Okay, so, the culture wars go on, and the right continues to show their batcrap insane authoritarian tendencies, and this time Michael Knowles stated that "transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely - the whole preposterous ideology, at every level." I mean, yikes. The left is calling this a call for a genocide against transgender PEOPLE, while the right is saying "no no, we're not trying to kill the PEOPLE, we're trying to kill the ideology." So which is it? Well, thats what I'm going to discuss.
As you guys know, I used to be a right winger. And I also used to be a fundamentalist christian who was largely against LGBTQ+. This was back in the 2000s, when this was a bit more socially acceptable. You know, before 2012. And I would say I have a bit of insight into how the right thinks on this topic, so I'm going to go back and trace pre 2012 me's thoughts on the subject, and to try to contextualize this.
I will give a trigger warning, some people might be touchy over this subject, but I am trying to have a mature, adult conversation about it, and that means explaining the right's views in detail so that we can understand where they're coming from. I know SJWs are just gonna scream ERMAHERD YOU'RE GIVING THESE GUYS A PLATFORM! Or i'm engaging in hate speech or endorsing their views, but I'm really not. I have my own views on transgenderism, I'm generally speaking pro trans rights, and I'll be condemning this stuff later on, as I clearly don't have the same worldview of these people. But if you want to understand how these guys think, you need to understand their worldview.
So, the thing the left needs to understand is that the right has a much different worldview with much different philosophical assumptions. I always reference "Understanding the times" on this blog, and that's what we're going back to. So...the right tends to have their views based off a fundamentalist christian worldview. In their eyes, God created the world, he created humans in his image (because god is OBVIOUSLY male apparently, gotta give him that BDE), and he also created morality and morals that are eternal an objective in nature. This morality is based on the bible, which is, generally speaking, very conservative on sexuality. And the bible speaks regularly about "perversions" being ungodly and blah blah blah, and while we can have a historical discussion on what those perversions ACTUALLY were intended to be (uh, let's just say a lot of them like sodom and gomorrah were more rapey than just dudes wanting to do each other in the butt), generally speaking, the Bible has a very straightforward approach to sexuality. You're either born with a pp or a hole, and you put the pp in the hole only in the confines of marriage. Anything else is bad and goes against god's design or something.
In this sense, these christians are religious authoritarians who have a very black and white view toward both gender and sexuality. Gender is determined by birth, gender roles are a real thing, with males in the dominant role and women in the subservient role, and any deviation from the purported lifescript is bad and may be worthy of death according to the old testament. Now, modern christians (thankfully) wont enforce OT law to the letter in terms of stoning people or whatever, but they do seem to want to legislate this morality onto people. As they see it this is what "God" wants, so it must be true, and anything else must be wrong. Basically we're dealing with a bunch of religious zealots who have strong beliefs about the nature and role that people should play in society, and want to use the force of government to force it onto people. Obviously I am against this, hence my extreme disdain for religion, but yeah that's what they think.
Now, what does this have to do with calls for "eradicating transgender ideology?" Well, let me put it like this. I don't think that these guys are calling for killing all trans people. In the christian worldview, everyone is a sinner, and must be taught to resist their sin, and in their minds, ideas like homosexuality and transgenderism are examples of sinfulness. Basically, these guys literally envision the devil on everyone's shoulder, encouraging them to sin and break the objective morality of their creator. They don't see sexuality or gender dysphoria as just being wired differently and having urges that should be considered normal or at least not morally wrong. They see these things as SIN against GOD. And they don't tend to be supportive the concept of mental illness, as we've seen by analyzing understanding the times and their section on psychology. SO they just see these guys as being tempted by satan to want to commit unspeakable acts that go against god's morality. Gay people want to put pp in wrong hole, and trans people want to cut pp off. And they see this as evil. It goes against god and his design and his plan. And they see the left as designing grand ideologies just to justify their "sin". In a sense, postmodernism IS an ideology. It was a worldview in "understanding the times", and just as these guys are fighting their grand crusade against "wokeness" (postmodernism), their fight against transgenderism is an outcropping of this culture war.
So, that's where the right is coming from. I believe, when they're calling for banning transgender ideology, they're continuing their self righteous fight against "wokeism" in whatever form it takes. It's attacking an ideological worldview, although not necessarily the people within that worldview. To them, those who are in that worldview are ideologically indoctrinated, or in some cases, just plain coocoo (they do seem to selectively believe in mental illness when they can diminish other peoples' points). But generally speaking, they see it as a sin against god and his design and his order and blah blah blah.
So what are they calling for? More banning wokeism. Banning ideas, the ideology, that goes along with wokeism. What does that look like? Well, how did we treat the issue in past decades before this modern golden era of tolerance? I remember when I was a teenager and young adult like 10-20 years ago, that being gay was still largely unaccepted, and fundamentalist christians sent their kids to camps to pray the gay out of them and to try to brainwash them into being straight. So that's the kind of stuff I could see coming back. Again, to these people, this isn't their nature, this is a choice, and it is a choice enabled by sinful ideas and worldviews that go against god. So their solution is to try to ban any and all discussion of those worldviews, leaving only their biblical worldview left.
That's what these guys want. Now, I'm going to be honest, this is scary. It's extremely authoritarian, and these guys are essentially trying to ban people from discussing certain things that goes against their religion. I don't see this as a literal genocide against trans people, but it is very concerning nevertheless. The far right christians have been losing the culture war on the actual issues for a while, and as a response, their last gasp as america secularizes and people become more accepting of alternative ways of living, is to try to take over the government and force their ways onto the populace.
Basically, they want to make discussing transgenderism in a positive light illegal. They probably want to ban discussing the medical condition of gender dysphoria. And they probably want to ban people from transitioning.
Now, don't get me wrong, this is extremely harmful for trans people. The problem with people of this level of religious zealotry is a lot of them are difficult to reason with. Because even if you present facts you're kinda going against a lifetime of indoctrination. And they'll shut down any cognitive dissonance that makes them challenge their views. if the truth causes them to question their underlying assumptions, most will keep going with their underlying assumptions, and reject the evidence. I would know this because that's how I was at first. Then I shifted slowly, and then eventually I had a crisis of faith, and this caused me to leave the faith. But these guys aren't going to be more open to bending on this issue until they are well on their way of leaving the worldview. As long as the rest of that worldview remains strong, they'll be anchored where they are. It's why the right is so difficult to talk to and deal with, and why they're so resistant to facts.
Still, I would largely support talking to them than doing what the literal wokies and post modernists are doing. They seem to want to censor them, claiming they're "fascist" and crap. Again, I kind of see this behavior as dangerous just like the right's views are dangerous. We should keep an open spectrum of debate to discuss ideas. And ultimately, the correct ideas should eventually come out on top. Trying to just censor people and make them think one way is dangerous, and both sides of this culture war are intent on seeing the other side as a threat that can only be stopped by censoring them. Both need to grow up. Christians, you dont get to force your religion on people. And wokies, people have a right to be wrong. So thats where I'm a bit more centrist.
But generally speaking, I would say I side MUCH more with the left than the right on this issue. The fact is, gender dysphoria is a real thing, the most effective treatment is to allow people to transition to the other gender if they so wish, and honestly, it's no one else's business what other people do with their bodies here. While I support the right's right to believe whatever crazy crap they wanna believe, the second they try to force that stuff on others is when I come out swinging against them. We have freedom of speech and freedom of religion in this country. But you have no right to force your ways on others. And any laws that are not made to serve the objective, empirically supported well being of others, should not exist. You do not get to force your morality on the rest of us.
As such, I call on everyone to oppose the right. I dont think this quite qualifies as a literal genocide as the left would suggest (although given how central "identity" is to them I can see why they'd say that), but it is an authoritarian measure that should be stopped.
To some extent I feel like the modern left loses the plot sometimes. Again, my own version of left is derived from secular humanism, as a direct antidote to the right's fundamentalist christian worldview. And I wish we could fight this culture war on those terms. The postmodernist left is not helping. They're just being hyperbolic, and almost mirroring the religious right in zeal for advancing their own cause's ideology. As long as we keep having to fight the right from postmodernism, i fear the right will regain ground. As they're the boy who cried wolf, and they cry wolf over everything. And let's face it they're not pro freedom either.
We need a left that fights this authoritarian, fundamentalist christian worldview from the libertarian left. Not the ORANGE libertarian left, which is basically just its own weird version of auth left, but actual libertarian lefties. People who support the right of people to do whatever as long as they leave others alone. Trying to force your BS on other people is where i draw the line, it doesnt matter if you're left or right. We need to fight the culture war defensively, not offensively. We need to make them look like idiots while not making ourselves also look like idiots. This is where the modern left fails.
But yeah, that's my take on this subject.
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