…I could have told you that 🤷
Source: https://x.com/BriannaWu/status/1984574165643403370
Not my usual kind of source (Xitter), but I want any centrists out there who ask trans people to “just get along” / compromise with actual hate groups that want them eradicated to know that it doesn’t work.
There is no such thing as a reasonable bigot, by definition.
Not my sister.
Is Brianna wu grifting to the left because she realizes there isn’t a place for her on the right anymore? I’m a bit too cynical to believe this is legitimate since the right has been like this for quite a while. Just with the trump admin the center right position on the trans movement is not a profitable option for pundits anymore
If this truly is a come to Jesus moment, I’ll believe it if she can back it up over time
My attitude after the last election is trust no republican, they’ll go back the second they can while crying to the left when they’re being mistreated by their own.
that’s a lib waking up. they get up to speed quick once they feel a little nudge.
Progressives have given so much ground that their encampment is on middle-ground.
“You know, I’m starting to think these ethnicity-critical Nazis can’t be reasoned with.”
Me over here with actually somewhat radical positions.
All HRT should be available OTC. (Yes, including T.)
A parent denying a child access to puberty blockers should be required to pay reparations if the child continues to identify as trans into adulthood.
Require unisex bathrooms for any business larger than a bananna stand.
I’m going to push back on OTC HRT because of the health risks. Supraphysiologic estrogen and testosterone can both have lethal side effects, so correct dosing and monitoring for health complications are essential components of trans healthcare.
DIY saved my life. I purchased bloodtests and monitored my own treatment. But it would have been a lot safer had I not needed to order estrogen online from a foreign supplier.
Both are already OTC in most of the world, specifically most developing countries.
More importantly, you are applying an insane and bad-faith standard when assessing medication. ANY medication can have lethal side effects. Down a bottle full of Tylenol and you’ll condemn yourself to a slow agonizing death of liver failure. Yet you can buy that shit at gas stations.
You answered the wrong question. You asked, “can HRT be dangerous?” Any rational person trying to form an unbiased opinion about it would ask, “is HRT of comparable risk to existing OTC medications?”
You can get lethal effects from nicotine, alcohol, bleach, ammonia, and many, many combinations of chemicals that are available with, at most, age verification.
I’m all for people educating themselves as much as they want, from whatever sources they trust, but bodily autonomy DEMANDS someone be able to direct their own medication, including gender affirming medication. Doctor-as-gatekeeper is, IMO, not as good a model as Doctor-as-confidant-and-educator.
I don’t believe parents should be able to make any permanent decisions about a child’s body.
This includes hormones, tattoos, genital mutilation of any kind, plastic surgery, piercings.
Children cannot provide consent for anything.
Unfortunately doing nothing is still a choice. And things aren’t better just because they are natural.
It is morally abominable to believe that it is better for 100 trans kids to go through the Hell on Earth of the wrong puberty than for one cis kid to mistakenly go on puberty blockers or HRT. It shows that you fundamentally believe the life of 1 cis person to be worth the lives of 100 trans people. You do not believe in the equal moral value of every human life. You fundamentally, in your heart of hearts, believe trans people to be subhuman, because you do not place the value of their pain anywhere near that of cis people.
Goldwater was absolute dogwater but he was right about republicans in 1981…
“On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs."
“Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”
The fact that this is dated Nov 1st… How the hell could it take you this long to figure it out??
In a negotiation its important to ask for more than you want. Compromise is what you reach during negotiations. If you start your negotiations from a pre-compromised position, you’re just ceding ground to the other side.
Support the extremists. Support those who go too far and ask too much, as that’s the only way to reach a fair and reasonable compromise.
Congrats, you have a better grasp of negotiation than a 6-figure-salary consultant contracted to the DNC.
Oh, they ask for more than they want.
First off, Brianna Wu is not my sister or comrade, so she can write that down.
“The problem is, they are getting crazier and crazier.”
They’re not, they just don’t feel the need to hide those parts of their goals any more, and you should have listened to us when we warned you about those goals.
And you should be listening to us now about their future goals.
They kinda are. Not at the fringes, there used to be targeted outing campaigns in the hopes of getting trans people fired or killed back in the day, but what was once extreme personal bigotry has become a pipeline and is increasingly legitimized by mainstream right wing politics. If you ask the average bush era republican if the medical establishment should be forced to institutionalize trans people, they’d reply with a slur for sure but they’d not support overriding medical institutions.
This is why advocating for “finding middle ground”, or centrism, or this repackaged warmed over Abundance crap is so toxic.
You can’t match these people half way. you have to beat them
Most arguments have a middle ground, but its a case by case basis. In this case the sides are:
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let a marginalized group experience a little joy and feel comfortable in their bodies
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refuse to accept that a middle school understanding of gender and biology might not be totally correct.
Meeting in the middle here is how you get second class citizens.
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Beat them with rods is the only method.
(Not sarcasm)
Oh… I know… I’ll walk through the chainsaw robot cave… they are triggered by motion… they tear anything that moves to shreds… yeah, that’s where I’m going to walk…
Importantly there is an immediate follow up tweet,
2/ I consider my business settled with all trans sisters. If anyone wants to reset things, unblock and move forward, I am happy to do that
I’m glad she was able to admit she was wrong, that’s absolutely a step in the right direction, but it’s just a step. I don’t want to speak of behalf of “trans sisters”, but I certainly wouldn’t consider the matter closed. She’s apologized, great, but there is A LOT more work to be done.
Even after all of that, she still doesn’t get it:
I think many of our most extreme ideas are bad. But theirs are worse.
The problem is that “our” (using quotes as I’m only progressive, not LGBTQ+) most extreme ideas are only held by a minority of progressive people, and meanwhile the things she thinks are their “most extreme ideas” are the ones that she saw personally, while interacting with people who don’t mind interacting with a trans-woman. Those aren’t their “most extreme ideas.” They’re their mainstream ideas.
She’s comparing our most extreme ideas against their mainstream ideas.
I’m not sure who she’s referring to when she says our there but whoever it is would be insane to invite her in with that take
Also, she doesn’t say what our most extreme ideas are. The most extreme idea she mentions is allowing trans-women to compete in women’s sports. But I think that’s probably a mainstream belief, and also the one that is best supported by science.
(Meanwhile, the most extreme idea of theirs that she mentions is that trans-women should face non-stop violent rape if they go to prison.)
Also, she doesn’t say what our most extreme ideas are.
If I were to try to define the most extreme positions held by any in our community (in regards to trans issues), they might be:
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Bathroom access based on identity only. Very few people are actually like this. But some folks would say that all that is needed to switch bathrooms is identifying as a different gender. So it’s perfectly acceptable for a person dressed in male clothing, with a beard, using a deep voice, etc. to use the women’s restroom as long as they identify as female. Very few trans folks would be caught dead doing that. Most recognize that there is a certain give and take, a negotiation of social spaces. I imagine most would say you shouldn’t have to pass in order to use the bathroom, but most would recognize that it’s going to cause a ton of unnecessary friction and hate if someone fully masculine-presenting uses the women’s restroom. I don’t think people who can’t pass should be banished from the bathroom that matches their identity. But I myself would be very uncomfortable sharing the women’s restroom with an entirely masculine-presenting person, trans or not.
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Unrealistic/impractical pronoun expectations. Some folks confuse “gender is a social construct” with “nothing is real and nothing matters.” Pronouns are a social construct. That doesn’t mean they mean nothing; it means they have socially constructed definitions. If I invent a new pronoun tomorrow and start demanding others call me it, that isn’t a social construction. That’s just something I invented and am now imposing on others without their participation or consent. In order to socially construct something, there must be a meeting of the minds, a shared milieu of understanding. A pronoun, if you expect people to actually use it, can’t be something you just invented. It has to be something negotiated among a large number of people. This is why the pronouns people tend to actually use are he, she, and they. Most others get little use beyond extremely online teenagers. Pronouns are meant to be shorthand for characteristics of your identity. If your pronoun is so unique that no one has any idea what the hell it means, you’re not using a pronoun, you’re just using a nickname.
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Sports based purely on identity with no qualifiers. I support trans women playing on women’s teams and trans men playing on men’s teams. But that’s not just because of identity, but because I recognize that the science says that trans women don’t have any advantages after a few years on HRT. I wouldn’t however support trans women who still have male testosterone levels competing on women’s teams. That’s just about basic fairness. But, some would say that it’s just sports, and that respect for identity matters more than athletic fairness, and that no one should have to seek out medical treatment they may not otherwise want. Fair enough, but I would disagree.
Still, these are extremes. The vast, vast majority of trans people wouldn’t switch bathrooms before at least changing their presentation, use pronouns they can actually expect other people to use, and wouldn’t expect to switch sports teams without altering their own hormones. If TERFs really were interested in compromise, these are the issues we could compromise on. So maybe we restrict bathrooms based on legal identity, but in turn we make it really easy to change your legal identity, say up to once per year. And we have clear social expectations about the rules of bathrooms. So it’s OK if you don’t fully pass, but you shouldn’t be rocking a beard in the women’s restroom. Or, we come to a compromise on pronouns. You can have your close friends call you whatever you want, but the only pronouns you should expect others to recognize are the broad and generic he, she, and they. We compromise by, for example, making it workplace harassment to not respect someone’s pronouns. But in turn we trans people also don’t demand that people learn hundreds of new pronouns or start referring to human beings as inanimate objects. Or, we regulate sports, but we don’t try to ban trans people from sports all together. We follow the science that says trans women have no advantage after a few years on E. You can’t change your teams based purely on self-ID, but we do give trans men and women a clear and open path to participate fully and equally in athletics.
If TERFs and other conservatives really were just looking for a reasonable compromise, these are the types of issues we could compromise on. But, as the post notes, you give these bastards an inch and they’ll take a mile.
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