1d ago

Priorities Don't Seem Spotty

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Just consider. How many trans people do you know? Of the people you know, how many trans people do they know?
High odds both you and all the people you know in your personal life, don’t know anyone who is trans. If you’re actually member of that community of course the numbers go up. We are talking tail or the bell curve here.
Consider, on the point, how much trans affects your life on a daily basis. Again, high odds, they do not.
For whatever reason, in spite of that, turning trans into the great whipping boy of America made for an effective political campaign. Republicans used it because it worked. Elon Musk did phone text spam centered on trans, in swing states, because it worked. So we end up with this societal focus of abject cruelty in which a margin and marginalized population is put on display, with or without consent, like a scientific sample under a glass display, complete with magnifying lenses, for scrutiny.
Why is a very interesting question but in more practical terms, when you get right down to it, none of this has impact on your personal life.
That said, there is a separate argument for how much it impacts lives in the specific sport, per individual circumstances.
- It works because religion (specifically Christianity) has poisoned our society.
- as someone who is college-aged, I know about 8, one of which being my boyfriend :p
  
  You’re also on Lemmy, which is kinda fringe. Out there, amongst most of the voter base, how’s it rate? Boomers? The apathetic pay no attention types of all ages laser focused on their job grinds?
  Even at work, with a steady, high flow of strangers, 1-3 a year, for me.
  
  1-3 a year that you know of. You checking every customers pants when checking them out?
  
  I know, like you said its kind of a bell curve and I'm definitely on the extreme end of it. I just like sharing
- Are you sure it’s that rare? Off the top of my head I can think of 4 I’ve known personally, plus all the trans people online that I follow (shout out Jimquisition, Contrapoints, and Philosophy Tube). It’s not that rare, unless you live in a place full of bigots, then yes, I bet they don’t come around or stay in the closet. Not a whole lot of gay kids in my highschool, not because no one was gay, because they’d bully the shit out of you if they suspected you were gay. So ymmv depending where you’re at.
  
  Online, sure, love Contra over on YouTube, etc. We talk to Germany too on the daily, here, even if you happen to be in rural Iowa and have never ventured further than 50miles from your house.
  I was talking in bell curve broad strokes physical, real life, can touch hands, friends and family. Still, personal circles can expand not just by individual people but by community. Once you’re in with a community-reliant individual, the community factor will often trigger and you will meet more such individuals. I experienced this with what was the more obscure gay scene back in the 90s where you’d go from having one gay friend to suddenly having an entire friend group. Or, if you live in an ethnically or racially self-segregated area, you may experience the same thing with those communities. You have your friend, who gives you a “nod” of sorts, and then you find yourself socializing with a community and maybe making new friends who might not have spoken to you at all without that “nod”. Community vetting, for safety.
- High odds both you and all the people you know in your personal life, don’t know anyone who is trans
  What are you talking about?
  Many people know someone who is trans. My conservative mother knows someone trans from her church (and she is supportive of them)
  GLAAD has done studies on the % of non-lgbtq people who know or work with someone who is trans and that percent has gone up from 8% in 2008, to 16% in 2015 , and to 28% based on a quote from GLAAD in this recent press release. A 2021 gallup poll also put this number 31% .
  While 28-31% isn't great "odds", i think it's quite reductionist to pretend that trans individuals don't exist at all.
  Transgender prevalence over time has been studied and estimated to have increased to between 0.5% to 1.6% which makes the whole knowing someone who is trans "tail end of the bell curve" a dated and/or misleading comparison.
  I do agree that the trans community has been targeted and i agree that most people aren't personally impacted by someone being trans, but let's not pretend trans individuals don't exist. They do. And we're watching their human rights be stripped away.
  Instead of trying to tell people they shouldn't care about trans individuals because they don't exist, let's acknowledge their existence, understand the challenges they face, and consider how policies affect real people in our communities. The politicization of trans individuals has real consequences on people who are our neighbors, colleagues, family members, and fellow community members.
  
  It’s not a claim to not existing, never, ever that.
  My point is MAGA wielded a cruel, focused campaign and it was effective because so many people don’t know a single trans, personally. You can adore ContraPoints but if you don’t know her personally, the impact on your daily resonance here will be marginal at best. I speak to middle of the bell curve here, ofc there are people sitting on the tails of that same bell curve.
  The truth is, MAGA tried regarding gay marriage and it did not stick. The number of people with a gay friend or relative is much, much higher. They didn’t run with those attack ads because it didn’t stick.
  Don’t forget the community factor with social circles. Once you’re friends with a community-reliant individual, you’ll meet more.
  
  Whether it's 0.5 or 1.6 percent it's still literally the tail end of the bell curve. You're talking about falling within the third standard deviation of a normally distributed bell curve.. you just strengthened his point with this statistic.
  
  The original context was specifically people not knowing someone who is trans, and i provided sources that indicate this to be between 28-31% of non-lgbtq people to know someone who is trans. This by definition cannot be the tail end of a bull curve.
  But im glad from everything i wrote, you took away that i strengthened their point. Go have a cookie, you've won the internet today
  
  Akshually 🤓 the original context was how many trans people are actually targeted by the Trump administration's antics. Which would be the numbers you so helpfully provided.
  
  🍪
  
  You call 1 % not the tail end of a bell curve? That is like an IQ of >140, which also applies to 1 %.
- I play a niche sport that is extremely progressive and has a large trans community. The sport is often played mixed gender with people of all genders on the field at the same time. I play this sport at a high competitive level and have qualified for the national championships a few times.
  I have certainly had friends impacted by this. I've have friends who had to match up on a gender match that may have benefited from their bodies sex at birth. I've had friends who didn't make a team because the team took a trans athlete over them. I've had friends who are nonbinary/trans athletes choose to compete against people born male when they could have matched otherwise.
  In the end, I'm so proud of my community because those impacted are often happy for the welcoming environment we're creating for people. I don't mean to minimize the impacts to some members of the community, but the benefits are so large I'm glad we choose to support our friends who need welcoming environments. Our trans and non binary community need more environments like these where they just get to be themselves and feel welcomed.
  
  Love it. I’m sick to death of the political focus of MAGA brandishing a community for their own dark reasons. And most of the people buying it don’t have your experience. They know no one.
- Yupp. I am part of a local gaming community, and that is how I know trans people. But everywhere else in my life, especially work in a office building, zero signs of anyone be trans. Not going to lie, it is a very hard mental shift to not say the wrong pronouns when I jump social circles. Always feel like a dick.
  Hell, I know for a fact that many people in my office wouldn't even have the concept of a trans person if it wasn't for social media.
- How many trans people do you know
  I mean I know at least 3 personally.
  
  Same here, 2-3 sounds about right for me. But it's around 5-6 if I count people I come across on a daily basis but don't know personally.

43 comments