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As Transgenderism Becomes the Next Big Thing, Let’s Remember What Sexual Revolutionaries Used to Believe
The cultural revolution spearheaded by the Left didn’t end after Obergefell (not that anyone expected it to). While polyamory is very likely to be one of its next phases, the next two big steps — both presently ongoing — appear to be the replacement of religious liberty as a social right with freedom of worship as a private right and the transgenderism revolution. This is a big deal and worth our attention. As Maggie Gallagher reports in National Review:
New York’s Andrew Cuomo, and the governors of four other states, are banning official travel to Mississippi.
Charles Barkley is asking the NBA to take the All-Star Game away from North Carolina. PayPal is cancelling plans to expand there. And more than 100 corporations are attacking North Carolina over a bill protecting women from having to share bathrooms with transgender biological males.
Meanwhile the president’s administration has unilaterally redefined the gender-discrimination provisions of Title IX so that its rules forbidding gender discrimination now forbid “LGBT discrimination.” Meaning: Your daughter must shower with transgender biological males or else her school district will lose all federal funding.
Before we are all shoved into this brave, new, crazy world, let’s take a glance backward.
There used to be a fundamental moral principle on which the proponents of each successive wave of the permanent sexual revolution would rely: You have the right to engage in whatever sexual activity (or take up any sexual lifestyle) you like, so long as you don’t hurt anyone else or violate another’s rights.
This is the principle I formerly called “sexual libertarianism.” Later I called it “sexual libertinism.” In between I called it “sexual narfblarism,” which was by far the funnest term. (Follow that link to locate my reasons for modifying my terminology.)
Anyway, there was a time when it seemed that sexual revolutionaries actually believed that principle. Back then, we could all agree that women and girls have a right to not encounter male genitalia in their restrooms and locker rooms, and to not be seen in these settings by anyone with male genitalia (at least not without consent).
But with the transgenderism revolution, the same movement that used to trumpet that principle is now turning against it–the rights of those women and girls are now subordinate to the rights of certain others to adopt whatever lifestyle they want.
Why?
My guess is that many in the movement never believed it anyway. It was just convenient to their revolution. But I’m open to better explanations.
Published in General
No, that was always the end goal, and some were honest enough to admit it in private, others lied to themsleves, and others lied to everyone.
I suspect, though, some have evolved. Afterall, once you start down this path, where does it end.
Oh, wait, slippery-slopes are fallacies of logic and never occur in real life.
It feels like a trap is being laid out here.
Transgender males-turned-emotional-females go into the ladies’ room, only to be greeted by women and girls’ pulling away from them. I guess the transgender males-turned-emotional-females then get to bemoan the injustice of the social discrimination they are experiencing at the hands of women and girls in the ladies’ room. This rejection continues their victimhood at the hands of the transgenderphobic girls and women.
I’m also wondering about lawsuits here, the way some gay activists in Massachusetts “tested” public establishments for a while.
Or perhaps there will be lawsuits that work the way the sexual harassment lawsuits work in that the companies or owners of the establishments can be held liable if female employee A recoils at having to share the bathroom with employee B, a transgender male-turned-emotional-female, which creates a “hostile bathroom environment” for employee B, and employee A may have to be fired in order to have the establishment comply with the EEOC laws.
Or something.
William Butler Yeats was right.
What is weird about this to me is that transgendered persons (male-to-female) (fixed it!) are already using women’s bathrooms. And vice versa. And they have been for a long while. The question is whether a transgendered person—someone who looks like a woman, acts like a woman, dresses like a woman, thinks of herself as a woman—should be subject to arrest for using the women’s bathroom?
Would everyone be better off if she was in the men’s room?
I think just a smidge of compassion for the person in this situation might be called for. Anyone who has ever struggled with a mental illness, neurological deficit or learning disability can tell you; neurology is reality. Neurological problems of one kind and another produce bizarre symptoms—tweak a few neurons, and you’ll see people floating in the air above your head, hear voices coming from your refrigerator, and find yourself unable to resist the urge to do weird stuff—count all your steps, touch the bark of every third tree in the backyard, buy fourteen pairs of identical Danskos.
Transgendered persons, in my experience anyway, don’t take on another gender on a whim. There is a young man I’ve known all his life who is struggling with this right now, and whatever “it” is, it’s painful. It is far, far more unpleasant and difficult for him than it is for anyone else. He’s not trying to make a statement, he’s not trying to sneak a peek at some lady on the can, he’s trying to play the hand that’s been dealt him and frankly, it’s a crappy hand.
Do you mean men’s rooms?
I am very sympathetic to this. If it is causing emotional pain and stress, then it’s up to us, the able-minded, to work it out somehow.
But then are we saying that this is a mental illness? Mental illness being defined as emotional or mental stress so great that a person cannot function to take care of himself or herself independently?
Most of the mentally ill people I have known were not assertive people and were highly sensitive to any kind of rejection, no matter how slight.
It strikes me then that to avoid this type of damaging and upsetting occurrence for them that we should accommodate them with their own bathrooms.
Probably transgender people are nearly agoraphobic and disabled in the sense that they can’t live normally. If we build ramps for wheelchair-bound people, then we should build bathrooms for transgender people.
“Come Faeries, take me out of this dull world”
Yes, it’s been going on for a good long time. And wouldn’t it be nice to know how many actual arrests there have been? This is an issue because trans activists have made it an issue, when those whom you describe could likely go on as they have. Compassion is nice, but let’s not pretend that this issue is about herds of transgenders being locked away for using the “wrong” bathroom. It’s about the politicization of the issue by those with an agenda, who refuse to recognize that it’s uncomfortable for a considerable majority of good-hearted people. And, if your young friend is unfortunately adversely affected, I’d suggest that the activists are more to blame than those who just want a sensible life.
That won’t remedy the situation because the transgenders do not regard themselves as a “third” sex. Transgenders already have bathrooms–male, female, and unisex. A better question is why, if they can’t live normally (as you put it), we’ve had generations without a peep on this bathroom issue.
I know this, as I knew a transgender man/woman in my 20s. Nobody would have looked at him twice in the ladies’ room; in fact, he could never even have gone into a men’s room after his transition began because he looked as much like a woman as anyone.
But this is never good enough for the activists. They can never just leave things alone, leave them under the table where they belong. No, they have to make a federal case out of everything so they can indulge in their moral exhibitionism. This time, they’re codifying the possibility of perverts of many stripes to prey on women and little girls, all in the name of “open-mindedness.” Let’s not be so open-minded that our brains fall out. And let’s have a smidge of compassion for all the girls who will be permanently scarred by these encounters.
I know Harvard has had mixed bathrooms for years, and it works well there.
And dads have taken their daughters into the men’s room and moms have taken their sons into the ladies’ room for years without a problem.
If a disturbed transgender person came into whatever public bathroom he or she wanted to, I doubt there’d be a problem, although a lot of people would be uncomfortable and hurry out.
I agree with RightAngles that something else is probably going on here.
Bingo.
That is the world that we are moving toward sadly.
Augustine Correct me if I am wrong you assert that the “sexual liberation movement” operated on this principle: “There used to be a fundamental moral principle on which the proponents of each successive wave of the permanent sexual revolution would rely: You have the right to engage in whatever sexual activity or take up any sexual lifestyle you like, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else or violate another’s rights.”
I posit that the actual premise for the sexual revolution was and is: “Traditional roles and morals whether religious or not have not served us well because the prime purpose of all traditional morality is oppression. Traditional morality must be completely overthrown and done away then we will develop a morality that is not based on oppression.”
In this revolution each move is simply against whatever is perceived as traditional morality. So the left fights every battle against traditional morality on its own terms, if they can get away with it, but since the over goal is simply to get rid of traditional morality in total so contradictions in the fight are regularly accepted.
Some examples: Pornography is bad because it objectifies women, and exploits them for the benefit of male lust. This fought against the patriarchy but it also sided with traditional moralists who also thought pornography was wrong for similar reasons. So Feminists said actually pornography and sex work actually empowers women as long as they are the financial beneficiaries of the porn as it allows women to exploit the lusts of men and profit. Feminists occasionally argue about this but pretty much pursue both avenues at once since they see it as attacking the same enemy.
Male domestic violence against women is wrong and must be stopped. We often turn a blind eye to men beating women and society must stop this violence. When it is show that women are far more likely to hit their partners then men everyone shrugged because we all knew and understood that a woman slapping a man in rage is far less likely to seriously injure the man then a backhand an enraged man might give a woman. Then in the military. Women must be allowed in ground combat roles because it is a moral good for women to fight men. Woman are as tough as men, as strong as men and denying them the ability to fight men is sexist. This contradiction is not even noticed because it is advancing the fight against traditional morality on two separate fronts.
One could multiple the contradictions in marriage policy, homosexual issues, pay equality and on and on. It all makes sense though from the intellectual perspective that the enemy always and everywhere is traditional morality. As long at TR is being over thrown any contradiction is acceptable. But I will stress that most people are simply fighting each battle on its own terms and are simply giving each issue little or no thought.
Definitely not always a fallacy.
This one? Indeed.
Indeed. But is not this sort of compassion precisely what the transgenderism movement is not asking for?
Rather it asks for the surrender of the notion of sex as a biological category, and for the cessation of both social and legal protections (of my daughters and my wife no less) based on that biology.
duplicate post – tried to edit one word of previous post and it created a whole second post instead of changing the old one.
How does that work? Mixed but also gender-specific restrooms?
One of the best lines ever.
Perhaps this is what is really motivating the movement. It certainly is a big factor, and maybe the only fundamental principle.
The principle I articulated was, perhaps, simply one to which public (and inconsistent and hypocritical) appeal was made.
Indeed. I agree!
I love it when we agree. I would say that because the Left does not want nor do the rank and file even fully realize the battle they are fighting every distinct battle is fought in a way to seem like there is a limiting principle employed when in fact there is no limiting principle. Also since so many people have abandoned rational argument for flashing virtue gang signs, something even conservatives have fallen prey too, one does not have to think about your positions ramifications and meanings one just has too make sure you are on the proper side.
In debates with my liberal friends about the “bathroom wars” I point out all their concerns could be taken care of and transgendered people come be accommodated with little fuss and no special civil rights. They usually ignore that and simply accuse me of wanting to arrest transgendered people. If I can get them beyond that accusation they often just run out of steam and don’t know what to say. They have not thought about the issue at all.
So I don’t think there is a basic intellectual principle at play in any of these issues. There is a general cultural consensus that people of a certain traditional morality and way of thinking must be opposed and crushed in the public square. I think that is why we get these cases of trying to force people to approve of things they don’t like.
Where traditional moralists draw a line and resist progressives attack regardless of whether or not it makes sense. This is why I think and have hope that one day there will be a back lash. At some point waging war this way the Progressives will over reach and the larger cultural war will come into focus for most people and they will yell stop! That will be a happy day, I hope, rather than a nightmare.
Indeed. (And when they articulate a limiting principle you can be pretty sure the movement will reject it on the next wave.)
Indeed. A lot of ad populum fallacies these days.
Indeed. A lot of straw men fallacies too. I don’t want to arrest transgendered folk. I just want to know that neither I nor a restaurant owner will be arrested for asking the person with the male reproductive organs to stay out of the bathroom my wife uses.
Did any of those pastors in Houston want to arrest transgendered folk? Even one?
Yeah. (When I said they have a fundamental principle I think I only meant that they appeal to one, and that some of the revolutionaries once believed it.)
Indeed. But if the Trumpian reaction to yesterday’s leftisms is any indication, a nightmare is a real possibility.
The problem is that we are being forced to make a choice. There is a lot of plausible deniability that can go on and we could avoid having to make a decision, if we are allowed to do so.
The problem is that social crusaders won’t let it go at that.
We haven’t figured out how to deal with these deconstruction thrusts. If we ignore them they just keep pushing until there is some reaction, then they mobilize the mob. But let’s be clear it’s all about deconstructing religion, traditional values, common sense, the constitution, families etc. A question, did Yeats, like Chesterton, see the implications of nihilism, relativism and modernity in general? It seems in that poem he’s talking about far more than the war.
I’m no expert; I’m hardly even cognizant of the poem. But I get the impression he’s talking about the overly optimistic ideas of modernity, or post-modernity.
So . . . probably. But maybe someone else should answer.
But if you ask me “On which awesome sci-fi show did G’Kar read Yeats?” I can answer. The answer is Babylon 5.
I agree with this—and with much of what the rest of you have said in this thread too; I just don’t think (over?) reacting with yet more laws is the answer.
Of course gender dysphoria—the very strong feeling that you are in the wrong kind of body—is a disorder, like OCD or Aspergers. And yes, the push to define it as something other than a disorder is an attempt to deconstruct traditional norms that are thought to be intrinsically oppressive.
By the way, before you ask; I’d define something as an illness or disorder using two criteria. Does it get in the way of the person’s ability to live productively, harmlessly and happily, and does it hurt?
Not all mental illnesses or disorders are completely disabling; many people figure out ways to accommodate and ameliorate their own suffering. One of the ways that those with gender dysphoria do this is by matching their experience of gender with clothing, behavior and—if they have the will and the money—surgery. I don’t know if this is the best way, but it is the way consistently chosen by the people who presumably have come to know what works.
And of course this could easily be managed by appeals to generosity and good manners—indeed, it has been.
This is what Nikki Haley was getting at when she explained why South Carolina was not going to go the way of North Carolina.
“South Carolina is doing really well when it comes to respect and when it comes to kindness and when it comes to acceptance,”
That, to me, is how conservatives should respond to the moral preening of the left, especially since it is consistent not only with common sense but with the principle of limited government; “this is something adult citizens can manage without making new laws. These issues can and should be taken care of by the exercise of good manners, compassion and an all-American respect for the values and convictions of others, traditional and otherwise.”
Well said, madame.
On the one hand, you have millions of people, mainly women, who do not want to share restrooms with the opposite gender. On the other hand, there are an extremely small number of transgender people who also don’t want to share restrooms with the opposite gender. (The only difference is that in the latter case,”opposite ” is defined as opposite the gender they feel they are. ) But both groups basically desire the same thing.
Since the first group is so much larger than the second, then of course the obvious answer is to find some way to accommodate the smaller group without inconveniencing the larger.
But no…in order to accommodate the smaller group, The larger group is forced to accept the very thing that would cause the smaller group to be deemed a victim of discrimination. There is no practical or moral justification for this approach from any perspective, liberal or conservative.
The answer to the OP’s original question Why is that all along we have NOT been dealing with people who merely want to let people do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone or whatever. We have been dealing with people who have a very deep need to always be on the leading edge of a righteous moral movement. In other words, fanatics. People who feel worthless if they can’t look down on the others as bigots. And now the government has joined them.
The false revolution doesn’t believe in anything, for more must always be done, no matter how much has been accomplished, or how visible the failures are. There aren’t any final demands, and no way to gain a lasting peace with these so called-revolutionaries.
A legitimate revolution seeks to bring about a new state of affairs, and keep things that way. It has a list of demands and grievances which can actually be addressed.
This SJW sort and their Trotskyite revolution needs a constant emotional buffeting. So to maintain emotional fever-pitch, more must be done, and the next timeless institution to smash must be all the more sacred. The next revolution must be bigger and bigger, not because there are worthy causes to rebel against, but because the emotional “needs” of the revolutionary must be considered.
The permanent revolutionary always chases his first fix, but can never find it again.
There is, of course, a legitimate use for revolution. But the permanent revolutionary is an emotional overdose.