291–300 of 520 posts
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Probably in general, but not as much as you'd think. For example as a gay dude, people still hate gay guys (lesbians are far more accepted). But they're just much more quiet about it now, and even if they don't hate us we still "gross" many people out, which affects their decisions due to perception of us.
Unfortunately I think lesbians are only "far more accepted" in the sense that they turn on straight cunts rather than repulse them. The objectification and othering is the same.
And I'm not sure lesbians are "far more accepted", perhaps as long as they fit a traditional heterosexual idea of beauty and femininity and associated behaviour.
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As the parent of a child with Down syndrome, I really appreciate the way you and the parent comment approached this topic. Thank you. Tiny nit, in the US it’s “Down syndrome”, not “Down’s”. Apparently we name conditions with a possessive if named for someone with it (“Lou Gehrig’s”) and without the possessive if named for, say, the person who first described the condition in a medical journal.
In the UK for example we don’t go for this performative anti-apostropheism that Americans are so fond of. So it really depends on where you’re from.
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What? Are you talking about real, live people with Down Syndrome? Surveys have consistently shown that they and those who live with them (which is no safari) are happier than everyone else. That wouldn't make much sense if "most" of what they bring to the world is "unpleasant interactions."
Counterpoint. My youngest son has DS. He's an absolute nightmare sometimes. Whereas some children might get into a mood and be ok after an hour, he does not unless his environment is changed. He will literally scream or moan non stop for 6-8 hours (yes you read that right, and it's no exaggeration). He would do this when in environments he doesn't recognise, so imagine an airplane, imagine a restaurant, imagine a tri…
I've got a 13 year old daughter with DS. We don't have 6 hours of screaming but she has definitely thrown her share of hissy fits. My personal favorite was driving into my son's snooty private boy's school while she was sitting in the back without a shirt on (She was 12 at the time).
Or the time she decided to sit down in the middle of a busy street while we were trying to cross it and we ended up dragging her across the road skinning her feet and almost getting hit by a truck.
Usually she is happy and has tons of personality but it really does make things harder at times.
I should probably add my that my usual comment when anyone asks is that having a kid with DS sucks but not as badly as a lot of other disabilities.
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> Everyday I passed by the bus stop she would be dancing her heart out to a Britney track waiting for the bus and it made my world a little brighter. As someone who absolutely loves to "be weird", I often wish the world was so much friendlier to folks like this (other than in a token manner).
Is it just me or do I feel like the society is way more accepting nowadays? I had to pretty much hide who I was during school due to fear of bullying/ not fitting in but most kids these days seem to be able to be themselves in many ways. I agree we can be friendlier though!
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Because it's a form of eugenics, however far down the spectrum it may be. edit: I mean to imply here that the overton window is shifted, basically.
Correcting what is essentially a developmental defect (albeit a defect that occurs in the germ cells rather than in the womb) isn't eugenics. It's not caused by any genes carried by the parents, it's caused by a failure in the development process, specifically meiosis. Would preventing fetal alcohol syndrome be eugenics? It's caused by changes in gene expression from alcohol exposure after all.
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As the parent of a child with Down syndrome, I really appreciate the way you and the parent comment approached this topic. Thank you. Tiny nit, in the US it’s “Down syndrome”, not “Down’s”. Apparently we name conditions with a possessive if named for someone with it (“Lou Gehrig’s”) and without the possessive if named for, say, the person who first described the condition in a medical journal.
I don’t think this is true. Two counterexamples: Huntington didn’t have Huntington’s; Wilson didn’t have Wilson’s.
> Auto-eponyms may use either the possessive or non-possessive form, with the preference to use the non-possessive form for a disease named for a physician or health care professional who first described it and the possessive form in cases of a disease named for a patient (commonly, but not always, the first patient) in whom the particular disease was identified.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_diseases#Aut...
This is sourced by a link to the American Association of Medical Transcriptionists, which is not a body I’d heard of but I guess have some skin in the game when it comes to the intersection of medicine and grammar. https://www.mtstars.com/word-For-eponyms-AAMT-advocates-drop...
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The main evil of WW2 eugenics was preventing certain people from having children based on arbitrary rules. Aborting a fetus with trisomia so that the couple can try again for a healthy child is nothing like that.
It's no less arbitrary than deciding that gypsies, who engage in petty crime and mistreat their children, forcing them to become beggars and thieves themselves, should not reproduce. If anything, Down kids probably bring more good to society than gypsy kids. And forced sterilization is arguably more ethical than forced abortion. Same things goes for alcoholics and drug users. Privately, most people agree with this po…
The way people with trisomia function in society is also a product of our nurturing culture. It's only recently, when such people started living longer lives thanks to advances in medical science, that their intellectual development gained more attention and it was revealed that they can actually be more independent than commonly believed.
That being said it all requires a huge amount of effort and if a person with trisomia has siblings, they're very likely to be deprived of attention. Additionally, if they're a first child, they're the only one due to this. That is what makes it a net negative.
I think it is worth a separate research that modern definition of progressive thought considers eliminating/treating a genetic malfunction "unethical".
This is not an attitude exclusive to progressives. The chief grievance here is that the historical “solution” to the “problem” of Down Syndrome has been abortion. Opposition comes from the pro-life movement (which is generally conservative) and disability advocacy groups (which are generally liberal). A novel therapy that does not result in the termination of the pregnancy might satisfy the conservatives, but it does…
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> Yes, that is a legitimate argument to make in a cruel, uncaring (most of the time) world. No, it isn’t. “I wish you didn’t exist because your existence inconveniences me,” is a step away from “I should be able to kill you because you inconvenience me.” You will likely think that I am being hyperbolic (“We’re just talking about if it was a good idea for these people to exist, not saying we should be able to kill the…
Yes, I do think you’re being hyperbolic. We’re waging a life that doesn’t exist yet against two parents and possible a healthy child that could be. Accommodating for a human that exists, if suffering, is clearly a moral obligation. Doing so when it’s not a human but a husk still is not, and deciding in favour of the very human parents—who also have a right to happiness—is definitely ethically valid. In a related disc…