Another Seuss Cancellation Thread (Summer 2023)

[marshwiggle]

There were photos of the shop teacher going places/doing errands dressed like a male, with short hair and no boobs whatsoever earlier this year. Allowing an educator to "take a stand" in a primary school of all places and subjecting children to huge prosthetic breasts and visible nipples was beyond outrageous as was instituting new security procedures for the individual at the expense of the children.

It's strange that the behaviour which offends people if it was done to "take a stand" would have been supported and encouraged by the same people if it was done because the individual was delusional and actually believed it.

Either the students should not have been exposed to certain behaviour no matter the cause, or they just need to accept and embrace this "diversity".

[Wahoo Redux]

Either the students should not have been exposed to certain behaviour no matter the cause, or they just need to accept and embrace this "diversity".

Do you see middle grounds, Marshy?

Say, not allowing teachers who are women-who-were-born-females (I don't know the proper lingo) to wear revealing clothing, or men either, but also not cleaving to overtly bigoted reactions to people who are different than we are?  Maybe we just have a rule that no one shows their nipples.

[marshwiggle]

Either the students should not have been exposed to certain behaviour no matter the cause, or they just need to accept and embrace this "diversity".

Do you see middle grounds, Marshy?

Say, not allowing teachers who are women-who-were-born-females (I don't know the proper lingo) to wear revealing clothing, or men either, but also not cleaving to overtly bigoted reactions to people who are different than we are?  Maybe we just have a rule that no one shows their nipples.

AKA "Women". The proper lingo has been pretty simple for 99.999% of human history all over the world.

[Wahoo Redux]

Either the students should not have been exposed to certain behaviour no matter the cause, or they just need to accept and embrace this "diversity".

Do you see middle grounds, Marshy?

Say, not allowing teachers who are women-who-were-born-females (I don't know the proper lingo) to wear revealing clothing, or men either, but also not cleaving to overtly bigoted reactions to people who are different than we are?  Maybe we just have a rule that no one shows their nipples.

AKA "Women". The proper lingo has been pretty simple for 99.999% of human history all over the world.

Either the students should not have been exposed to certain behaviour no matter the cause, or they just need to accept and embrace this "diversity".

Do you see middle grounds, Marshy?

Say, not allowing teachers who are women-who-were-born-females (I don't know the proper lingo) to wear revealing clothing, or men either, but also not cleaving to overtly bigoted reactions to people who are different than we are?  Maybe we just have a rule that no one shows their nipples.

AKA "Women". The proper lingo has been pretty simple for 99.999% of human history all over the world.

Well, the lingo has been complicated by people who insist that we need to "define women"----I won't say who they are----instead of just saying "women" no matter what gender they were at birth, but the question is still the same: why can't we have an easy middle-ground instead of trying to confabulate rules that ostensibly target a certain demographic?  It would be so easy.

[kaysixteen]

Biology defines what a woman is, or a man, excepting the legitimate reality of intersexuals.

Schools, esp elementary schools, are simply not appropriate venues for social experimentation, or advancement of sexual theories contrary to the basic morality of the community.   Also, of course, 8yos do not need to be sexualized in any way.

[Wahoo Redux]

Also, of course, 8yos do not need to be sexualized in any way.

Agreed.  Although some of us balk at the concept that a transgender person automatically "sexualizes" anything.  Most abusers are straight males----an inconvenient fact.  The people who "sexualize" stuff are generally conservatives looking for an excuse to exercise their prejudice, or they are freaked out themselves because they cannot help but read sex into everything.

And biology may define "woman," but humans often find it convenient to ignore biology and the natural world in general.  We will make an exception when we don't like something, however.

[marshwiggle]

Either the students should not have been exposed to certain behaviour no matter the cause, or they just need to accept and embrace this "diversity".

Do you see middle grounds, Marshy?

Say, not allowing teachers who are women-who-were-born-females (I don't know the proper lingo) to wear revealing clothing, or men either, but also not cleaving to overtly bigoted reactions to people who are different than we are?  Maybe we just have a rule that no one shows their nipples.

AKA "Women". The proper lingo has been pretty simple for 99.999% of human history all over the world.

Either the students should not have been exposed to certain behaviour no matter the cause, or they just need to accept and embrace this "diversity".

Do you see middle grounds, Marshy?

Say, not allowing teachers who are women-who-were-born-females (I don't know the proper lingo) to wear revealing clothing, or men either, but also not cleaving to overtly bigoted reactions to people who are different than we are?  Maybe we just have a rule that no one shows their nipples.

AKA "Women". The proper lingo has been pretty simple for 99.999% of human history all over the world.

Well, the lingo has been complicated by people who insist that we need to "define women"----I won't say who they are----instead of just saying "women" no matter what gender they were at birth, but the question is still the same: why can't we have an easy middle-ground instead of trying to confabulate rules that ostensibly target a certain demographic?  It would be so easy.

A useful analogy would be around national citizenship.

• Except in very rare circumstances, everyone is born with a clear and unambiguous citizenship. Citizenship allows someone to have a passport from that country.
• There is a clearly-defined, formal legal process for a person to become a citizen other than by birth. Someone completing this process is a "naturalized" citizen. (A very specific term clearly acknowledging that the person was not born a citizen.) Citizenship allows someone to have a passport from that country.
• Within a country, there can also be permanent residents. This is also a clearly-defined legal term which gives non-citizens access to certain things like employment. Permanent residency does not allow a person to have a passport from the country; their passport will have to be from the country of which they are a citizen. 
• Visitors to a country need not be either citizens of even permanent residents. They will have access to some government services like citizens and residents, (such as use of roads, emergency services, etc.), but will have restrictions on things like employment and other government services like education.

Calling everyone in a country a "citizen" would be stupid, because all of those distinctions have a basis in reality, and are important, even though one cannot tell just from looking which term should apply to a specific individual. For many day-to-day situations, the distinctions don't matter. That does not make it reasonable to eliminate or change the meaning of the terms.

[Wahoo Redux]

Actually----if you insist on using another gratuitous false analogy yet again----you have to include those people who immigrate to a new country, become a citizen, and then get a passport as a new citizen of their chosen country.

People switch citizenship every day all over the world and have as long as their have been people and countries, right?

And honestly, maybe I am dense, but your analogy is not helpful at all----I have very little idea what you are getting at.

[marshwiggle]

Actually----if you insist on using another gratuitous false analogy yet again----you have to include those people who immigrate to a new country, become a citizen, and then get a passport as a new citizen of their chosen country.

You mean like this?

• There is a clearly-defined, formal legal process for a person to become a citizen other than by birth. Someone completing this process is a "naturalized" citizen. (A very specific term clearly acknowledging that the person was not born a citizen.) Citizenship allows someone to have a passport from that country.

People switch citizenship every day all over the world and have as long as their have been people and countries, right?

And honestly, maybe I am dense, but your analogy is not helpful at all----I have very little idea what you are getting at.

The point is that it makes sense for terminology that has a long established, specific meaning to keep that meaning. New situations should have new terminology so that the different situations all have clear, unambiguous terms. So, for instance, "trans woman" is not the same as "woman" and trans man" is not the same as "man" and each term and a specific unambiguous meaning.

Then we don't have the ridiculous contortions such as the Johns Hopkins definition of a lesbian as a "non-man attracted to non-men".

[little bongo]

So a "trans woman" would be like a "naturalized" citizen of woman-land?

The tension between how we identify ourselves and how others identify us has been around for a long time--the subjects of both great drama and horrific oppression. 

In an episode of MASH, Hawkeye is checking on a suspiciously young soldier after an appendix operation. After he asks how the soldier feels, the youngster replies, "Ready to kill some gooks, sir." Hawkeye responds, "Another word for 'gooks' is 'people.'"

If we remember to acknowledge each other as people, we can work out the vocabulary eventually--vocabulary goes through a lot of changes, too.

[Parasaurolophus]

So a "trans woman" would be like a "naturalized" citizen of woman-land?

Seems about right to me. And while we distinguish between citizens and non-citizens in some respects, we afford all the same basic rights, and once someone becomes a citizen, they're a citizen; where they were born no longer matters (US presidency aside; but marshwiggle is Canadian, and we don't have that exception). They're afforded all of the same rights as any other citizen, and we don't go around checking for their birth certificate before deciding what to allow them to do.

I like the analogy, actually. It correctly identifies one socially-constructed phenomenon (gender) with another (citizenship), and both are institutionalized in similar ways, so the parallels are instructive.

[marshwiggle]

So a "trans woman" would be like a "naturalized" citizen of woman-land?

Probably the best comparison would be that someone who has surgically transitioned would be like a "naturalized" citizen, while someone who has not surgically transitioned would be like a permanent resident (if they have been taking hormones for some length of time) or a visitor (if all they haven't done anything medical at all.)

The point is to not munge all these various things together under one word that then becomes virtually meaningless.

[Wahoo Redux]

So a "trans woman" would be like a "naturalized" citizen of woman-land?

More or less.  I didn't propose the analogy, I just extended it.

[Wahoo Redux]

The point is to not munge all these various things together under one word that then becomes virtually meaningless.

Or we could pull the stick out of our collective wazoo and simply respect people for who they want to be.  We would not long have to worry about munging.  We would make the world a more peaceful place.  And we would stop creating problems where there are no problems.

If we could then avoid egregious analogies we'd be aces, but I wouldn't want to push it.

[marshwiggle]

The point is to not munge all these various things together under one word that then becomes virtually meaningless.

Or we could pull the stick out of our collective wazoo and simply respect people for who they want to be.  We would not long have to worry about munging.  We would make the world a more peaceful place.  And we would stop creating problems where there are no problems.

Yes, these lesbians should pull the sticks out of their collective wazoos.

The lesbians who feel pressured to have sex and relationships with trans women

Jennie is a lesbian woman. She says she is only sexually attracted to women who are biologically female and have vaginas. She therefore only has sex and relationships with women who are biologically female.

Jennie doesn't think this should be controversial, but not everyone agrees. She has been described as transphobic, a genital fetishist, a pervert and a "terf" - a trans exclusionary radical feminist.