Target caves to right-wing terrorism, removes Pride merchandise for employee safety

[Horus]

Apparently the two items that Target is removing will be "tuck friendly" women's swimsuits and Satan-themed LGBTQ+ accessories.  

And why are these items worthy of boycott?

A.All terrorists here need to be arrested and locked up with the key thrown away if they were violent or made such threats
B. Tuck friendly swimsuits are fine, its better than the Dylan Mulvaney option of everyone having to normalize dick bulges.

C. The Satan stuff wasn't merely some shirt with the devil but an actual partnership target entered into with an actual Satanist. Satanism is basically a peak own the con move as the concept of Satan comes from Judaism/Christainity/Islam so not sure why one has to say they support Satan. I'm fine with satanic imagery and I can't exactly oppose Satanism as a non Abrahamicist but its kinda weird and I get why Christians oppose it. Extremely dumb move for Target to promote this stuff in the front of their stores.

https://nypost.com/2023/05/23/target-partners-with-satanist-brand-for-pride-collection/amp/

"Satanists" are indeed stupid edgelords, "I'm 14 and this is deep" r/atheism types in my experience. They don't ACTUALLY believe in or worship Satan, but they try to scare Christians by pretending to. It's cringe and "own the cons" is a good way of putting it, as it is reminiscent of a funhouse mirror version of the "own the libs" cringe common from the right. Also reminds me of the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" smuglords who peaked in like the late 2000s/early 2010s who thought they were so superior to religious people by claiming to be "Pastafarians." Even as a teenaged atheist, I thought this type of thing was cringe and counter-productive. I definitely do now. LGBT movement had its greatest success when it was trying to convince Americans that gay people are just like them and just wanted the same rights everyone else had. Flaunting their "queerness" and mocking religion, embracing the idea that their behavior is "sinful," seems like an easy way to turn people off to me. But in general I don't understand what if any strategy the post-Obergefell LGBT movement is trying to do, as someone who likes to think from an optics perspective. It's bizarre how they went from such a well-organized and successful campaign to such a fractured, confused mess that has managed, it seems to me, to actually undo some of their hard-fought progress in receiving respect from "normie" straights.

You said it yourself, the movement was most successful when trying to convince Americans that gay people are just like them. Gay and queer are not synonymous, and the queer movement is often intentionally confrontational and disrespectful, something that us regular boring brunch gays are less likely to be.

[Horus]

But I think there is an agenda to make children trans, who aren't trans.

You are incorrect about this. Do not believe lies from the likes of Matt Walsh, Ron DeSantis, Chiya Raichik, and the like.

Why should we believe that they're lies?

I know this will be lost on you, but you’re making the assertion that certain groups are forcibly transing kids gender. You should be the one providing credible evidence that it’s true

If what you're saying is true, wouldn't you be able to back it up?  Wouldn't you be able to give me a knowable answer as to why more people are declaring as "trans" now than ever before?  You tell me why the incidence of Gender Dysphoria is higher than it has ever been?

I think it's the case both that kids are becoming trans as a result of sociocultural influence,

What actual evidence do you have for this? Because the only "evidence" for sociocultural influence inducing transness when it wasn't there before(as opposed to it allowing more people to recognize it due to increased understanding/decreased stigma) was a terribly done study that's methodology IIRC was basically just asking parents, most of whom were recruited from explicitly anti-trans forums, if they thought their kids were trans because of peer influence, and trusting that extremely biased source as gospel.

And as someone who actually has experienced gender dysphoria and s**t, social contagion and cultural influence theories are contradicted by personal experience, while transness becoming more common for reason analagous to those that made left handedness more common a century ago(increased knowledge of it plus decreased stigma leading to people being more likely to A. know what they're feeling and have language that expresses it, B. actually accept that their feelings are valid, and C. know that transition is a thing that can be done). There was some backround like of the idea of being and presenting female for most of my life, but I didn't know what being trans was until I was 9 or 10 at least, and back then it was described to me by my parents in a way that, while well meaning and not hateful, did end up setting trans people up as some kind of exotic weird people separate from the "default" I (as a white kid who was supposedly "straight" and "male") was taught on a subconscious level by my environment, media and otherwise, that I was. It took a while for me to entertain the idea that I might be trans, and I ended up thinking I wasn't because of some stupid bulls**t test that wasn't and isn't worth a thimble full of piss told me I wasn't(the fact that I gave the answer with the weird maid fetishy stuff to the "do you like cleaning" question because cleaning was kind of satisfying and the other answers all implied not liking it and also I didn't know what a fetish was), and suggested "autogynephillia", a diagnosis of sexual arousal from feeling like a hot women that is ostensibly a male fetish. Of course, the fact that many if not most cis women fit the diagnostic criteria for this "male" "fetish" calls at the very least the first part of that description into question. From my understanding, finding yourself enjoying the thought of being the opposite sex more than being your current sex during "private moments" tends to be a sign that you'd like being the opposite sex more in general.

It’s pretty clear to me that the experience of gender is to a significant degree social and cultural. If the concept of gender and how it relates to sex changes in a culture, why wouldn’t I expect that change how people identify what gender they are?  The act of labeling an experience has a tendency to modify that experience toward the pattern of the label.  

Not just the number but also the demographic profile of who is trans has changed over time. It used to be most were adult MtF, but now a large proportion are adolescent FtM.  This suggests that the things that lead someone to identify as trans today are likely different than in the past.

Regarding left-handedness, the concept of being left-handed isn’t new. And stigma by itself is probably not a good explanation for lower rates a century ago. The historical data on it isn’t great, but it seems that low rates of left-handedness were associated with the industrial revolution and universal education, where kids ended up learning to be right-handed because their physical environments were set up for that, and most adapted to it. Before that, left-handedness might have been about as common as today.

The increase in ftm identification is very curious to me. Would most of these people have just been tomboys 20 years ago? Is the massive increase because these young people see the advantages men have in the world due to patriarchy and/or think being a man would be less traumatic or "safer"?

[Horus]

The increase in ftm identification is very curious to me. Would most of these people have just been tomboys 20 years ago? Is the massive increase because these young people see the advantages men have in the world due to patriarchy and/or think being a man would be less traumatic or "safer"?

That's not how any of this works...

Really? You're sure? You're not known for always being right about this stuff...

[Horus]

It’s pretty clear to me that the experience of gender is to a significant degree social and cultural. If the concept of gender and how it relates to sex changes in a culture, why wouldn’t I expect that change how people identify what gender they are?  The act of labeling an experience has a tendency to modify that experience toward the pattern of the label. 

Not just the number but also the demographic profile of who is trans has changed over time. It used to be most were adult MtF, but now a large proportion are adolescent FtM.  This suggests that the things that lead someone to identify as trans today are likely different than in the past.

Regarding left-handedness, the concept of being left-handed isn’t new. And stigma by itself is probably not a good explanation for lower rates a century ago. The historical data on it isn’t great, but it seems that low rates of left-handedness were associated with the industrial revolution and universal education, where kids ended up learning to be right-handed because their physical environments were set up for that, and most adapted to it. Before that, left-handedness might have been about as common as today.

Gender has significant cultural/social elements, but at its core gender is a core part of the human psyche. You need more evidence to imply that transness is some cultural fad than saying that the demographics of the trans community have changed as transness became less dangerous and unknown. The things that leads trans people to identify as trans and transition are gender dysphoria and gender euphoria. The fact that its actually properly understood now is what causes the increase and more equal gender distribution(and the fact that trans men were generally able to present as masculine women without becoming a pariah, while for trans women, presenting oneself as a feminine man meant becoming an outcast.

I am not sure about the idea that trans woman have had an easier time fitting in to society in the past than trans men. I don't know but it's not what I would guess.

It isn't so much a more equal gender distribution now from what is was before, as it is reversed.


https://www.genderhq.org/increase-trans-females-nonbinary-dysphoria

I was saying that trans women didn't have the option to present as a gender nonconforming member of our birth sex with relatively bearable backlash in the same way that trans men did back them. Also the trans women who transitioned back then generally had a lot of resources that afab people were much less likely to have than amab people.

And the site your citing has a very clear agenda that puts its statistics in doubt. And especially when they scaremonger about autistic kids being somehow suckered into transitioning as if people like me are idiots who can't be trusted to understand our own bodies.

The 1st graph figures are from the 2018 UK National LGBT Survey and show self-ID.

The 2nd graph figures are from Tavistock https://gids.nhs.uk/about-us/number-of-referrals/

No response to this, figures.