Comment by api | Hacker News Reader

Comment by api | Hacker News Reader

I think the right has seized on trans people because it's become socially unacceptable to go after gay people (at least directly), so going after trans people is a substitute. "Othering" some group and uniting people against them is powerful brain stem stuff, and elections these days are won or lost on turnout rather than changing anyone's mind.

I'm not sure what they're going to do when there aren't any groups left to "other." They might have to argue for their ideas and policies on reason and merit. That's gonna be hard. It's a lot harder to convince the neocortex with reason than to rally the limbic system with outrage porn.

It's gross of course. It's using people for political cannon fodder. At least the left mostly just tries to scare me and make me hate right-wing politicians, which is like striking a military target rather than a civilian target.

I hate the culture war in general. It's a godsend to incompetent politicians. All they have to do is grunt correctly on culture war issues and they don't have to actually deliver anything of substance or solve any real problems.

I don't know; it seems like DeSantis and his ilk are pretty happy to just directly go after gay people under the guise of calling them "groomers". I mentioned this here a few weeks ago, but part of the reason that my wife and I have dismissed the idea of moving to Florida (despite us both having family there) is because she's planning on becoming a biology teacher, and the broad and idiotic "don't say gay" law in Florida is likely to make our lives extremely unpleasant if she taught there.

What specifically in the "don't say gay" law are you against?

The fact that it allows basically any parent to sue to the teacher for mentioning basically anything involving sexual orientation, the fact that it doesn't really define what is disallowed, the fact that it was extended all the way until twelfth grade, the fact that there's little repercussions for a parent lying or embellishing.

ETA:

Oh, also, because it's basically predicated on a homophobic conspiracy about gay people all being out to groom your children.

I'm just looking at the bill [1]. It seems like a very straight forward reinforcement of a parents rights to oversee the education of their kids.

> any parent to sue to the teacher for mentioning basically anything involving sexual orientation

"prohibiting a school district from encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a specified manner. ..... to adhere to standards developed by the department of education."

Presumably they can only sue if the teacher is going against whatever the normal standards are.

> little repercussions for a parent lying or embellishing

I don't know what you mean here, but presumably if the parents take a teacher to court and lose (because they lied/embellished) they would have just wasted their legal fees.

> homophobic conspiracy about gay people all being out to groom your children

Not sure about this. I think the bill came out before the whole groomer thing.

[1] https://www.scribd.com/document/559840370/House-Bill-1557-Do...

> "prohibiting a school district from encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a specified manner. ..... to adhere to standards developed by the department of education."

I'm not 100% sure what that means though. What if a kid draws a picture of his two dads or two moms; does the teacher just not allow him to present to the class because that might lead to a discussion of sexuality? It's not clear, and as a result it will probably lead to "othering" of gay parents.

> I don't know what you mean here, but presumably if the parents take a teacher to court and lose (because they lied/embellished) they would have just wasted their legal fees.

Yes, but then (I believe) it's up to the school to actively countersue to retrieve legal fees for a frivolous lawsuit. Again, it's not really clear.

> Not sure about this. I think the bill came out before the whole groomer thing.

Simply not true: https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/597215...

So I guess the main issue is that it is not specific enough and is open to interpretation. I don't know enough about how laws are written to know if this standard or not.

> Simply not true: https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/597215...

This is what I was trying to say, the law was written, and then when people objected there began a discourse (which i don't agree with) that the only reason people would object to this is because they must be groomers. Seems like it was the law first and then this "groomer" thing.

I appreciate you explaining your criticism to me.

> So I guess the main issue is that it is not specific enough and is open to interpretation.

It's open to interpretation, but in some cases it's actually more bluntly horrible. For example, it seems like conservatives are clutching their pearls about the possibility of a math problem mentioning two moms [1].

From the article:

> The legislation could also impact how teachers provide instruction on a day-to-day basis. At a Senate hearing on Feb. 8, Republican Sen. Travis Hutson gave the example of a math problem that includes the details that “Sally has two moms or Johnny has two dads.” Republican State Sen. Dennis Baxley, who sponsors the bill in the Senate, said that is “exactly” what the bill aims to prevent.

This seems to imply that my fears of othering of gay families is founded.

> This is what I was trying to say, the law was written, and then when people objected there began a discourse

I feel like the LGBT grooming conspiracies have been around for a long time. There are 50's era PSAs about how gays will show your kids porn and then try and molest them [2]. I don't think these sentiments ever really went away, at least not completely.

In more recent history I don't know if the "gays are trying to groom your kids" came before or after the bill.

[1] https://time.com/6155905/florida-dont-say-gay-passed/

[2] https://youtu.be/3bPZxRD1GJQ

EDIT:

I think I linked the wrong video. https://youtu.be/EqIIeGmhL2Q

> Not sure about this. I think the bill came out before the whole groomer thing.

Consider how much work you're doing to ignore the right's own self-proclaimed objectives and orientation in service of false lofty neutrality. Here is a tweet[1] from Desantis's press secretary on 2022-03-04:

> The bill that liberals inaccurately call “Don’t Say Gay” would be more accurately described as an Anti-Grooming Bill.

The bill was first filed on 2022-01-11 and signed on 2022-03-28.[2]

> It seems like a very straight forward reinforcement of a parents rights to oversee the education of their kids.

These bills are written precisely to allow people like you to draw this conclusion.

[1]: https://twitter.com/christinapushaw/status/14998866192597770...

[2]: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557

> I'm not sure what they're going to do when there aren't any groups left to "other."

Sadly, this will never happen. We've been at this for tens of thousands of years, and we always find "others."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANNX_XiuA78

> I'm not sure what they're going to do when there aren't any groups left to "other."

There's always going to be an "other". If necessary, some arbitrary social divide will be invented. Most of the "groups" we've split ourselves into are not particularly meaningful to begin with, and it doesn't take much to become an outsider when people really want there to be outsiders.

The most vociferous "anti-trans" people tend to be left-leaning feminists, in my experience.

The article is clearly about political and legislative anti-trans machinations though, not TERFs at dinner parties or whatever. In that context it’s the right that is the issue.

The organized TERF movement and the far-right trans eliminationist movement are one and the same.

For example, the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF), which brands itself as a left-wing group, has been working with the people pushing bills: https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1634287701896712207...

And your comment might even be relevant if “left-leaning feminists” were a non-fringe political power threatening to take over legislative, executive, and judicial branches of power. We have real problems to deal with, not some imaginary “bad feminism”.

Feminism advocating for women as a sex caste fighting for their rights in a male-dominated world is the only type of feminism that makes any sense. Everything else is, to varying extents, pandering to male wants and desires.

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