Eutychus
Doublethink
Shipmate
in Hell
From the Transgender thread:
Yes, I know this is short of context and you no longer afraid a trans person will reach through the computer screen and rip your cock off, or what ever you irrationally feared would happen - good, well done.
However.
If you declared you used to have an irrational fear of black people, I would say you used to be racist - not do a highly suspect etymological dance around the subject.
Which matters because I believe half your engagement to on that thread and the related Styx thread, is because accepting the arguments about impact of the way the debate is conducted on trans people means accepting that you were once prejudiced about them.
It threatens your concept of yourself and that’s why you don’t want to hear it.
(Please note that for the sake of argument, I am not contesting your self assertion that you have entirely sorted your ‘irrational fears’ out now.)
It pulled me up short to realise I would probably never have started interacting with her had I known she was transgender, through sheer phobia, in the proper sense of the term: an irrational fear.
Yes, I know this is short of context and you no longer afraid a trans person will reach through the computer screen and rip your cock off, or what ever you irrationally feared would happen - good, well done.
However.
If you declared you used to have an irrational fear of black people, I would say you used to be racist - not do a highly suspect etymological dance around the subject.
Which matters because I believe half your engagement to on that thread and the related Styx thread, is because accepting the arguments about impact of the way the debate is conducted on trans people means accepting that you were once prejudiced about them.
It threatens your concept of yourself and that’s why you don’t want to hear it.
(Please note that for the sake of argument, I am not contesting your self assertion that you have entirely sorted your ‘irrational fears’ out now.)
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
DT
HH
If you don't usually post in Hell, these guidelines are for both your education and your protection.
Again, no problem in accepting I was once prejudiced in that respect.
It's kind of ironic in the context of a debate about people's right to affirm their own concepts of themselves that you feel free to impose your ideas as to mine.
As far as I'm concerned, my life is (amongst other things) an endless succession of discovering my multiple prejudices, trying to overcome them, feeling all smug about it, discovering new ones, and sometimes discovering that the ones I thought I'd overcome were still lurking there.
That leaves me trying to adjust my behaviour in that respect, first and foremost in RL.
Where did I assert that? I'm sure I haven't entirely sorted them. What I can say is that I doubtless still have prejudices, and have more I haven't discovered yet.
I honestly don't know which arguments you are referring to. To the best of my knowledge, I have never denied the potential impact of the way the debate is conducted on trans people. Can you provide an example?
Where I think we differ is in whether that potential impact should alter the Ship's policy in this respect further than it already has. I have my own views on that, and they happen to align more or less with current Ship policy for now, but as has been pointed out the policy as announced is not mine, but a policy agreed by the Crew. I suggest you take that part of your complaint to the Styx.
==
*And @lilbuddha, it is total bullshit to allege that what I wrote was or that I
As is obvious to anybody who reads what I said in context, it was a straightforward reply to a straightforward question at the end of the immediately preceding post:
BTW, that you reply to my comment before addressing the one that opened this thread is telling.
My reply to GK was the straight-up truth as far as I'm concerned.
Typical of yours is to throw all types of shit, indiscriminately, and see what sticks. You can't fault my argument so you try and find a different fault. Phobia is by definition irrational. And I never claimed my prejudice had been overcome. I told the straight-up truth about what it did do.
(I do however note that you are joining the long line of people eager to explain my internal thought processes and motive and assume they match yours).
I think it's telling about your ability to read. I composed most of my reply to DT before you started doing Hell by proxy in the Styx, as is evidenced by the fact that it comes at the top of my post, and added my response to you after I'd finished composing to DT. The reply to you is a footnote and came later. I considered putting it in a second post but decided against it. That is the straight-up truth. No doubt you'll be along to tell how this reply is framed in a way to make me look good, or throw something else.
But rather than derail this further, I am going to stick to the referenced post.
You claim an irrational fear, I claim bullshit. Why? Because irrational fears are not overcome by a few exchanges, because they are irrational.
You want to posit your phobia in the context of something like agoraphobia, when it seems more apropos to something like homophobia. Which is prejudice.
Your account of your interaction reads exactly like the process of working through prejudice and even references other prejudices.
And working through prejudice is a good thing.
However, using the incorrect definition of transphobia does not help in a discussion of transphobia.
In doing so you minimise the problem and give excuse.
Interesting point. It is hard to see what transphobia and arachnophobia have in common.
True. But is fear of trans people even a thing? One can deduce a logical basis to claustrophobia and at a stretch agoraphobia, but what logical basis can there be for a fear of trans people?
One could perhaps see a person who has difficulty accepting trans people as having a form of OCD where the existence of trans people interferes with their need for order.
@lilbuddha it's hardly my fault if I come to my senses faster than you.
Overcoming an irrational fear is NOT coming to one's senses. One can intellectually understand why the fear is irrational. That does not describe what you posted.
But a fear of trans people is not the same kind of fear as one might have of restricted spaces or spiders. We call racism racism and no one thinks it needs some "phobia" attached to it. Calling it a phobia of any kind exonerates the person who has it.
Does no one have a freaking dictionary? There are all sorts of fringe reasons one could have transphobia, the far and away most common reason is prejudice. Occam's motherfucking razor, people.
Prejudice is the result of an irrational fear or hatred but I don't think it's synonymous with the irrational fear/hatred.
Or, I would add, extrapolating from scant evidence (such as one bad experience with a black person or a gay person) to imply a sweeping generalization(s) about the whole.
(My emphasis)
Firstly, I note your response that you were meaning to convey that you had been prejudiced - which is not how I had interpreted what you wrote - I apologise for misinterpreting that.
I nonetheless believe you are allowing waaaaay too much benefit of the doubt in thinking about the border between ignorance and bigotry.
Speaking as member of the lgbt community, the way you post reads as somewhat like engaing with someone who is saying “I’m not racist but I just want to have a reasonable discussion about immigration, some of my best friends are black”. Or perhaps more accuratetly, “I’m not racist but I just want this nice white chap to be able to have a sensible discussion about immigration, because talking to those dark chaps really made me have a bit of a rethink.”
The queer community don’t exist to help you on your life journey.
You keep stating this is a debate forum, well yes, so it is - it’s not therapy or personal development work. So debate needs to be in good faith, not a case of - convince me you’re not disgusting and corrupting children with strange ideas and vats of hormones at the drop of a hat. Your not ? Oh but here is some shite ‘information’ I found and spent less than nanosecond evaluating, rinse and repeat 14 times. If you see that, and think it’s not bigotry, you are blind to bigotry.
Of course not, but it's a fact that my life journey has been changed by longsuffering denizens of Dead Horses who have been willing to interact. That's their choice; if others don't want to engage, that's fine by me.
Um, yes, of course. But it's a good place to come and ask good-faith questions and get reasoned answers. I really don't think rephrasing your opponent's arguments in more extreme terms is good faith, and I don't think your quarrel in respect of that caricature is with me. But why should I see it? My Purg hosting days are long gone.
Google tells me that word means To me, branding somebody a bigot basically means accusing them of refusing to change their deeply entrenched opinion - often to another deeply entrenched opinion that is deemed preferable by the holder.
*Sigh* @lilbuddha if you would like to in your own mind edit the part of my post @Doublethink quoted and replace the words "phobia, in the proper sense of the term: an irrational fear" with "prejudice", go for it with my blessing.
I made that clear in my first post on this thread (in the part that wasn't all about you that you may understandably have missed), @Doublethink has understood that, she and I have cleared up the misunderstanding, and I'm done with regard any further exegesis of my post from you along those lines.
Lilbuddha, you basically just don't like Eutychus. Why don't you just say so, and quit trying to rationalise it?
"I cannot be sexist because I just gave a talk about women" and such.
I will not stir the pot
I will not stir the pot
(That exercise got a lot easier after copy and paste was invented)
But is it fear? More like irrational hatred in most cases.
Yes, what's to be afraid of? Cooties? Transmission of transgenderism (aka transtrans)? That they'll swarm the church and turn the whole enterprise into a pansexual love feast?
Two folks in a theatre company I belonged to for a couple of years: one transitioning female to male, one transitioning male to female. In both cases, I found it hard to relate to them. In both cases, the persona projected seemed almost gender parodies. He came across as a sort of salesman hail-fellow phony; she came across as shallow and air-brained.
But this may be unfair, because we are talking about American theatre, which attracts a fair number of folks who are odd in any number of ways -- a bit "bigger than life," people who are "on" all the time, on and on. I decided that these two folks were just "theatre-odd" and this had nothing to do with their trans status. I still wasn't comfortable with either of them, wouldn't have befriended either, but managed OK work relationships with them.
Two folks in two different church groups, both male-to-female trans: In both cases, I found them completely unrelatable. One I couldn't stand because she was constantly begging for reassurance about her femininity, and that's a topic that I can stay interested in for maybe 3 minutes before turning to the weather, the sermon, the outreach committee, the fundraiser, etc. People who need constant reassurance about something or other bug me. I'm prepared to offer some, but once I've given it, let's talk about something else.
The other person would go on endlessly about her various procedures, medications, upkeep, and so on. It was like visiting with one's elderly aunt whose life has contracted to a round of doctor visits, and has either never developed outside interests or lost them, and all she has to occupy her now is her gout and her arthritis and her edema and her bowels. I understand that the medical aspects of transition are a staggering commitment, but again, couldn't we talk about the sermon instead of your record number of enemas?
Does this make me transphobic? I wasn't afraid of these folks; I didn't hate them; I just wasn't interested in them.
The reason this is stupid is that men have always been able to dress up as women and infiltrate the ladies' room. The existence or recognition of Trans people doesn't change this a whit.
Rendering that whole line of reasoning (line of fear) totally absurd.
* been there, got that t-shirt - we had a man or men accessing all the female only places at university: the women's toilet was isolated up a flight of stairs from the rooms used. After at least one rape there were eventually rape alarms fitted. I encountered a peeping tom in that space before the alarms, others had faces peering over into their baths.
Exactly.
I can't speak for Eutychus's past emotions, but I can well imagine that for some people, when they see a trans person, they have an emotion that carries all the symptoms of fear (whatever these are for that person), but they don't know exactly why.
Me too, but that wasn't what I was talking about.
Am I the only person who may instinctively not gravitate towards certain people purely because I'm unsure how the interaction might go (or alternatively because I make negative assumptions about how it might go)?
Maybe many of the Shipmates who don't understand that aren't wired for negative instincts or knee-jerk fears? They sound like they've never been uncomfortable with any person's differences, of whatever type.
FWIW.