What socks you wear isn’t a choice
Spot the error.
But it’s too easy of course. It’s the second item. “Being trans” is a choice. It is, at a minimum, a choice to put that particular label on feelings and/or ideas about the self. Less minimally, it can be a choice to join the trend of claiming to be trans or nonbinaree or transnonbinaree or some other item on the list of gender-special labels.
It’s not necessarily a choice to have unpleasant feelings about being the sex one is, but it is a choice to give those feelings a suddenly fashionable label.
Saying that is of course heresy, which is one reason it’s so tempting for people to say they are trans. It’s fun to be able to punish people who refuse to believe in your holy magical self!
If “What socks you wear isn’t a choice” became a mantra/slogan, you can be sure that people would be repeating it mindlessly.
Nah, choices are an illusion. #determinism
Let’s say, for the sake of the argument, that being trans is indeed not a choice.
So what? Should people pretend a man is actually a woman just because his belief that he has a woman-soul isn’t a choice? Should a lesbian agree to sleep with a man because he didn’t choose to insist he’s a lesbian? As best as I can tell, the abstract notion of choice does not alter the material reality upon which we base our objections.
Anyway, is that how it usually works? Do we treat people badly when we think they choose to be [insert characteristic here], and nicely otherwise? Does the KKK think black people choose to be black? Of course not. Reading the words “The colour of your skin isn’t a choice” isn’t going to change any racist’s mind, because that’s not how racism works. Likewise, I’m pretty sure ableist rhetoric doesn’t stem from the notion that people go around in wheelchairs for fun.
Throwing around thoughtless fluff like this will accomplish exactly nothing against bigotry. It’s all so… hollow. It looks kind of progressive if you glance at it, but there’s no substance at all. It’s like seeing people at a protest holding blank signs and shouting gibberish just because they want to look like they’re part of something. Imagine if the whole protest was like that.
I think that the not-so-subtle subtext in the “choice” trope is that trans activists think that accepting TiMs in female, single sex spaces shouldn’t be a choice, but a legal obligation. That’s the basis of Stonewall Law. They’re claiming that failure to accept them is unlawful discrimination, as it is with the other examples that Eccles is forced-teaming transness with.
I’m not sure if it’s relevant to anything very much, but Nurse Eccles’s account is based in Indonesia for some reason.
Well said, Mosnae. I’ve long lamented that at some point decades ago the gay rights movement went with “we’re born this way.” It was a sound tactical move in that it was the easiest way to win over Christians (If God made us this way who are you to judge) and others who like to think of themselves as the kind ones, but it was, of course, nonsense. But that’s the way it goes. The lies you put out there with the best of intentions have a way of coming back to stomp on you, or worse, someone else who’s far less able to defend themselves.
Well do they know what else isn’t a choice: pedophilia. For as far as I know, nobody chooses to be sexually attracted to children.