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[Vector]

Looks like I'm done with Tennessee. New bill signed into law that businesses willing to serve trans customers must post a sign. All other businesses to be assumed cis-only spaces.

[Enemy post]

Wow. I never thought things would get bad enough that we'd see 'This demographic-only' signs again.

[wierd]

I really, REALLY, **REALLY** do NOT want to be "That Guy" here, but--

This kind of backlash is what **ALWAYS** happens when social change is pushed at a rate faster than the civilization at large can assimilate.

EVERY.

SINGLE.

TIME.


Does it suck for LGBT people that such advance has to be done slowly? You bet your ass it does.
But want to know what sucks more?  Shit like just went down in Tennessee.


Cultural change is a slow, multigenerational affair.  Not something that you can keep on pushing for, and expect not to have backlash on, if you push too much.  It does not matter what the kind of change is you are trying to affect.  Doing it too fast, will result in the creation of entrenched "resistance" factions, which will styme all efforts for much longer than if you had just permitted slower, assimilatable progress.

For a significantly less politicized analog, see the advance of dogma in academia.  It happens at a rate commensurate with the deaths of tenured professors.

So, ask yourself a series of honest questions:

Are the boomers dead yet?

and

Are the boomers still a significant factor in the trajectory of the nation's politics?

UNLESS the answers to those questions are "YES" and "NO" respectively, you will have to accept the slower rate of assimilation.  Same as with academic publishing against established dogmas. You have to wait for the old professors to die.

The fact that the old professors refuse to fucking die, and actively shit on better research, is notwithstanding.  It is how the social assemblage functions.

Efforts to ram-rod that change through, because of impatience or selfishness (eg, believing it is ONLY about LGBT people, and everyone else can go suck it), will only stymie any further efforts for improvement in the future, because the CURRENT generation will be sensitized to your hamfisted antics, and will be the next demographic to stymie your efforts-- Progress will ultimately be SLOWER than if you had just accepted the rate the social construct could assimilate the change.

[Starver]

(I'm a boomer who isn't dead yet, who isn't reactionary, who hasn't the same sort of stick up my ass** as that legislature and is probably sufficiently Trans-allied for most purposes if not all; admittedly also who aint a Tennesseean* or even a USAian so I'm somewhere near zero in the 'significant factor' stakes. But I just wanted to untar your brush a bit, even while I offer to bring you some additional (brightly coloured?) feathers to complete the job you've started on the more deserving of your blanket targets. )

* - However that's spelt, or its proper demonym.
** - Or, in my case, 'arse'. No diminutive equines were harmed in this modified analogy.

[wierd]

I am perfectly down with the above.

Again, the bar to clear is "Society at large", not "100% of the boomer generational bracket". 
The boomer generation, as a group median average, trends toward more... oppressive... views about alternative sexualities.  As long as they hold a significant hold on national politics, this kind of blowback is inevitable.

Further, attempting to railroad past them, and force the issue, only alienates younger demographics, who then persist LONGER, and continue the pushback long after a point in time when the previous generation of obstructors would have been naturally removed from power through attrition.

It shoots yourself in the foot, and is demonstrably harmful to actual, meaningful change.


I totally "get" that this is a difficult, and bitter pill to swallow.  If it were possible to just magically reform society with a magic wand, and make everyone treat everyone equally, and right-- I would be among the cheerleaders saying to wave that fucker.

However, that is not the reality.

I want people to be treated right, and on the soonest possible timetable.  That means accepting the bitter pill.

[Frumple]

None of that is actually true, wierd. Plenty of major cultural shifts happen rapidly with little to no meaningful pushback; stateside you could look to attitudes regarding divorce or, say, marital rape, just for idle examples. Suffrage would likely work decently, too. Others won't fucking budge ever if they don't see heavy pushes (probable example there is lingering horseshit in some states regarding underage marriage, for an easy one... or women's suffrage in particular).

Just go slow has pretty much never been the right or effective message for folks getting shat on. It's a comfortable stance for the ones on the wrong side of basic human decency, but it's generally seen (rightfully) as just a message to everyone else they should just shut up and suffer. Too many people just won't notice a shit situation that happens to a subset of the population if it's not made real damn visible.

[wierd]

That is a whitewash and you know it frumple.

More often than not, the heavy pushers want to just demonize thier political adversaries, and blatantly ignore (Or worse, double-down on the adversarial rhetoric).

Since you mention suffrage; see the large number of newspaper editorials written by younger people contemporary with the issue, focusing on the malactions of the more bombastic suffragists. (Drinking, swearing, and smoking in public, and generally being offensive instead of constructively demonstrating that yhe arguments being made against them were bogus: women were incapable of being sensible and rational voters. The offensive among the demographic thereby postponed adoption of suffrage, rather than hastening it.) Those editorials were a central pillar of the organized anti-suffrage campaign cited in the paper below. The malactors provided the anti-suffrage movement potent and powerful tools to suppress suffrage.

Contemporary history focuses on the malactors, and wants to paint them as being heroic, but the actual movement's progress was mostly made by the non-beligerant, non-militant, who demonstrated through action that they could indeed be trusted with the vote. (1)

Dont engage in the whitewash.

Humanity is ugly with warts. Accepting the warts is how you advance its appearance.

See also the large bodies of research about getting people to agree with you, by appeasing their positions first.(1)

When you double-down on the offensiveness train, because it makes you feel righteous, you actually hamstring the progress of the movement you are claiming to advance.


NOTE-- this is NOT an advocation of "not pushing".  DO NOT CONSIDER IT SO, IT IS NOT THAT THING.

What it actually IS, is an admonishment against pushing TOO HARD, to the point of being obstinate, and offensive, rather than constructive and considerate.

The notion that "You CANT push too hard!" is at fault here.

[wierd]

Now then--

as for how I would suggest you oppose this shit:

1) DO NOT GO ON FUCKING TWITTER, ON A LOUD MOUTHED RAMPAGE.

2) DO, INSTEAD, Attempt to get dialog going with these 180 corporations who have already voiced opposition, and ask them to "meaningfully comply" with the august tennesse legislature, by placing plaquards that say that they openly accept all patrons of their establishment, regardless of their gender, orientation, or views on sexuality.


The former gives ammo to the anti LGBT assholes, and stymies progress.

The latter is sensible pushing, that is unoffensive, and has real tractability to get useful progress in that state.

[Rolan7]

Cultural change is a slow, multigenerational affair.  Not something that you can keep on pushing for, and expect not to have backlash on, if you push too much.  It does not matter what the kind of change is you are trying to affect.  Doing it too fast, will result in the creation of entrenched "resistance" factions, which will styme all efforts for much longer than if you had just permitted slower, assimilatable progress.

I don't agree with this.  Social progress only seems to happen rapidly.  Women always deserved equal rights throughout history, and some individuals even got some rights, but their humanity was only really realized after a brief few decades of disruptive protest which brought the issue into the mainstream consciousness.  There were cases where women *did* achieve full rights "early", but those states were wiped out by others and the idea didn't spread to the conquerors, despite it being naturally correct.

Throwing off a system of oppression always requires a revolution.
Thankfully, under democracy, that revolution doesn't have to be violent.  But it will involve forcing the issue into the public discourse.  And in my opinion there's no significant downside to going too fast on the national stage.

In person is different - I take baby steps with my family, and it's very frustrating and slow-going but I need them to know I respect them.  Fortunately they respect me too, usually.  That's how to convince one person at a time.

But to convince a nation, you need to be out there and getting people thinking about it.  That works *with* the "reasonable" approach.  You have your wild suffragists making headlines, showing how much the change is wanted, and you also have your demure wives admitting that they want it just as much.

Protesters will always be demonized, no matter what.  It's not pragmatic to protest for half measures (or to throw allies under the bus) because they can't hate us more than they already do.

Separately:  I'm not convinced that nonviolent revolution ever really happens without the *threat* of violence.  It'd be easy to argue semantics on that, so I'm just sharing it as a vague feeling.  No MLK without Malcolm X, etc.  Not to mention that currently-persecuted people have a right and need to defend themselves from hate-crimes (which WILL happen, inevitably, no matter how meekly they behave).

[None]

I'd really prefer not to think that we have to rely on our corporate overlords to enact social change. That seems antithetical to all the marches, protests, demonstrations, and discussions that people need to have to get ideas out there and debases all the grassroots movements or one-on-one discussions that change minds.

The "articles on the more bombastic suffragists" sounds like the same bullshit people write about 'the feminists' or 'the gays' or the black lives matter movement, or whatever have you- they'll always make an example boogeyman out of a caricature of its representatives and the spout off that they've 'gone too far.' They were never going to support the movement to begin with, it's social virtue signaling that 'I can't explicitly say that I disagree with this ideology because that's bait to be called bigoted, but here's how I can fight against it without getting my hands dirty.' Someone will always find something that's 'gone too far for them' and then the discussion is over. They've made it clear that they've drawn a line. They're just going to move the line and blame the cause for it.

Accepting that a movement has warts is how you advance its appearance, so discard the opinion of those who focus on the warts. Be persistent.

[wierd]

It is EXACTLY those things.

And was used in EXACTLY those ways.


Again, you are falling into the "Simply ignore" black hole.  You should not "Simply ignore" that younger people, who will persist MUUUUUCH longer than the "Already near expiration" boomer demographic, are adopting those views, and spreading them.

This is because that happening, is exactly my thesis.

(That is to say, the boomers making idiotic opinion pieces are indeed cases of "Old man yells at cloud"-- but when 20 somethings do it, you have a problem. Those 20 somethings will persistently resist meaningful progress for decades.)

[None]

Look, patience and inaction is not going to change the rate of ardent oppositionists, because opposing things is just What They Do. They will be a constant because there exists a sociopolitical body that exists solely to oppose things and not change, and this is not going to change with age. The propaganda machine is not going to stop turning and telling people to close their ears and minds if the conversation for progress goes quiet- bigoted elders may raise bigoted children and they'll never hear to the contrary if we stop making conversation.

I wasn't even referring to the young or old in my previous point- opposition to social change comes from any age. They will ALWAYS have ammo, because they will always find something to blame or make a caricature when reality doesn't have a perfect example. They're defending the status quo, and doing that is easy because it's not hinged on making a point or upholding the truth. It will always be an uphill battle when asking for change, because 'no' is so much easier to do.

I won't advocate we sit around and wait for more Tennessee laws be passed and quietly hope that they turn themselves around at some point in fear that some Tucker Carlson numbfuck on some news channel is going to make more pearl-clutching speeches about gendered bathrooms or hope quietly that my folks eventually come around to the BLM movement while the legal system systematically fails minorities, because these things are going to continue happening regardless of the noise anyone makes about changing them.

[wierd]

Look, patience and inaction is not going to change the rate of ardent oppositionists, because opposing things is just What They Do. They will be a constant because there exists a sociopolitical body that exists solely to oppose things and not change, and this is not going to change with age. The propaganda machine is not going to stop turning and telling people to close their ears and minds if the conversation for progress goes quiet- bigoted elders may raise bigoted children and they'll never hear to the contrary if we stop making conversation.

I wasn't even referring to the young or old in my previous point- opposition to social change comes from any age. They will ALWAYS have ammo, because they will always find something to blame or make a caricature when reality doesn't have a perfect example. They're defending the status quo, and doing that is easy because it's not hinged on making a point or upholding the truth. It will always be an uphill battle when asking for change, because 'no' is so much easier to do.

I won't advocate we sit around and wait for more Tennessee laws be passed and quietly hope that they turn themselves around at some point in fear that some Tucker Carlson numbfuck on some news channel is going to make more pearl-clutching speeches about gendered bathrooms or hope quietly that my folks eventually come around to the BLM movement while the legal system systematically fails minorities, because these things are going to continue happening regardless of the noise anyone makes about changing them.

I already addressed that elephant in the room:

NOTE-- this is NOT an advocation of "not pushing".  DO NOT CONSIDER IT SO, IT IS NOT THAT THING.

What it actually IS, is an admonishment against pushing TOO HARD, to the point of being obstinate, and offensive, rather than constructive and considerate.

The notion that "You CANT push too hard!" is at fault here.

Again, it is not "Do nothing!! Things will get better all on their own! Pinkyswear!"

If you are going to try to pretend that is my position, I have nothing further to say to you, because you are beating a strawman.
(and I am VERY VERY sick of that tactic being used on me. Read what I wrote, and argue against what I have said, not what you believe it means, or what is most convenient for you to believe.)

[Vector]

OK, here's a question: what does slow-enough change look like when the question is about trans people's right to exist in public spaces? What does the incrementalism you're calling for actually look like?

[wierd]

FINALLY, A CONSTRUCTIVE QUESTION!
(and since I happen to be asexual, and thus AM A PART OF THE LGBT, I can answer meaningfully too!!)

To me, my orientation is not even accepted well even in the LGBT cadre, and is often passed off as 'Afraid to admit their REAL sexuality!' or some other nonsense.   My actual sexuality can really only be accepted, once people become comfortable with accepting that other sexualities besides their own can be out in full display.  As such, I am very much aware that such a thing is nowhere near the horizon for me, and I will endure the bullshit of "Well, you just havent met the right person yet" for the rest of my life.

No, there is not right person. I am asex.

I live in a world that disadvantages people who are such, through a myriad of ways, owing to the fact that as a legit asex person, I am never going to father children, and society focuses entirely too much on procreation, and incentivizes procreation, even when that procreation is not actually desirable. (For instance, when that process produces children that are inevitably going to suffer from lasting physical and mental harm from being impoverished, et al. It is simply irresponsible to do in those conditions, but society still rewards it.)

I am however, very patient, and see that the time for asex people to start pushing, is AFTER the other, more obviously sexual demographics become mainstream accepted, and not before.  This is because the society cannot assimilate that change at this time.  Society has to first become comfortable with other kinds of non-procreative sexuality FIRST.

Now then-- about more immediate things to be done with Tenn--

Those tools seek to create aparthied, de-facto.  They seek to exclude LGBT people from all manner of public places, through placing an onerous restriction on businesses.


I suggest that instead of going full Karen on Twitter, and giving them ammo to use about how the LGBT community are a bunch of spoiled, entitled Karens, that you instead calmly and rationally approach those 180+ major corporations-- that the raging idiots that passed this bill will have ONE HELL OF A HARD TIME living without--- to OPENLY practice the law they demanded-- by opening to LGBT people, AND to bigots, alike, like they ALREADY want to do-- They just now have to put a stupid little sign out front saying such.

This is because those big corporations know something that the idiots in Tenn do not--- The times are changing, and that change is now inevitable. Trying to be the tacit enforcers of this bullshit move is fundementally self-destructive to those businesses-- that is why they would rather drop the entire state of Tenn like a radioactive potato, than do such a thing.

What does this accomplish?

It turns the tables on what the idiots demanding the aparthied want--- The only people standing apart, will be themselves, and their small (and thus statistically less able to survive a loss of customers) businesses-- Further, they will have the open offer to come and be with everyone else, any time.

It flips the calculus on its head.

That is why you should do it.

It is unoffensive, because it does not ostracise by its rhetoric or action.  It is fundementally inclusive, in the face of ribald attempts at exclusion.  Screaming like Karens on twitter does not accomplish that, and instead, fuels the righteous indignation of the idiots that passed this attrocious bill.