I’m seeing one too many people blaming social media for this and social media for that because it’s just simply - social media. I think about this because I believe that you shouldn’t blame the tool because it is a tool, but blame the person who uses the tool for their intent.
Which means I’m on the side of the camp that actually knows lots of people abuse social media and has it demonized. It’s absolutely silly to just blame a concept or an idea for just being as is. So everyone else is going around blaming and blaming social media for their problems. Not too much the individuals that have contaminated it with their empty-brained existences.
And we all know that some of the more popular social media platforms are controlled by devoid-of-reality sychophants in Zuck, Spez, Musk that sways and stirs the volume of people on their platform with their equally as devoid ideas in how to manage.
Social Media, whether you like it or not, has a use. It’s a useful tool to engage with eachother as close as possible. Might be a bit saturated with many platforms to choose from.
But I just think social media being blamed for just being as is, is such a backwards way of thinking.
Yeah, I’m not going to make the argument that people are fundamentally good either, and they are shaped by the media landscape they consume.
I live in a country where trans rights are not really questioned, and where I am feeling confident that they won’t be. Of course it still has ways to go and there are bad people, but trans rights have not become effectively politicized and it’s just not a point of contention.
It’s no fundamental rule of society that we have to go around hating each other. It’s a construct. That doesn’t mean it’s not the case where you live, but it’s something that can be changed.
Oh really, what country is this might I ask?
I currently live in Denmark. I have to admit I’m not following the public debate here very carefully, and there are plenty of backwards people around who will shout loudly about just about anything, but any reversal (or anything else than gradual strengthening) of trans rights would come as a huge surprise to me.
I am open for the possibility that I’m simply not following close enough. But I think the problem with trans rights is that it has become politicized, when it is really not a political issue. The fact that I have not heard about it at all in the public debate here is therefore, in my opinion, a good sign. For sure one can dig up shitty opinions if one starts looking for it, but they have not been given a defining role in the public debate as is the case in many countries.
Ultimately all trans issues stem from healthcare access which is why the right is going after that.
If given healthcare especially at the appropriate age without years and years of waiting, gatekeeping and other Kafkaesque nonsense, trans people blend into society and accommodations wouldn’t even be necessary.
Women’s toilets panic? - Can’t do that if most trans people pass.
Women’s sports panic? - Can’t argue about physical advantages of male puberty if trans women don’t go through it in the first place
“They’re just mentally ill!” - can’t argue that if trans folks are in good mental health as a result of their treatment.
“They’re just faking for attention!” - can’t argue that if they’re not attracting attention in the first place.
“They’re not real women!!!” - yeah but I can’t tell them apart so…
“They’re sexual deviants!” - Can’t argue that if they have a well adjusted sexuality from growing up relatively more normally.
“They’re delusional!” - Can’t argue that if to most people they look like the sex they transitioned to.
“They’re trying to control our speech with pronouns!” - Can’t argue that if most people just gender them correctly because they pass.
But take that away and it’ll drive trans folks insane and make some ask for accommodations from society. And that gives ammunition to the right.
Most people don’t even believe in gender equality, tons of cis women don’t even believe in women’s right to abortions, and the number of people who think “females” are a different species is staggering. Visibility for trans folks isn’t a good thing.
Just like with the gay moral panic over S&M and leather gays the very exclusion of people from society made them different enough to be a target later on.
People shmeople none of this at all relevant tbqh, people have opinions all over - the question is are they allowed to turn those opinions into policy by the elites.
Going by the Wikipedia page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Denmark
Dutch source and the translation isn’t helping, so take that with a grain of salt.
Access to healthcare on paper in Denmark looks okay-ish, even puberty blockers aren’t banned, but apparently in practice the wait times are awful:
No idea about this source cited: https://www.humanrights.dk/lgbt-barometer/gender-affirming-care
But if accurate, this still isn’t as bad as the UK though. Wait times for SRS are 10 years+ after diagnosis, which itself is a wait that can range from 4-10 years. Assuming European salaries unfortunately I doubt Danes have many options for private unless they’re well off.
That said it’s not ideal
This is dated diagnostic criteria but ultimately harmless - most trans people will just say whatever gets them treatment.
This is really good.
This is pretty bad because trans folks are particularly at risk from suicidal ideation before treatment and this tends to go away after, not to mention abuse from others.
Depending on how extensively and stringently it’s enforced, that would be a de-facto ban, kind of like saying that trans people can get healthcare, but not if they have a history of things they’re statistically likely to have a history of.
Quick glance at the /r/Transnord subreddit seems to more or less corroborate the wait times:
https://old.reddit.com/r/transnord/comments/16v8a7a/moving_to_denmark_to_transition/
The poor hormones dosing is also not ideal but commonplace, here in the UK I frequently had to “request” (read: fight them at every opportunity and harass them daily until they gave in) the doctors to up the dose or prescribe specific meds because I knew better.
Ironically now I have the opposite issue and the dose they’re giving me is far too high because they don’t even seem to understand I don’t have testicles anymore.
The SRS (Sex Reassignment Surgery or “lower surgery” in PC speak) age limit is very stupid, due to waiting times I had to wait till 25 and it was hellish, every minute of it was torture, it should be set at 18.
The backsliding of trans rights in Denmark from a brief skim doesn’t seem to be the worst I’ve seen by far, still, in the 90s an average trans person in the UK had it better.