Aaron Ross Powell ☸️One of the (dumb) arguments against acceptance of transgender people takes disagreement about the definition of “man” and “woman” as dangerous to a functioning society. Setting aside that this argument depends first upon confusion about the difference between gender and biological sex, the idea that we need to agree one this particular ontological fact is very odd when the people making the argument don’t say the same about other ontological (and metaphysical) disagreements.
It is not clear, for example, why a disagreement about the specific details of the definition of “man” or “woman” is the kind of unsettled claim that would “destroy society,” as anti-trans people frame it, while a disagreement about, for instance, the various characteristics of a divine being, the nature of the afterlife, etc., wouldn’t.
Kat@arossp @kitstubbsphd hmm so one problem with this framing is that “agreeing to disagree” about the existence of a divine being doesn’t materially affect how we treat each other within society, but i can’t “agree to disagree” with transphobes because the practical effects (bathroom bills, kids being excluded from sports, and worse) do actually create a conflict. the beliefs can’t coexist in the world. there’s a difference between a belief system that affects only your own view of the world and one that causes harm to other people by denying their rights and identity, in other words.
i don’t think they’re right about it “destroying society” but i do think that it may follow from their own logic, because even the faux compassion of “love the sinner, not the sin” is toxic. they ARE being asked to accept trans folk existing in the same society as them in day-to-day life.
Pusher Of Pixels (old account)@kat @arossp @kitstubbsphd entirely agree, only caveat I'd make is the agree to disagree argument against religion does likely have overt effects...those religious' ppls trans children/family are still subjected to the bigotry and shaming.
We can't accept others willingness to discriminate at any level.
Matunos@kat @arossp @kitstubbsphd because our society has progressed to where we can (usually) agree to disagree about religious questions; but there are many examples in the past (as well as the present in certain parts of the world) where worshipping the wrong way or not at all will get someone ostracized, exiled, imprisoned, or even tortured and executed
@matunos @arossp @kitstubbsphd an important point too! it may be more the exception than the rule that in our current time and place, we generally tolerate religious differences in most practical senses (though of course discrimination still exists and affects people in very real and sometimes subtle ways)