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I think gus was actually right that sports, or at least elite adult athletics, are a sidetrack both because it's considerably less clearcut and effects a relatively tiny number of people in comparison to something like access to gender-affirming care, but since it's taken up a lot of space...

I've been on about this for years some of it I noticed at the time, some only retrospectively the wild rage of people showing up to Obama era town hall meetings to discuss healthcare reform and yelling about "losing my America etc" was a big touchstone. the toxic elements of late 90s/early...

I don't believe in social contagion in the literal mimetic, Burroughs language virus sense, even if it can be fun in speculative fiction

it's like anything. you could call it a contagion. or you could say that's it in large part a byproduct of identifiable historical forces - globalization, American political elites of both parties abandoning working-class people and issues, the culture war as backlash to greater social...

I also think it's impossible to separate in most cases external influence from internal motivation I know you said we're leaving trans issues out here to consider social contagion, but consider: undoubtedly acceptance of trans people has lead to more people transitioning in some capacity, and...

not really, no or rather, I think "social contagion" is just a way labeling of ideas you don't like every idea you come across in life is an idea that might influence you, and potentially "ruin your life" the idea of crypto, to take one example, has probably ruined quite a few lives. I...

like the fact that these people are touting drag queens - drag queens! - as a threat to America's children it beggars belief the actual greatest threat? that's right, gun violence, the leading cause of death for American children. of course hell would freeze over before the people banning...

I mean it's getting so grim over here that I half-expect some WH40K guy to pop up and be all "sorry yall, too grim for me, I'm going back to the grim darkness of the far future where there's only war"

and in re life or death panic modes consider this last week at CPAC - the biggest annual conservative conference - a wannabe Carlson named Michael Knowles said this I mean, no hyperbole, he literally sounds like a fucking Nazi and the entire conference was more or less one long howling...

basically everything they say on this is untrue that's part of what's so intense about it

and not all members have society have always been bound by the same norms. James VI/I of King James Version fame almost certainly had sex with male courtiers, or at very least was widely believed to have done so. Christina of Sweden presented in a way that we'd now recognize as something like...

I'll acknowledge you could get sidetracked into half a dozen rabbit holes here about the age of consent or consent and mental illness or etc I'm determined not to so I'll just say that as always - real life is messy and imperfect and cannot be contained by any set of laws or policies ever...

if you want to regulate something, there should be a good enough reason for it to curtail the individual's autonomy teenagers aren't considered capable of making their own decisions sans guardians. they're being protected from themselves. that's exactly why gender-affirming care - at the...

hey rich. I actually don't mind discussing sports, both because it's a personal interest and something I actually know a fair bit about, and because it's one of the only areas where people on both sides can and do make reasonable arguments in good faith. for example, I first learned about...

you say this conversation is unproductive and not going anywhere, yet you keep coming back to crudely hammer away at every old saw - bathrooms! Fallon Fox! cutting tits off! - in the book, so ipso facto you're unable to let it go. come on, if I'm wrong about you, tell me why.

feel free to tell us which part of that is incorrect, if any

because it seems very clear that the @Benny B worldview is thus "whatever you were assigned at birth by a doctor and/or your parents, that's what you are. it's set in stone. it can't change. any desire to change is actually a delusion brought on by social contagion and various quacks (for...

no equivocating, no sidestepping, don't bring up anything else yes or no

do you think trans people exist, yes or no?

then again since you clearly don't think trans people exist at all - Fallon Fox is a "male trans identified" not a woman - maybe for you it is simple