Cis women Levine's age HAVE experienced oppression. Erasing that is also bad. Trans rights (and queer rights in general) have progressed quickly enough that this change has happened within one lifetime, so things get a bit weird.

I've seen something similarly in gay spaces, actually, as a cis lesbian. Younger people seem to think that those of us who were old enough to live in an openly homophobic society should just...stop being affected by that. It doesn't work that way.

> The entire cultural war is completely pointless.

I mean, I agree, but I can't talk to other lesbians without trans women being the center of discussion so. Now we get trolling from everybody. It's exhausting.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#342
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>exactly, so how is this any different? a black man legally changes his name because he considers his old name to be his "slave name", and almost every headline about him refuses to acknowledge this change. how is this different from Muhammad Ali? I'm not sure what this paragraph is trying to convey. Are you under the impression that Ye changed his name because it was his 'slave name'? >this is the crux of my questio…

a kid down the street from the house I grew up in moved to Hollywood to get involved in acting and changed his name but not his gender. he asked everyone to refer to him by his new name instead of his old one. how is this functionally different from someone changing their gender and their name at the same time, with regards to the name change? it doesn't matter why someone wants to change their name, they want to cha…

>a kid down the street from the house I grew up in moved to Hollywood to get involved in acting and changed his name but not his gender. he asked everyone to refer to him by his new name instead of his old one. how is this functionally different from someone changing their gender and their name at the same time, with regards to the name change? it doesn't matter why someone wants to change their name, they want to change their name, you should respect that.

I mean, are you arguing with yourself? I certainly never said you shouldn't respect peoples preferences.

>every headline and social media post I see that contains the string "Kanye" or "Kanye West", outside of those who couch it in the context of some variation of "Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West", proves that, despite all pretenses to the contrary, there is in fact a brazen double standard when it comes to asserting one's own identity in terms of LEGALLY changing their name, and having everyone else respect it, such that trans people are supposed to get special consideration in this regard compared to everyone else, somehow.

And when Elliot Page or Caitlyn Jenner publicly transitioned, the media did the same thing because using their former name provides utility.

You still seem really confused about what the issue is. People aren't being banned on twitter because they slipped up once and deadnamed someone, they are being banned because there is a coordinated campaign by conservatives to deadname trans folks in an attempt to bully and offend them. They are banned because the intent behind the action is to hurt.

>only extremely convoluted contemporary political pseudo-logic could explain how this actually makes perfect sense, how it's okay to call him Kanye West but it's not okay to call him Ellen Page, and how those two things are Actually Completely Different Situations instead of Exactly The Same Thing.

Again, you seem to be arguing with yourself. But you also seem to not understand the difference between accidentally using someones former name and purposefully using it as a tool to try and hurt them.

>the man has openly said as much; does his own position on his own identity not have any value to you?

At this point I'm pretty convinced you aren't actually reading anything, and instead are just responding with canned response.

> is that not the entire idea behind the concept of "deadnaming" to begin with?

No, and you don't seem to be familiar with what deadnaming is. If you follow that google link you can read some information on it so you understand it better.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#343

For what it is worth, I am a trans person. I believe Babylon Bee should've been suspended not because of any moral issue but because Twitter was not a governmental entity, and thus had any right to set policies as preconditions for its users' use of the service. No existing social media company is a public communications carrier. I wouldn't argue for the DNC having a right to have a Parler account, either. I'm a poor…

Parler would let the DNC on their site because it supports open debate. Using a powerful tech tool to shut off one side of a debate has led to young girls being injured for life trying to compete with men in sports like volleyball. Or cutting their breasts off when they are 15 because there is no other side to argue against it.

If Parler supported open debate, then the phrase "banned from Parler" would not yield the search results it does.

Your second paragraph uses the rhetorical device of an appeal to extremes.

Further, these "young girls" are trans boys/men who are becoming something in strong contrast to who they are. I know we disagree conceptually on that, but I would advocate that aside from the parent, the child, and the doctor, neither the state nor anyone else has standing to involve themselves in that decision.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact conservatives often go the length and argue against the very existence of transgender people, offering violence as a solution. This is just factually incorrect. Nobody denies people exist that identify as trans. Some people deny the identity is accurate, but no major conservatives are denying gender dysphoria is a thing. Are you seriously suggesting denying a self identity is denying the existence of that p…

I'm seriously suggesting that denying someone's place in society is denying their existence, yes. Conservative government officials, media commentators and militias are regularly attacking transgender people with real-life consequences. It's not just legislative attacks and information campaigns, but harassment and violent attacks. It's a culture of hate, and there is no excuse for it, and it should be called out.

>I'm seriously suggesting that denying someone's place in society is denying their existence, yes.

What do you mean denying someone's place in society? Are there are bunch of conservatives denying jobs to trans people or something?

You are being too hyperbolic.

>Conservative government officials, media commentators and militias are regularly attacking transgender people with real-life consequences. It's not just legislative attacks and information campaigns, but harassment and violent attacks.

Please show me conservatives physically attacking or advocating for the physical attacks against trans people.

Harassment is more of a subjective thing. Some people think the Babylon Bee's satire is harassment. I don't think it is. I also don't see any genuine harassment. Please provide examples.

>It's a culture of hate, and there is no excuse for it, and it should be called out.

I have yet to see any hate. Please show me some examples.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to Reimer was a travesty, and an affront to human decency on all levels. That doesn't change the truth that gender and biological sex are both characteristics of the human experience - usually they line up, and sometimes they don't.

>That doesn't change the truth that gender and biological sex are both characteristics of the human experience - usually they line up, and sometimes they don't. I think it does, as that's the foundation of the notion. Prior to that, they were completely interchangeable and authors would use "gender" to mean "sex" where it was considered more crass to say "sex". Gender is just a euphemism for sex.

You have causality backwards.

It was believed that since they were not the same thing it would be possible to safely raise someone as an arbitrary gender despite that not being the case.

The failure is in that both gender and sex are biological characteristics, and at that point in time Money believed that gender was strictly social - which is _clearly_ inaccurate.

In short - Reimer was forced into the life of being a trans person, despite having been born cis.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#346
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Took a look at these. Some should be deleted. "End white people" is arguably a call to violence akin to what gets the right banned. Some lack context. The first one, for instance, still exists but it's a reply to a tweet that doesn't. It's possible this is sarcasm. Some are clearly in bounds, like, what's Jack May's tweet saying that should be against the rules? (Third column). Or Lena Dunham arguing that we're not c…

Funny, I was expecting you to come up with some contrived justification as to why racism is totally different depending on what race it's against, like all leftists do, and you did exactly that.

I disagree, I believe racism, discrimination, and prejudice are all separate concepts.

Prejudice is the internal feeling that another group is inferior. Nearly all of the tweets above exhibited prejudice.

Discrimination is acting on that prejudice. Feeling someone is inferior is one thing, acting on it is a notable different thing. Again, nearly all the tweets there were discriminatory. No disagreements from me.

Here's where we'll disagree:

Racism is discrimination with social power. There's a clear difference between a weak, powerless group discriminating and a powerful group discriminating. In both cases, the discrimination is absolutely wrong. Discrimination against white folks is wrong. But it's clear there is some type of discrimination against a race where the powerful impact the minority disproportionally. Sentencing of criminals, for instance.

The phenomenon of disproportionate impact absolutely exists, but we can disagree whether that should be the definition of racism. That's fine. If you believe racism is "any discrimination based on race", then yes, these tweets would be racist. If you believe "racism is discrimination based on race with a systemic power imbalance", then no, most of these tweets are not racist.

I believe both definitions are valid and cultural. I'm happy to engage with your definition if it's different. Both definitions are in common use, and obviously clash, but I think it's useful to say, "which definition are we using, and using that definition, would these tweets be racist?"

There's no need for you to throw jabs or make sweeping generalizations. We, you and I, can chat politely about this.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#347
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She’s the same person!

They don't think so. Some claims that they were born with the wrong body, so their deadname was a mistake. This is why they call it deadname. Even if you are not transgender, just imagine changing your name, telling everyone about it, and someone would come along insisting on calling you using your former name, practicly mocking, belittling you and your choice. Now imagine them doing the same to your entire identity.

Similarly, a woman who exits a bitter and acrimonious divorce may change her name back to her maiden name, and hates it when people refer to her as "Mrs. Ex-Name".

Or a daughter who dislikes her father so much that, upon reaching adulthood, changes her surname because she wants to be completely disassociated from him. (In the case I'm thinking of, she said something along the lines "he wasn't my father, he was the sperm donor" - he left when she was a few years old.)

Personally, I understood the idea first through Malcolm X, who rejected "the white slavemaster name of 'Little'" he was given at birth. And the respect Howard Cosell had to refer to Muhammad Ali by Ali's chosen name, while most others used and even taunted him with his old one.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am all about being nice to people who live their lives however, but the idea of "gender" as a fluid philosophical concept distinct from sex is super squishy. It's massively overstating things to call it "settled science" or even "science" at this point. It's philosophy in theory and public opinion in practice. Science: this phenomenon exists and people exist who've had these experiences. That's a factual statement.…

When I talk about fluidity of gender, or gender distinct from sex, I start with well accepted terms. Consider: you would probably agree with me that a butch tomboy and a valley girl fashionista are both women. But they represent different extremes on what we, socially, agree femininity is. We might say the butch woman is less feminine than the valley girl. Likewise, we'd typically say Clint Eastwood is more manly tha…

My beef is with taking a particular set of social norms and calling it "settled science", then going a step further and banning alternate views.

I'm not even saying I have a problem with those norms, I like everyone, I just think it's an overreach.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Babylon Bee makes a joke about trans people how is that removing trans voices from the platform? If making a joke about a group is the same as encouraging violence or whatever then you can't make any jokes about people.

Why would I stay on a platform that lets people berate me? Independent of what my identity is? It's just a shitty experience.

If you think trans people shouldn't be allowed to be berated online then why not ban berating of Trump or whites? Why should their experience on Twitter be a "shitty experience"?

Regardless, you didn't answer my question: "If Babylon Bee makes a joke about trans people how is that removing trans voices from the platform?"

People voluntarily leaving is not removing voices.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I talk about fluidity of gender, or gender distinct from sex, I start with well accepted terms. Consider: you would probably agree with me that a butch tomboy and a valley girl fashionista are both women. But they represent different extremes on what we, socially, agree femininity is. We might say the butch woman is less feminine than the valley girl. Likewise, we'd typically say Clint Eastwood is more manly tha…

My beef is with taking a particular set of social norms and calling it "settled science", then going a step further and banning alternate views. I'm not even saying I have a problem with those norms, I like everyone, I just think it's an overreach.

That's fair! Science is never settled, in any field. It might be better to say something like, "the current consensus is tilting towards gender as a social construct, and sex being more complex than 'XX or XY'"?
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