*sigh* I'm still far too angry for most of this - reading it triggered multiple internal rants.
I'll post a sanitized version of one of them, responding to your quote from Matthew Yglesias, which started off looking promising.
I quote: "5. Race is a social construct, but biological sex is not. Policy must acknowledge that reality and uphold people’s basic freedom to live as they choose."
This is self-contradictory, or worse.
The question from where I sit, is whether gendered behaviour should be enforced on everyone, based on the theory that if you have an innie between your legs, you have certain traits, and should be required to act on them; ditto, with different traits, if you have an outie. People should absolutely treat you differently depending on what's between your legs. After all, "biological sex" is not "a social construct". (We'll ignore for the moment the small group of people with ambiguous genitalia. Presumably they all have only one of the two sets of traits, and should be required to act on that basis.)
The "reality" of biological sex would be a non-issue, without the requirement to "act your biological sex". The fact that Yglesias raises this point about biological sex, particularly in comparison with race, means to me that he is comfortable with that requirement, and doesn't make a distinction between biological sex and gendered traits and preferences.
The tack on about "people’s basic freedom to live as they choose" is a red herring, or a reference to race. Women should be free to live as all women are supposed to choose to live: as broodmares, servants, nannies, and whores. Men should be free to live as all men are supposed to choose to live, as leaders, rulers, violence specialists, and specialists in physical strength. Because biological sex is real, that's what they all want, and anyone who claims otherwise, even about themselves, is wrong. Or at least, that's the argument I've heard repeatedly.
Yeah I'm not quite sure what Yglesias means by #5 either. I guess we'll see, I'm sure he'll write about this more.
But to your other point -- I expect at least some of this to be upsetting to at least some people. But the goal of this post was to present a fairly wide range thoughts and feelings, so that's unavoidable.
I think you accomplished your goal here. The fault is mostly mine.
But OTOH, I'm old enough to remember when the beliefs I described above were mainstream, except for the slightly rude way in which I phrased them (references to genitalia, comparison with belly buttons). They *were* being challenged, by the time I was of an age to read widely, but in many social locations you had to be a serious rebel to think it was OK for a girl child not to delight in childcare, or a boy child not to delight in violence.
I don't have any contact with real people who appreciate Trump. My last such relationship ended up on hold during the covid lockdowns - we didn't have any actual fight, but haven't seen each other since a get together where he overrode the preference of some people in the group to eat their burgers outdoors, reducing infection risk. Theoretically we're still friends and ex-colleagues, not to mention sometimes bridge partners - but he dropped the bridge club entirely, perhaps because he remarried - people change hobbies in such circumstances - and perhaps because it restarted with rules about masks and vaccines. (The friend was already anti-vax before covid.)
So I'm left to speculate about how far they'd go willingly, and how far they actually want to go, based on indignant news reports and the behaviour of their lunatic fringe. I figure there's a majority in favour of the conditions of the 1950s, that drove my mother to alcoholism, with a few modern exceptions - middle class women working probably being one of those exceptions - which might in fact have been enough to save my mother from her depressive spiral and the resulting substance abuse.
*sigh* I'm still far too angry for most of this - reading it triggered multiple internal rants.
I'll post a sanitized version of one of them, responding to your quote from Matthew Yglesias, which started off looking promising.
I quote: "5. Race is a social construct, but biological sex is not. Policy must acknowledge that reality and uphold people’s basic freedom to live as they choose."
This is self-contradictory, or worse.
The question from where I sit, is whether gendered behaviour should be enforced on everyone, based on the theory that if you have an innie between your legs, you have certain traits, and should be required to act on them; ditto, with different traits, if you have an outie. People should absolutely treat you differently depending on what's between your legs. After all, "biological sex" is not "a social construct". (We'll ignore for the moment the small group of people with ambiguous genitalia. Presumably they all have only one of the two sets of traits, and should be required to act on that basis.)
The "reality" of biological sex would be a non-issue, without the requirement to "act your biological sex". The fact that Yglesias raises this point about biological sex, particularly in comparison with race, means to me that he is comfortable with that requirement, and doesn't make a distinction between biological sex and gendered traits and preferences.
The tack on about "people’s basic freedom to live as they choose" is a red herring, or a reference to race. Women should be free to live as all women are supposed to choose to live: as broodmares, servants, nannies, and whores. Men should be free to live as all men are supposed to choose to live, as leaders, rulers, violence specialists, and specialists in physical strength. Because biological sex is real, that's what they all want, and anyone who claims otherwise, even about themselves, is wrong. Or at least, that's the argument I've heard repeatedly.
Yeah I'm not quite sure what Yglesias means by #5 either. I guess we'll see, I'm sure he'll write about this more.
But to your other point -- I expect at least some of this to be upsetting to at least some people. But the goal of this post was to present a fairly wide range thoughts and feelings, so that's unavoidable.
I think you accomplished your goal here. The fault is mostly mine.
But OTOH, I'm old enough to remember when the beliefs I described above were mainstream, except for the slightly rude way in which I phrased them (references to genitalia, comparison with belly buttons). They *were* being challenged, by the time I was of an age to read widely, but in many social locations you had to be a serious rebel to think it was OK for a girl child not to delight in childcare, or a boy child not to delight in violence.
I don't have any contact with real people who appreciate Trump. My last such relationship ended up on hold during the covid lockdowns - we didn't have any actual fight, but haven't seen each other since a get together where he overrode the preference of some people in the group to eat their burgers outdoors, reducing infection risk. Theoretically we're still friends and ex-colleagues, not to mention sometimes bridge partners - but he dropped the bridge club entirely, perhaps because he remarried - people change hobbies in such circumstances - and perhaps because it restarted with rules about masks and vaccines. (The friend was already anti-vax before covid.)
So I'm left to speculate about how far they'd go willingly, and how far they actually want to go, based on indignant news reports and the behaviour of their lunatic fringe. I figure there's a majority in favour of the conditions of the 1950s, that drove my mother to alcoholism, with a few modern exceptions - middle class women working probably being one of those exceptions - which might in fact have been enough to save my mother from her depressive spiral and the resulting substance abuse.