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Squabbles, another recent reddit alternative, seems to be taking the doomed "free speech" path
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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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There's a lot of context. Basically, there's been a few weeks of controversy over whether anti-lgbt viewpoints would be allowed. This post (along with the removal of two admins) was a statement that anti-lgbt viewpoints are explicitly allowed on the site as long as they avoid slurs and direct incitement of violence. With a site population that leans pretty far left, this didn't go over well at all.
In other words, "you can pick on minorities as long as they aren't racial minorities." Yeah, great distinction.
I am curious why the allowance of anti-LGBT viewpoints is so controversial. As stated above, all of the basic rules of civility are still being enforced.
Let's say he decided to clarify that anti-Christian, or anti-capitalist viewpoints are not allowed. There are millions of people around the world who would claim such censorship is bigoted and narrow-minded. And they would be correct.
As long as people are polite to one another, what exactly is the problem with allowing people to express their perspectives?
This isn't a dispute over tax code or which Star Trek is better, this is a bunch of bigots declaring a group of people don't deserve to live and pretending they aren't awful bigots because they're doing it "politely". That's not a "viewpoint", that's a declaration of war.
also their actions have crossed the line into outright genocide
Oh boy, here we go.
Tell me, how many trans people have been rounded up and murdered for being trans?
I'm going to guess you don't actually know what a genocide is, otherwise you wouldn't be shitting on the poor souls that actually died in a genocide by suggesting that poor trans women not being allowed to compete with biological women is a genocide.
Who are you referring to?
I'm sure if anyone said that, they would rightly get banned. My question is why any disagreement or criticism is interpreted as a declaration of war?
LGBTQ people disagree vehemently amongst themselves about nearly every aspect of the LGBTQ experience. It's not a topic that is well understood by anyone, not even people who are a part of it.
Religion and Work are every bit as important as sexual identity, if not more so for many people. Christianity isn't Star Trek (at least not in the minds of Christians), yet we would consider a Christian who responded to honest criticism of their religion with hostility to be a narrow-minded fool at best, a dangerous zealot at worst.
Obviously there are debates going on in queer circles about politics and identity. None of those debates ask anything even remotely like “do queer people actually exist and if so do they deserve the same rights as other people?” That is the question conservatives seek to ask and the reason they want “free speech” on these platforms.
I see people claiming that's occurring far more often than I see it occurring. Maybe because the free speech sites I go on aren't just using as a shield for far right wing beliefs.
I also see plenty of people claiming that someone is denying them the right to exist for simply asking questions that aren't supportive. Yes, there are the assholes "just asking questions" in bad faith, but just as in the human body an overactive immune system causes more damage than it protects from.
The frequent immediate assumption of bad faith that seems to be commonly demonstrated by LGBT+ and allies when interacting with questioning viewpoints doesn't help the cause.
As others have pointed out, that sort of attitude from religious people would have them labelled zealots. Why is this suddenly acceptable when it comes to the often far more confusing and less accessible topic of sexuality and dysphoria?
I think maybe you should ask why people have no patience for just asking the Jewish question, or wondering why we don’t talk about how great it was for Black people to be slaves. Even if you are asking questions in good faith, the questions themselves can have flawed premises.
Generally public forums are not a great place to just ask questions, especially about sensitive subjects. Asking the people in question in their own forums in a respectful way will get you much further if you truly have questions that you are seeking the answers to.
No "conservatives" have ever asked "do queer people actually exist and if so do they deserve the same rights as other people?" though.
I'll ask you and I hope you can give me an answer since no one else has ever been able to - what human rights do trans people NOT have?
Nobody is born Christian or capitalist. People are taught it. It's not an innate property of a person. You can choose to not be either of those at any point in time.
If you're allowing this kind of discourse towards LGBT persons, communities, etc. but still enforcing anti-racial policies then you're obviously well uninformed and taking a specifically and completely anti LGBT stance, be it knowingly or unknowingly.
I would argue the same is true of LGBTQ individuals. I don't see how one could rationally argue that an infant emerges from the womb with a fully formed sense of sexuality. Sexual identity is a nebulous trait that develops throughout our lives, not an objective, immutable physical fact such as the color of one's skin or the chromosomes composing one's genetic code.
Many LGBTQ people transition through a number of different sexual identities throughout their lives. An innate property is something that cannot be changed.
I suppose that it's possible that we all get assigned a hidden number at birth that defines our sexuality absolutely, and people just struggle to figure out what their "number" is due to societal pressure, but that doesn't really jive with our understanding of human biology, like at all. Nearly every trait we have studied exhibits both genetic factors and environmental factors.
This seems pretty disingenuous. Sexual and gender identity is not changeable by people, even if it can develop or change over time; so discriminating against it is categorically wrong, as these “free speech platforms” seek to do. In that regard it is the same as skin color.
I don't believe in free will, so I suppose we have reached a stalemate. In my mind, one's religion or favorite color is no more of a choice than sexual orientation. But I understand that most people would disagree with that perspective, and trying to convince you that free will doesn't exist is beyond the scope of this discussion.
Huh? Isn't this literally the opposite of what the LGBTQ+ current ideology is? That gender identity can change at any given second of any given day, as often as you want?
No one is asking for "discrimination" against LGBTQ+ people though, they're just asking for people that don't agree with their ideology to not be harrassed, censored, and banned. Pretty hilarious when you think about it - the minority group are actively calling for "discrimination" against people that they disagree with.
Because these 2 things are not the same, and by conflating them as such, you pretty clearly show what side of the fence you fall on. Debating on whether or not minorities deserve the right to exist is not the same thing as arguing about which brand of magic sky-daddy you subscribe to.
"Anti-LGBT viewpoints" fall along a pretty clear line. The same one that "anti-Jewish" and "anti-Black" views fall on. That these minorities don't deserve the same rights granted to white people, or even that they shouldn't be allowed to exist period. There has never been any other view presented by "anti-LGBT" people. They seek to exclude minorities from everyday life and eventually kill them off entirely. The arguments they use today against trans people are the same they used against gay people, which are just rehashed arguments they used to oppose equal rights for black people. There's no politeness to be found there. Might as well say that we should hear the Nazis out on this "final solution to the Jewish question," so long as they're polite in their arguing their case.
Very few people declare themselves as anti-something. It's usually the mob that does that to individuals who say things that with sufficient amount of mental gymnastics can be made to sound like bigotry. This kind of thought terminating labels are the easiest way to get out of critical thinking.
And yet "anti-LGBT" was the term used by the comment above to describe the kinds of viewpoints that they're questioning why they aren't allowed. It's also the label used proudly by some of these groups themselves. Like the term TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) which was coined by the group itself, but was later claimed to be a slur by that very same group when they realized how the majority of people viewed them negatively because of it.
This isn't at all what anyone is saying though, and your side keep on trying to make it about that. No one thinks that LGBT people don't deserve the right to exist. Saying "hey guys, maybe don't have transgender people doing strip teases with sexual fetishes and inuendo in front of children" isn't "denying your right to exist". Saying "hey guys can you please not give books teaching kids about sucking dick and having anal sex to our 8 year olds?" isn't "denying your right to exist".
What rights don't trans people currently have that other people have? This is another of those disingenuous catchphrases that the "progressives" have. "trans rights are human rights!".....sure, so? What human rights don't you have? No one is denying you any rights.
I left my home because the leadership was getting so extreme, they decided that people no longer deserved healthcare because they were trans. I watched the governor crucify his own son, his child, over it. When people protested, even those in government, those government officials were formally gagged and kicked out of participating in government.
Those officials represented far more than just a few trans people. They represented entire districts in major cities. They represented families, straight and gay. Veterans, old and young, everyone. All because the leadership believed that a very small subset of the population, less than 1% of my country, should not have rights that other people have. The fact that they were willing to go to such lengths to deprive others of their rights just to get back at a small, peaceful group was astonishing.
We aren't talking about legions of vampires who need to eat people in order to live. We are talking 1 in 300 people who are just trying to get their prescriptions filled after work and now cannot without flying somewhere else.
I'm not even trans. But watching that Lord of The Flies style horror fest sent a chill up my spine. Society is only as strong as its weakest links, and when it breaks down, you don't want to be anywhere nearby when it happens.
When you say no longer deserve healthcare, what do you mean - full cut off of all healthcare, or just of “gender affirming care”? Like can they not go to a doctor because they have a sore foot? Or they just can’t go there to get bottom surgery and artificial hormones?
If it’s the latter, that’s not “depriving them of their human rights”. If it’s the former, which I’m 99% sure it isn’t, then yeah that’s crap. Places like Russia that are “banning” homosexuality etc are horrible, but that’s Russia and that’s the least of the problems. The western world doesn’t work like that.
It's the latter, for now. But those medicines aren't just used for trans people, they are used for all kinds of different illnesses. The fact that they didn't just strip it out of public healthcare, but private too, is a very bad sign.
Ok so it’s just fear mongering. No human rights are being denied, and no one is having their existence denied.
It actually does affect people when you can't get medications and when you are banned from school sports. Suicides skyrocket. People get harassed and stabbed because it emboldens people who would otherwise suppress their urges.
It would be in the same vein as if black people were refused drugs for sickle cell anemia. It puts people in a lower class when they are treated differently than the rest of the population. I know the same fear and hate the people in my state felt towards queer people, because I felt it myself decades before coming out.
No one is banned from school sports for being trans gender - they just have to play sports with people of their sex.
What about that stabbing has anything to do with the topic at hand?
Why do you people keep talking about "the right to exist"? That's nonsensical. You either exist, or you don't. No one can take your existence away from you, it's not a right that can be granted by others.
What you are really talking about is the right to make assertions about the nature of human sexuality without being challenged to provide evidence for those assertions.
It's quite clear that you have a persecution complex. I can understand why, I'm sure you've had some unpleasant experiences with certain people that have caused you to adopt this defensive posture.
However, your comment is absolutely reeking of in-group and out-group bias. Everyone who is part of your group is being unfairly persecuted, and everyone who is not part of your group is a genocidal Nazi.
Personally, I am fully in favor of any and all expressions of sexuality, as long as the resultant behaviors and belief systems can be debated and analyzed like any other human behavior or position.
To the neutral observer, it's apparent that certain online communities cough are echo chambers that refuse to engage in honest discussion regarding LGBTQ topics and vigorously attempt to expel and shame those who do not adhere to the party line. This may be beneficial to your self esteem in the short run, but it ultimately does a disservice to your goals, assuming that you intend to enhance the acceptance of LGBTQ culture in our society moving forward.
Because that's exactly the kind of "anti-LGBT viewpoint" you're asking about. You don't have to go far to find people claiming that being Trans is just a fad, or a cult of pedophiles trying to groom your children, or just mentally ill men, or a nefarious group trying to destroy young girls' wombs through dangerous surgery. The list goes on and on, and that's just the recent anti-Trans crusade. These are the kinds of views that they want to bring to social media sites and claim their free speech is being censored when they're punished for it.
And these views are having real-life consequences. It's now considered a sex crime for a man to wear a dress in Florida. For several years, transgender people were more likely to be the victim of a hate crime than black or Jewish people in the US, and there's been an increase of hate crimes against both of those groups as well in the past decade. 8 out of 10 trans women in the US will be victims of sexual assault. LGBT people are one of the most likely groups to be refused medical care, often under the excuse that "it goes against my beliefs." Some of these groups have even outright said that their goal is to "eliminate transgender people from public life, and eventually, existing entirely." Some have straight up called for a trans genocide.
These same kinds of arguments have been trotted out for gay and black men - "they're a bunch of pedophiles coming for your kids!" Or for lesbians - "they're just damaged women." Or my favorite, said by a 20-something year old coworker to a 16 year old lesbian coworker, "you're not a lesbian, you just haven't had a dick in you yet."
I could not have said it better myself. Time and time again, science has shown that not only do LGBT people exist, but also how damaging the anti-LGBT rhetoric is. And yet, the "anti-LGBT" jam their fingers in their ears and scream about "woke indoctrination" before returning to their echo chambers. And eventually, that's what these kinds of "free speech" platforms become. Echo chambers for hatred, as these people harass and drive off anybody with opposing views. As a wise bartender once said after kicking out a skinhead just for being a skinhead, "You allow one Nazi, and you no longer have a bar. You have a Nazi bar. Because if you allow one, then they'll bring their friends, and eventually, they'll force everyone else out."
Also, you seem to have fallen for the "both sides" rhetoric they use to make themselves look innocuous while villifying their opponents. Stuff like the people encouraging those who who called in bomb threats to Target and threatened their employees for daring to have a line of Pride themed merchandise by saying it was protesting - that it was the same thing as people marching with signs against police brutality. You talk about the in-group and out-group bias of LGBT people while conveniently ignoring the exact same thing from the other side. Ignoring that these "anti-LGBT" people think they're being unfairly persecuted and anyone who disagrees with them is a "woke" communist or whatever.
Well, I can't say I agree with you, but I do appreciate your viewpoint and that you took the time to explain where you are coming from.
I wish you would try to be more welcoming to people who aren’t already in your camp, but at the end of the day I can't blame you for trying to protect yourself and other people in the LGBTQ community.
But where in any of that is anyone questioning their "right to exist"? Nowhere. No one has ever questioned a trans persons "right to exist".
💯
Because the people that are calling everyone else "transphobic" and "fascists" and "nazis" can't see that they're the ones being fascists by trying to censor all differing views. They can't handle having people with different opinions and viewpoints, often because they can't actually defend their odd views themselves, so they prefer to kick up a stink and have all different opinions banned.