Scrambled or fried?
This talk of treating trans people with dignity and respect just as we treat everyone else with dignity and respect could be put another way. It could be described as walking on eggshells.
The only reason there’s an issue about dignity and respect, I think, is the fact that trans people are a challenge to dignity and respect. If you see it as just a fantasy, or social contagion, or a mistake about the self, and the like, then…the dignity part is missing. Being trans is like a pratfall. A pratfall is the opposite of dignity.
This is not helped by the unreasonable nature of the demand, let alone the constant escalation of it, and the abuse dealt out for failing to obey it. All of a sudden we have to pretend Joe next door is Nancy, and we have to treat him with dignity while we’re at it. This isn’t comparable to having to treat other humans in general with respect, it’s a veering off from that into a thorny swamp full of alligators.
We don’t have to pretend anything to treat people in general with respect. We do have to pretend anything to pretend to believe other people’s fantasies. The two are different. The result is infinite eggshell walking.
Which is constantly reinforced by people claiming that if we don’t buy in to the cult, that they’ll all go kill themselves. Nobody wants to be the source of someone’s suicide, so a lot of people play along. But really, that’s severe emotional abuse, and I detest it, and I refuse to play.
“If you wanted to treat me with dignity, you’d use my preferred pronouns” is just straight up manipulation. Dignity isn’t about such coerced agreement, it’s about how we respectfully act with others even when we may disagree.
We’re told that “dignity and respect” involve
1) Changing the definition of “woman” so that womanhood is equated with gender performance, men’s fantasies, or both, and
2) Prioritizing “gender identity” over sex in law and social policy, which disadvantages women in ways I don’t think I have to detail here, and of course
3) Requiring everyone to play along with any declared “gender identity.”
It doesn’t have to be like this. I think people should be free to cross-dress, and some adults with gender dysphoria may find medical transition palliative. As long as they aren’t insisting on #1, 2, and 3 above, I don’t care and I wish them well.
The entire enterprise of transgenderism is undignified. Its practitioners have already abandoned any pretense to dignity. They display none, and they proffer none to anyone else.
The threats of suicidal ideation may be the eggshell parts we aren’t supposed to tread upon, but in amongst those are a good number of caltrops, spike belts, and broken glass that we’re supposed to walk on without complaint. Another example of the asymmetrical expectation that we pay extra special attention to the pain and discomfort our actions might bring trans identified individuals, while ignoring and accepting the pain and discomfort that accompanies compliance with their demands.
Here’s an example of how badly this is going off the rails. Jerry Coyne, righfully on the attack against an attempt to make science impssible to clearly discuss:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/02/16/richard-dawkins-sticks-up-for-the-bad-old-biology-words/
And, correct me if I’m wrong, but “survival of the fittest” was Spencer’s, not Darwin’s, term.
You’re right about “survival of the fittest” not being Darwin’s phrase, and I was shocked to think that Coyne wouldn’t know the difference, but it turns out the phrase appears in a quotation from an article, not in Coyne’s writing.