Which then leads to people throwing out accusations that being trans is an "ivory tower" phenomenon "You've gotta have three PhDs to even understand what being trans means!", pointing to Judith Butler's Gender Trouble as the "trans Bible" and whatnot And it's all garbage ofc
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Trans people and transness existed FIRST, and then the assholes gathered around to protest that their existence DOESN'T MAKE SENSE, and then came the round after round of ivory-tower academics trying to keep up with round after round of logical philosophical objections
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But the need for lofty ivory tower apologetics is created by the onslaught of lofty ivory tower skepticism At the end of the day it's not a winnable debate -- as
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I said on a thread once that there were plenty of people who were "woke" on "trans rights" in the fucking 19th century And they did so by NOT being "educated" on the matter at all Albert Cashier's fellow soldiers who just shrugged and said "He always seemed like a man to me"
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James Barry's drinking buddies who were like "I never knew James to lie to me, and if he says he's a man that's good enough for me" That's all you have to be "educated" about, that's all you have to fucking know or say or do
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Social change is always created by people DOING things, and then the world of chattering philosophers follows to try to make sense of it (to paraphrase Marx)
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I've thought a lot about how fucking useless debate and discourse was when it came to decriminalizing homosexuality How Stonewall was a riot that changed the country with a shock to the system, a wakeup call, "raising awareness" combined with straight-up intimidation
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Like so many other movements in history We have two-day weekends because of Haymarket Square The United States exists because of the Boston Massacre
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You know no amount of debate or discourse convinced the APA to take homosexuality as a "disorder" out of the DSM What happened was a team of activists stormed the APA annual conference in San Francisco in 1970, grabbed the mic and declared war against the psychiatric community
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"Declaration of war" is a direct quote It's striking looking at this angry rant how much the mental health professional community *thinks* they've changed since the '70s and how little they actually havepic.twitter.com/WYujCGysrR
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And the APA didn't actually cave until 1973, after a similar stunt in which a guy in a full face mask calling himself the Masked Psychiatrist gave an interview where he said he was a practicing clinician who was gay af in his private life and had no interest in being "cured"
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And there were many, many other respectable, well-off members of the psychiatric profession in the same position and the hypocrisy was becoming intolerable, and if the APA didn't do something then activists would start dropping dox
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Was this a "scientific" or "rational" argument? Of course not, classic ad hominem Did it WORK? Hell yeah it did, it worked IMMEDIATELY when nothing else had worked for decades
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It's just about power and it always has been -- gay doctors were terrified of the power mainstream society had and happy to wield their own power just to protect themselves and let poor marginalized gay folks get thrown in jail and put on drugs and shit in their place
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Until activists made that an untenable position and forced them to fucking choose That's the only way anything ever changes, and then science and philosophy run themselves ragged trying to catch up and explain why the decision was correct all along
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(The "discourse of the university" differs from the "discourse of the master" in that it is how someone exercises power while playing at powerlessness, in response to having genuinely been made powerless in other scenarios As Lacan would have it, to the extent I understand him)
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(The whole cowardly "Hey, hey, I'M not taking any position, I'm just reporting on what the DATA says" shtick)
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The response to "How can you prove that trans identity is valid, philosophically" is "How did cis people prove their identity was valid, philosophically" They didn't, of course, they just asserted their identity and did what they wanted
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They set up a society in the first place and the academy just exists as this tangential offshoot of that society that inherited all of that society's baggage and, as the Joker would say, must by nature live in that society
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As Lacan would put it (because he was, unfortunately, and ironically for this conversation, obsessed with people's balls) the discourse of the university is the discourse of the eunuch who seeks to find joy in his castration by castrating others
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I.e. they neutered you (or, to get less gendery about it, neutralized you) by shunting you aside into this ivory tower where your thoughts and words wouldn't actually change anything, they convinced you your job was to describe the world and not to change it
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And now you see your whole agenda as getting the rest of the world to just hold still so you can describe it better You think being neutralized makes you a smart erudite sophisticated civilized person and anyone who hasn't been neutralized comes off as a rude asshole to you
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Everyone, of course, flipflops around between all four discourses based on their mood and their convenience It's fascinating to see TERFs locked in this mode -- "I just want to have a conversation, this is a big juicy philosophical problem" -- and then suddenly switch
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Sometimes to the discourse of the analyst -- "Well, TRAs are very troubled people and I feel pity for them" -- but usually to the two most honest discourses, the discourse of the hysteric -- "I'm so TIRED and so ANGRY" -- and the master -- "You'll trans my kids OVER MY DEAD BODY"
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See a lot of people accuse me of "dehumanizing" my ideological opponents and I don't think I'm doing that In fact I try to remember, always, that there's a human face of flesh and blood behind the discourse of the university ("The facts disagree with you sir") or the analyst
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(Someone tried to pull the latter on me just the other day -- "Who hurt you, Arthur? What demons are you running from that you have to tweet anger at strangers all the time?" -- and the answer, of course, is always 1) None of your business and 2) You're changing the subject)
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The thing is, humans, unlike imaginary Rational Science Machines, are assholes They do shitty things for shitty stupid reasons that have nothing to do with you or with The Facts or any of that shit And you have to avoid letting them trick you into forgetting that
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End of conversation
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