I saw a discussion thread on whether anyone has shifted people on the right left on social issues, specifically trans issues, and given this forum is notorious for not appreciating my help at reaching out to right wingers, I figured I should respond here instead.
I actually had a discussion with one of my best friends recently on trans issues. He was posting about how some trans olympic athlete didn't get to even do one rep with weightlifting, and was making fun of the person, so I kind of discussed it with him.
Essentially, my pitch is to take the libertarian approach of letting people live their lives and be tolerant of others. I'm not sure the dude changed his mind a lot, but I think I made a convincing argument nevertheless. I honestly don't understand why the right CARES so much. So a person is trans. So what? Let them be. Let them go to whatever bathroom they want. Let them change their gender. Let them get sex reassignment surgery. From what I understand, transgender people deal with...issues. Gender dysphoria is a documented mental condition, and it seems to be hell for those who experience it, and many people even commit suicide. If letting them change their gender improves their mental health, why should we not allow it? I don't get why the right cares so much.
Some of it is religion. Religious people often have a mentality of "God says so" based on their authoritarian abrahamic ideology, and uh, that stuff has no role in politics.
Heck, I'm going to be honest, I used to be religious. I was against gay marriage back in the day. My whole argument was based on what was "natural" (logical fallacy) and what "God" wanted. Uh, yeah, I was wrong for that. And I realized those ideas were harmful later and left religion in part over this growing difference in values. I realized I couldn't accept an authoritarian religion that didn't allow people to come to conclusions based on logic, but instead just forced its edicts on people, and they are not to be questioned.
The fact is, take religion out of it, and other weird slippery slope arguments about the "downfall of society" and what are you left with? Nothing. I'd argue the strongest arguments convincing people on the right like me to accept homosexuality and gay marriage is that it doesn't affect me. And it doesn't. It's not like Lewis Black's gay banditos are going to break into my house and start cosplaying Rammstein's "Buck Dich" on the kitchen table. No. What consenting parties do in the bedroom doesn't affect me, its none of my business, and I have no compelling reason to restrict their activity. Note how this does allow for people having personal conservative values. Just like with abortion, where some democrats are publicly pro choice but privately pro life, some people might be conservative in their own personal lives. And that's okay. As long as their views aren't harming others, I don't see why their attitudes should matter either.
See how that works? Just apply the same arguments to transgenderism. Let people live their lives as they want. They have a documented mental condition (gender dysphoria), they wanna change their gender, let them. It doesn't impact you, does it? Trans people aren't whipping out their penises in bathrooms and pushing them on people like what some right wingers think. Let them use their bathroom of choice. Let them do what they want, as long as there is not a legitimate reason to stop them.
Notice how most arguments on social issues can easily be resolved with this framework. However, the left takes the wrong approach. Instead of just convincing people to not care, that's the thing, they want people to care a lot. They want affirmation. They want people to virtue signal their right to be gay or transgender. They want people to use their preferred pronouns. I've even seen some accuse others, including myself, of bigotry because I've openly said I wouldn't sleep with a trans person before.
Now, to go into that, let me briefly lay out my arguments. This is where my approach differs from the left. The left wants to force their ideas on others. Much like the religious right does. I just want to reduce the harm out of peoples' existing views by pushing a libertarian framework of staying out of each others' way. People can still have conservative views, and to be honest, on transgenderism, my views aren't fully "left". The fact is, while I understand the purpose of affirming a person's preferred gender to ease whatever mental anguish they have, I'm not convinced that one can ever fully change what sex they are, physically. You can change the hormones and get surgeries, and I admit, gender is relatively fluid. But they're always going to have birth gender chromosomes, and I'm going to be honest, the idea of sleeping with someone not born female has a certain ick factor I can't control.
I mean, sue me, but I can't control who I'm attracted to. I'm straight. Im a male. I want to have sex with women. Born women. Not women who used to be men. Or men who used to be women either. I have no ill will against trans people, I wish them the best with their lives, but my own personal line on the matter is that if it doesn't affect me I have no right to tell others what to do. But the idea of having sex with someone clearly does affect me, and this is where my views go against liberal orthodoxy.
You have a right to have sex with whomever you want, as long as they're a consenting adult and you're not going all "Mein Teil" or something like that. But so do I. And I also have a right NOT to have sex with anyone. Virtue signallers love to point out I'm not entitled to sex all the time. But suddenly I'm a bigot if I turn someone down for certain reasons? Again, can't control whom I'm attracted to, and I'm not sorry. Transgender people can do whatever they want with consenting parties, I don't want to stop them, but don't force it on me.
This really separates my position from that of an SJW significantly. My ideology is based on mutual respect and liberty. People are free to do what they want until they interfere with someone else negatively. SJWs want everyone to positively affirm their ideology in a cult like way and any dissent is seen as a form of blasphemy. But you know what? That obnoxiousness and self righteousness is what keeps the culture war going. Because then the right hates the SJWs, and they start virtue signalling their own stuff, where they have to get in trans peoples' faces and insist that theyre their birth gender, and that's disgusting too. Just because you don't fully believe they're the opposite gender doesn't mean you should tactlessly go up to people and SAY it to them in a mean spirited way. But that's kind of the natural consequence of the left being too forceful in shoving their ideology down peoples' throats. It makes people who otherwise wouldn't care, care, where they become mean spirited and push it back the other way.
Honestly, I really think my approach would win over a lot of right wingers and de-escalate the culture wars. I want transgenderism and other social issues like this to turn into what happened with gay marriage. The left wins, and then we move on. Focusing too much on it distracts from more substantive economic issues IMO.
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