this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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[–] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 33 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (3 children)

I think most commenters here are missing the point.

There is a more extreme reaction to transgender people as opposed to gay or lesbian people, because of issues like sports and bathrooms. And that hits at people's sense of injustice. For example if you have a young daughter, a lot of people will hate the idea of a person with a penis going into the women's room and being around there little girl. Or if that daughter grows up and joins a sports team, the idea of somebody who is hormonally male and thus naturally more muscular competing against your daughter is unpleasant.

Put differently, I think a lot of people we now classify as 'transphobic' don't actually have much problem with trans people themselves. Rather, with how the efforts to ensure trans people receive the full treatment of their chosen gender can affect the rest of society.

For me personally, I don't know what the answer is. I generally don't care which bathroom you use as long as you wash your hands. I have no problem with anyone presenting themselves to the world as whatever they wish, if it makes you happier than by all means. At the same time though, I don't think it's transphobic to point out that somebody who is largely or entirely biologically male will have a natural competitive advantage in the field of sports.
So while I certainly don't want to exclude anybody, I think there is at least a little justification for restricting some women's sports to those who are genetically female.

[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I think I've heard there are a lot of genetically male, but born female people in sports. I wonder if the same people are against those people playing in sports.

Idk how many transphobic people just care about specific issues. There's a lot of "groomer" rhetoric, hate, and general disgust. It's easy to get people to hate what they don't understand; and a lot of media is trying their hardest to cultivate hate against trans people to create an out-group, so they can control the in-group.

[–] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 4 points 3 hours ago

create an out-group so they can control the in-group

That's not just the media. It's basically everyone in power. Media, politics, government, corporations... Everyone.

It applies to the Democrats too. Especially in the 2016 election, they managed to successfully make Republicans the out-group. But I believe that was hugely damaging to the country, it created a lot more division when what is really needed is unity to focus on the issues that most people can agree on.

Because here's the cold truth- there is a body of policies that probably 80% of Americans would agree on. Things like efficient government, ending government corruption, reducing corporate control over government and elections, reducing income inequality, etc.
To quote Dylan Ratigan's famous rant, the United States is being extracted. And I think most people would like to stop that extraction.
But no major candidate stands for that. Bernie did, but the DNC iced him out because their wealthy corporate donors didn't want Bernie.

And that in my opinion is why Trump won. Harris certainly didn't push any major message of radical reform, just a bunch of the usual 'help the middle class' talk. Trump may be terrifying, but he does push a message of radical reform and changing the system.
To write that off and say half the country is racist or misogynist is to avoid learning from this situation.

[–] CitricBase@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

I think that one thing you and other centrists are missing is that any kind of regulation isn't just a regulation on trans women, it's a regulation on ALL women. It won't be just trans women that will be put in a position of constantly having their genitals checked.

Be it for bathrooms, sports, whatever, you're opening us up to a world where anyone that fancies themselves an authority will feel empowered to sexually assault any women they want. That's what's at stake here. This is a women's issue, not just a trans issue. Hell, even men will end up getting harassed in bathrooms.

Meanwhile, actual trans people are going to by and large steer clear of segregated contact sports like they've always done, feeling the pain of exclusion and marginalization while deserving none of it.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I don't think anyone really cares about sports or bathrooms when it comes down to it It's all about the patriarchy. Not a single person I've met has mentioned a woman who became a man going into a men's restroom as a problem. Or them entering mens sports outside of the dimly vieled "oh well they could get hurt and a man needs to protect them from making their own decisions"

It all comes back to people thinking men have to take care of women because they can't take care of themselves without assistance.

It is a reflection of how weak the people who think such are. And projecting and trying to control others lives because they don't believe they can take care of themselves.

If you believe in people having freedom, stop trying to fucking chain them to your ideals. (Not aimed at you specifically)

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

There is no patriarchy involved though? Even women actively campaign against trans male participation in women sports.

Just take a look at this video: https://youtu.be/i39VHDmawtw

There are no men involved. Just women, so your argument doesn't track

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 0 points 22 minutes ago (1 children)

A YouTube video of Donald Trump talking on Fox News is your evidence that no men are invoved in having something against trans people. That tracks

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 0 points 12 minutes ago (1 children)

🤨. Are you being intentionally obtuse or what?

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 1 points 4 minutes ago* (last edited 3 minutes ago) (1 children)

Not at all. Thats the subject of the thread. Why are people, mainly conservatives, against trans people. And you posted a link to a White Male Conservative on a Conservative platform speaking against some stupid shit that doesn't matter, and saying men aren't involved.

The NCAA is a business. If you believe in a free market, then don't make laws to dictate their rules. If people actually care they'll stop buying that product and someone will start a new league with different rules and people can participate there.

If anything, do the country a favor and ban official sports teams from the education system. And people can join leagues outside of the college and it will help get education better suited. Scholarships should be for educating future minds to create a better future, not wasted on someone who isnt there for an education. The amount of corruption in schools do to sports in way to high.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 1 points 17 seconds ago

Bro hates Trump so much that he didn't watch past the first 5 seconds💀.

I'm not even going to bother reading what else you typed. You made the argument that the reason people are mainly against trans people is majorly due to the patriarchy, and i linked to an example of a female volleyball team refusing to play a trans team as a direct rebuttal to that point. A rebuttal you would've understood if you had gotten over your Trump hate and low attention to watch the entire video.

[–] infinite_ass@leminal.space 3 points 3 hours ago

Rural IL here. Full of conservatives.

Nobody here cares if you are trans. Couldn't care less.

Never met a school church shooter either.

[–] shasta@lemm.ee 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Most conservatives I know think it's dangerous to entertain trans ideas in children. They say kids don't know what gender really means because they haven't experienced puberty yet but the most effective time to use hormone blockers is before puberty. So they feel like it's the parents who are encouraging use of hormone therapy for their kids because the parents are brainwashed by left media, and essentially committing child abuse.

[–] VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

To them I say:

  • If I'm old enough to be disfigured by puberty, I'm old enough for HRT.
  • A trans child is a blessing, deserving of the choice to avoid a puberty they are telling you they do not want.
[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 2 points 53 minutes ago (1 children)

Except for the fact that puberty is an actual thing that occurs without outside influence. HRT isn't

[–] VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 40 minutes ago* (last edited 26 minutes ago) (2 children)

That's like saying an epileptic person should go without life-saving seizure supression medication

HRT is no different than any other medical intervention that allows a person to have a better quality of life by influencing the already existing systems of hormones and neurotransmitters for the given conditions/issues/wellbeing.

What's more, in the event that the human being making the choice with their doctor to use hormone blockers changes their mind, puberty resumes AND compensates such that the overall outcome is near-entirely unchanged compared to if had they not used blockers. (And are much less likely to self-harm or take their own life overall)

The misinformation about trans kids and puberty is honestly audacious, such that anyone who actually cares about Trans People's safety, well being and happiness would recognize such if they so much as scratch at the surface of current medical knowledge.

Trans people are not your science experiment.

One's medical choices are noone's business but that human being and their doctor. Parental ownership over children is quite a flawed institution when many parents are absentee, and that's before you figure in the lack of educaction about, misinformation about, and outright internalized bigotry for trans people -- which many parents fail their children by not confronting, unpacking...but instead making the problem of the small human being who has no legal standing in our rancidly unjust systems. This society believes itself more civilized than barbarians or cro-magnons or marauding vikings or australopithecus...which only multiplies it's viscous indifferent violent tendencies.

[–] NotBillMurray@lemmy.world 1 points 12 minutes ago

"If God had wanted you to regulate your glucose levels he wouldn't have given you type 1 diabetes. Now give me your goddam insulin!"

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 1 points 14 minutes ago

That's like saying an epileptic person should go without life-saving seizure suppression medication

Google false equivalency. 1.2% of people experience epilepsy. 100% of people experience puberty. Epilepsy requires intervention BECAUSE it isn't normal. So my argument still tracks.

Also, just because someone doesn't like an experience doesn't necessarily mean that it should not occur. People don't like getting their wisdom teeth removed but it's a process that must take place. And this is especially true with life changing decisions like HRT. Putting a decision so monumental into the hands of an individual still trying to figure out what career path they would like to take is borderline insane.

Also, I'm going to need some sources on the effects of HRT being easily reversed after treatment stops, because there is a point at which this procedure becomes somewhat permanent. Take for example the case of Chloe Cole who I'm pretty sure you've heard of.

[–] inv3r510n@lemmy.world 12 points 6 hours ago (7 children)

Because queerness (trans, gender non conforming, gender fluid, agender, bigender and related) threatens hierarchy.

In western society regardless of how ‘progressive’ some parts of it have gotten, for the majority there’s still a strict hierarchy. Man most important, then woman, then children first boys then girls. Trans people completely disrupt this hierarchy by being able to change what they are and those who cling to hierarchy freak the fuck out over it.

Then there’s the sexual panic, a straight man who’s insecure is gonna freak out if the woman they think is cute actually has a penis.

[–] BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Meh, I don't know if it's strictly a hierarchy thing. I think it's probably more "just" a heteronormative thing. Closed-minded people who don't like things or people that are different. Fear of difference. I'm just speculating, here.

I can also see the sexual panic aspect.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 2 points 56 minutes ago

That's cuz it isn't hierarchy, it's tradition. People have a hard time warming up to things that are very different from the norm.

[–] GiveOver@feddit.uk 8 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

If that were true, then it would be trans men getting the most attention because they're the ones cheating their way up this hierarchy. In my experience, 99% of the hate is directed at trans women.

[–] inv3r510n@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

If the transphobes thought trans men were men then your comment would be accurate. But they just see them as confused women and easy to just ignore them like they ignore cis women.

(You are right about trans women bearing the brunt of the hate, and I think so much of that is sexual panic from cishet men about finding a penis owner attractive)

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[–] paddirn@lemmy.world 23 points 7 hours ago

They’re an easy minority to scapegoat. In the US they make up between 0.5% and 1.6% of the population. A sizable portion of straight people associate being transgender as something sick and weird and a sexual deviancy, so it’s easy to target them and to try to associate them with actual objectively bad things (ie pedophilia). They’re just people trying to find their place in the world and live their lives, same as most of us.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Because conservatives are mostly dumb, and dumb people don't understand things and won't make an effort to understand things, and people fear what they don't understand. Very simple A-to-C.

[–] CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.cafe 0 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

As others have said, one did shoot up a school (and the MSM hid the manifesto & details forever). As your comment proves, they found out the shooter was trans & they tried to memory-hole that real hard. But that's besides the point; evil & depraved people will be evil & depraved people. Doesn't matter, trans or not.

Main conservative talking points against trans people: They do not produce children, trans people are categorized as having a mental illness that should be treated instead of chopping off body parts, they really don't like when health insurance money and/or tax dollars pay for elective surgery & treatments, fully transitioned people have their genitals mutilated & they'll never experience an orgasm, once they're chopped up a not insignificant number of trans people experience regret (permanent consequences for acting on temporary feelings), and trans people are more likely than the general population to have depression & commit suicide.

With well-intentioned conservatives, it's actually coming from place of care & compassion. They don't want people to hurt themselves, deprive them of families & fullness of sexuality, or see them despair post-op & kill themselves.

[–] VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 hour ago

Idk why OP feels it neccesary to conflate trans people with school shooters.

Three components im enthusiastic to educate about on that note:

  1. https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/mar/31/no-evidence-growing-trend-trans-radicalization-or/l

And 2) Shooters have been overwhelmingly men, overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly boys-and-men. A majority of manifestos have direct mention of Right-wing extremism, oft inspired by the Turner Diaries and the like.

  1. What causes violent crime in society, and are there existing societies we can look to?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/jp3q4p/comment/gbesw1p/

the short version is that it starts in the home.

Much violent crime can be traced back to cultural factors. Violent crime, such as murder, would probably decrease dramatically in an anarchist society because most of its causes — poverty, televised glorification of violence, prisons and police, warfare, sexism, and the normalization of individualistic and anti-social behaviors — would disappear or decrease.

The differences between two Zapotec communities illustrates that peace is a choice. The Zapotec are a sedentary agrarian indigenous nation living on land that is now claimed by the state of Mexico. One Zapotec community, La Paz, has a yearly homicide rate of 3.4/100,000. A neighboring Zapotec community has the much higher homicide rate of 18.1/100,000. What social attributes go along with the more peaceful way of life? Unlike their more violent neighbors, the La Paz Zapotec do not beat children; accordingly, children see less violence and use less violence in their play. Similarly, wife-beating is rare and not considered acceptable; women are considered equal to men, and enjoy an autonomous economic activity that is important to the life of the community so they are not dependent on men. Regarding child-rearing, the implications of this particular comparison are corroborated by at least one cross-cultural study on socialization, which found that warm, affectionate socialization techniques correlate with low levels of conflict in society.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works

As for the re-emergence of hierarchies, I think that the notion of anarchism is essentially 'checks and balances' turned up to 11. You get to a society that's an ecosystem of fluid social relationships, and an anti-authoritarian culture which makes it impossible in a million ways for anyone to accumulate power. If we could get there, I think it would be more robust than current liberal democracy, where the branches of government can cooperate and you need buy-in from less people to enable power to be accumulated.

IMO, good anarchist praxis is to 1) encourage and popularize anti-authoritarian parenting methods and 2) build strong community groups and mutual aid networks.

I concur with this analysis and conclusion.

[–] VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Chopped off, mutilated, never enjoy life again.

Lmao tell me you're a bigot who's never met a trans person, without saying so.

Thats not how any of this works.

  • Surgery is almost always for adults, does not work by "chopping" anything. It is a delicate and complex medical and surgical procedure. (You're fine with the mutilation of intersex infants genitals and the mutilation that is circumcision being forced on infants, tho, I bet, as your Daddy says that's ok, huh?)

  • Quite the opposite from never enjoying carnal-consensual-interactions again, I and many of my trans cousins are simply listening to our bodies tell us that it needs to change to properly experience it. For most, it takes the form of revulsion-from-the-incongruence of having been born with parts that make them want to dissociate.

BEING A TRANS PERSON IS NOT A MENTAL ILLNESS

This is such victim blaming. It is impossible to go through a world that seems like it wants to drink your blood, just because of your intrinsic traits -- without accruing trauma.

Trauma and being open about it is not "mental illness". In fact, it's the only way to heal from that externally-caused burden.

I guarantee you're not an expert on the well being of the meeting of the mind and the brain, or "mental illness" to take the thinking of ableist, nazi-originated, antiquated past-medical-thought.

And you're certainly no expert on anyone else's body.

So dont be surprised when this kind of thinking turns you into someone that people dont want to be around.

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee -3 points 4 hours ago

because they're gay and weird or christian and dumb

the existence of GNC people undermines the thin facade of identity that people construct based on their assigned gender roles. they lash out against internal discomfort

[–] OwenEverbinde@lemmy.myserv.one 50 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (5 children)

Materialist answer (inspired by a video called Why The Political Compass is Wrong: Establishing An Accurate Model of Political Ideology, by breadtuber Halim Alrah... and also Jane Elliott's famous experiment)

Business owner makes money by paying workers to produce widgets at $6 / unit. Owner sells these widgets at $10 / unit, making a $4 profit each sale.

Before long, the workers catch on to the reality of the situation: the owner could be making a lot less and still be able to provide "leadership" (or whatever it is he provides). They decide not to work for less than... $8 per unit. With this price, the owner will still be wealthy (the business makes hundreds of widgets, after all). But now, so will the workers.

So the workers save up money and use it to go on strike.

However: business owner comes up with a better solution to the problem: he divides the workers into brown-eyed workers and blue-eyed workers. He then uses his money to discriminate against the brown-eyed workers. His cronies in government make it legal to deny brown-eyed workers jobs and housing. His cronies in the media write hysterical anecdotal stories about various brown-eyed rapists, thieves, and murderers.

Terrified mobs -- stoked into a frenzy by the business owner's well-funded propaganda -- tear down brown-eyed people's homes and food supplies, leaving them destitute before the strike is done.

The brown-eyed workers now must choose between returning to work for the business owner at $5 / unit... or starving to death.

The blue-eyed workers, meanwhile, have just been tricked into betraying their own team. Some were not tricked, but simply unprepared. These unprepared workers stood by in either shock, uncertainty, or laziness, unable to comprehend how their fellow blue-eyed workers could have become so foolishly self-defeating and cruel.

But now the business owner can put up the illusion of no longer needing the blue-eyed workers. He can run his factory on a skeleton crew of desperate, brown-eyed workers, and say to the blue, "uh oh! Looks like the brown-eyed workers just stole your jobs!"

Much like the brown-eyed workers, the blue-eyed workers have a restricted set of choices: A) admit they were suckers --fooled into attacking their own team -- and try to apologize and rebuild their union, B) double down and blame brown-eyed people for undercutting them... but reluctantly return to work, because the strike is broken, or C) just like the brown-eyed workers, they can choose to starve to death.

(A) will be the most difficult. As Mark Twain said: "it's easier to fool people than convince them they have been fooled."

The business owner wins, and now society has an eye-color-discrimination problem. Eye color was an arbitrary characteristic. Yet now it decides where someone lives, who they spend time with, and what kinds of opportunities they have access to.

The business owner can rinse and repeat for: skin tone, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. As the saying goes,

"Divide and conquer."

You asked why trans people are currently the subject of fear and hysteria? No reason. Not any new reason at least. Trans people are different. Any and every difference between workers is an opportunity for those fatcats rich enough to own "The Daily Mail" and the "The New York Post" to separate us into camps and drain us dry, one camp at a time.

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 6 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I find this disingenuous, infantilizing. Racial discrimination and warring has been happening since the beginning of (recorded) time. It stems, among many, many other things (this thing is incredibly complex), from the fear of the other's "unknowns", a somewhat justified fear of others, given humanity's penchant for conquering the neighbors. Another factor is the use of each own's feeling of superiority over the other's, to cover for one's underlying fear of inferiority in some way. Take the example (one of many, not singling out here) of the Jews assertion that they are god's chosen people, thus everyone else being inferior.

While divide and conquer has been used since the dawn of time, and adapted by the capitalists, the sad and simple fact is that people fear that which doesn't conform to their comfortable life scheme, that people want certainty, and having a "different" is unsettling for many, and demonization is an easy way to prop one's belief structure. People who exchange critical thinking for a "safe" belief structure, find it threatening to have others challenge that, so they fight back, to try to have that attack defeated. This can be exploited by others, to rally against that perceived common enemy. Wave a flag, and all who have a common belief of that flag representing their values will rally.

People don't want to think, and/or challenge their beliefs. It's a comfort thing.

[–] Bacano@lemmy.world 4 points 4 hours ago

I like your answer too. While I strongly believe the trans talking point is being amplified almost exclusively to fuel culture wars between the working class, your point on out-group mentality is a DNA encoded reality, from what I remember reading.

I think the two compromise the bulk of the answer along with the culture war fuel dumped by foreign entities interested in destabilizing the US.

The only remedy is education. Something that is sadly on the decline.

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[–] auzy@lemmy.world 14 points 13 hours ago

We have a lot of LGBTI people in our climbing group

I have never had an issue with any of them

But the people trying to be hyper masculine? Yep..

I feel like it's because they never left high school. A lot of them are simply trying the same thing that worked when they are a kid. Everyone else grows up

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