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Growing Up Alyssa

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Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#11
post #2

I think the right has seized on trans people because it's become socially unacceptable to go after gay people (at least directly), so going after trans people is a substitute. "Othering" some group and uniting people against them is powerful brain stem stuff, and elections these days are won or lost on turnout rather than changing anyone's mind. I'm not sure what they're going to do when there aren't any groups left…

> I'm not sure what they're going to do when there aren't any groups left to "other."

Sadly, this will never happen. We've been at this for tens of thousands of years, and we always find "others."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANNX_XiuA78

Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#12

The whole discourse over this in the US is getting nuts as of late. We justifiably get annoyed when uninformed lawmakers make sweeping laws without understanding the technical issues involved. It's frankly bizarre to have some 80 year old fossil who can barely understand using a cell phone be involved in something like deciding net neutrality or AI regulations. We should be equally annoyed at the current trend of thr…

It distracts from the economy. Simple as that.

Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#13
« I’m on the board overseeing Linux graphics. Half of us are trans »

From a purely statistical POV, this is absurdly bizarre.

Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#14
> if you vote Republican in 2024, you vote erasure. You vote oppression. You vote fascism

As a registered independent who finds both major parties unconscionable, this line of argument worries me. Frankly, members of both parties can ascribe the worst possible motives to those who vote for the opposition, precisely because both parties are a massive tangle of complex social, economic, political, and administrative issues, not necessarily all consistent with each other, and very often only invoked when it's politically convenient.

I'm not trying to engage in false equivalence here, because it is absolutely possible for one party to be worse than the other. But what I'm saying is that ascribing the worst possible motives to those who don't vote like you is only going to inflame our already polarized political discourse, and my great fear is that if the flames are fanned enough, we're going to end up how Rwanda ended up when the hatred between the Hutus and Tutsis boiled over.

Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#15
post #3
post #2

I think the right has seized on trans people because it's become socially unacceptable to go after gay people (at least directly), so going after trans people is a substitute. "Othering" some group and uniting people against them is powerful brain stem stuff, and elections these days are won or lost on turnout rather than changing anyone's mind. I'm not sure what they're going to do when there aren't any groups left…

The most vociferous "anti-trans" people tend to be left-leaning feminists, in my experience.

And your comment might even be relevant if “left-leaning feminists” were a non-fringe political power threatening to take over legislative, executive, and judicial branches of power. We have real problems to deal with, not some imaginary “bad feminism”.

Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#16
>I fear the 2024 election

You and me both :(

With you being young and hopefully on social media, I hope you can help turn out the youth vote. I hate to say this, most people of my generation are about as close minded as a person can get, and sadly they turn out to vote in large numbers. And many of them vote only for hate.

I think the future of the US rests on your generation shoulders, and I hope your generation is stronger than mine is/was.

Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#17
post #2

I think the right has seized on trans people because it's become socially unacceptable to go after gay people (at least directly), so going after trans people is a substitute. "Othering" some group and uniting people against them is powerful brain stem stuff, and elections these days are won or lost on turnout rather than changing anyone's mind. I'm not sure what they're going to do when there aren't any groups left…

> I'm not sure what they're going to do when there aren't any groups left to "other."

There's always going to be an "other". If necessary, some arbitrary social divide will be invented. Most of the "groups" we've split ourselves into are not particularly meaningful to begin with, and it doesn't take much to become an outsider when people really want there to be outsiders.

Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#18
Right wing political parties in the world are taking a crusade against LGBT rights. In brazil the situation is ridiculous: a parliamentarian used the tribune in the International Womens' Day to attack trans women[1].

A significant part of the population is against against trans rights basing their arguments on religion and "morality". There are great efforts to ban even talking about it in schools.

brazil is the country with highest number of trans people killings in the world[2] and homophobia is the rule rather than the exception.

There's is a reason why most women and LGBT people in brazil vote for left-wing politicians.

[1] https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/modern-day-censor...

[2] https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2022/01/23/brazil-continues-...

Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#19
post #13

« I’m on the board overseeing Linux graphics. Half of us are trans » From a purely statistical POV, this is absurdly bizarre.

It's not a random pick from the population, or the 95% male ratio in engineering would also be somewhat weird.

They have a small team: https://asahilinux.org/about/

People like to team up with others like them, so the fact that they're more likely to collaborate with other trans people is not weird at all.

Re: Growing Up Alyssa

#20
post #14

> if you vote Republican in 2024, you vote erasure. You vote oppression. You vote fascism As a registered independent who finds both major parties unconscionable, this line of argument worries me. Frankly, members of both parties can ascribe the worst possible motives to those who vote for the opposition, precisely because both parties are a massive tangle of complex social, economic, political, and administrative is…

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