"That you, Steve, cannot mention the word *in an article about the word*."
No, I'm pretty sure I could have used it. I don't think Medium censors it. I just wouldn't have. In fact, I censor all swearing in my writing even though I'm perfectly capable of swearing like a trooper in real life.😁
"That you, Steve, cannot mention the word *in an article about the word*."
No, I'm pretty sure I could have used it. I don't think Medium censors it. I just wouldn't have. In fact, I censor all swearing in my writing even though I'm perfectly capable of swearing like a trooper in real life.😁
I censor the n-word because I don't want to overlook the fact that, irrational as it might be, it does cause deep, genuine hurt for some people. And I don't want then to be so upset by the word that they can't hear what I'm trying to say. I want people to get to a point where this isn't the case, but we're not there yet.
There are contexts where I'd encourage its use (classroom discussions of Huckleberry Finn is a good example), because any thoughts and feelings that come up can be addressed in real-time, hopefully in an intelligent, productive manner. But on the page it's a little different.
I actually went back and forth for a few days before publishing that article about whether I should censor it or not. But I'm glad I made the choice to do so. And think I'll continue to do so.
I wrote there almost exactly what I wrote here about the sex of a transgender (to use your interpretations of the words) and the savagery of my responses was stunning. One guy who seems a tad invested in the issue said he was organizing a group to report my post to get me banned. Another wrote a savagely hateful response the core of which was attacking me for exercising.
When it comes to the "trans" thing Medium is a cesspool. would not use the N even in reference; when I do need to refer to it I use 6s for the two gs
The transnazis are brutal on Medium. Quite sure they're the reason why I *was* banned last fall, even though Medium never told me which article it was. But I kept predicting, as I wrote the last article, that this was the one that would do it, because I was critical of trans-activist misogyny.
Hate is okay on Medium as long as you're a chick with a dick (it's always the transwomen...)
It's a bit amazing how much power that group has in online spaces, to shut down even non-hateful but off-narrative discussion.
I wonder what future generations will think of this era. It's hard not to think of the (perhaps apocryphal) stories of table legs being covered up in Victorian times, where we shake our heads and wonder how far out of reasonability they got themselves.
Hey, maybe Meghan Murphy will be able to return to Twitter in the future! She got booted by the same forces.
"It's a bit amazing how much power that group has in online spaces, to shut down even non-hateful but off-narrative discussion."
I'm constantly amazed by this too. It's really difficult to keep the tin-foil hat off sometimes! I don't think I've ever seen another group wield so much influence over discourse.
One partial explanation I've heard is that the major LGB advocacy organizations, after decades of slow buildup, were at peak power when they got their major demands met (eg: in the US, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage). They could have reduced their staff and fundraising to a more "maintenance" level, fighting smaller residual battles. Or they could quickly shift most of their efforts to a new battle (in particular concentrating on the added T), and perhaps increase the staffing, fundraising, and political influence. So the T issue pretty suddenly had front and center attention from an already geared up advocacy industry which needed a new focus to maintain its staffing and relevancy.
This dynamic could go beyond the donation supported major and minor activist organizations; for example, some celebrities and politicians also need to find the next righteous cause.
Another factor is the strong emphasis on life and death, both "Trans folks are being killed all the time" and "Trans folks kill themselves all the time unless...". While those are serious issues that nobody would dismiss, there are some rational questions about magnitudes which tend to get swept under the rug in the heat of activist rhetoric.
(This emotional tactic is also used regarding race in America; liberals tend to overestimate the frequency of police killing of unarmed Blacks by a factor of 10 to 1000, based on media emphasis and rhetoric. If such killings were 1000 times higher, I would have a very different take on the issues too, so I am more emotionally sympathetic to them when I remember their assumptions. [Just as I would have a very different take on abortion if I really believed it was murder.] However, I try to rely on facts rather than being steered by media emphasis and impressions and activist distortions, so my emotional sympathy for the motives of the duped does not mean I agree with their conclusions.)
One of my theories is that the trans movement is a place where misogynist men (and particularly white men) can go and finally be accepted as 'victims' and even, bonus, get idiot regressive lefty feminists to go along with them and do their bidding! Also, emphasis on the violence transwomen face distracts from the group that gets aggressed against far more: Natal women, and particularly by transwomen acting an awful lot like entitled men.
I check in on Feminist Current from time to time, although it's not terribly right wing, it sometimes has a bit of a right-wing hysterics to it. Still, there are a lot of good articles there and I get some good book recs off it.
The trans movement has become a haven for traditional misogynist men who've figured out they can get at least some feminists to support them and do their bidding if they pretend to be women themselves. The Achilles heel of regressive feminism is its unwillingness to be exclusive in any manner or critique or challenge marginalized groups. Transfolk are genuinely marginalized, but some of the activists are clearly men in dresses with a hate-on for women, who are making life much more difficult for *genuine* transfolk.
We are truly living in an age of extreme illogic, where the insanity comes equally from both sides of the social & political divide.
Have you searched on The Word on Medium? See if other articles use it, or any *recent* articles, given Medium's hard left editorial team?
Any teacher who tried to teach Huckleberry Finn today would likely lose their job. I personally wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole if I was a teacher, although I'll admit I couldn't get through it when I tried to read it, too depressing and frankly the story didn't seem to be going anywhere. There it is, my second heresy of the day. I'm on a roll :)
Ooh! I just did! Yep, plenty of uncensored n-words around. By both black and white writers. Haha heretic! One more transgression and we'll burn you at the stake.
Good to know you can at least still freely use The N-Word there, even if you can't say, "Biology is real and only women can menstruate!" Medium (d)RULEZ!!! 🤤
"That you, Steve, cannot mention the word *in an article about the word*."
No, I'm pretty sure I could have used it. I don't think Medium censors it. I just wouldn't have. In fact, I censor all swearing in my writing even though I'm perfectly capable of swearing like a trooper in real life.😁
I censor the n-word because I don't want to overlook the fact that, irrational as it might be, it does cause deep, genuine hurt for some people. And I don't want then to be so upset by the word that they can't hear what I'm trying to say. I want people to get to a point where this isn't the case, but we're not there yet.
There are contexts where I'd encourage its use (classroom discussions of Huckleberry Finn is a good example), because any thoughts and feelings that come up can be addressed in real-time, hopefully in an intelligent, productive manner. But on the page it's a little different.
I actually went back and forth for a few days before publishing that article about whether I should censor it or not. But I'm glad I made the choice to do so. And think I'll continue to do so.
I don't trust Medium with any controversy.
I wrote there almost exactly what I wrote here about the sex of a transgender (to use your interpretations of the words) and the savagery of my responses was stunning. One guy who seems a tad invested in the issue said he was organizing a group to report my post to get me banned. Another wrote a savagely hateful response the core of which was attacking me for exercising.
When it comes to the "trans" thing Medium is a cesspool. would not use the N even in reference; when I do need to refer to it I use 6s for the two gs
The transnazis are brutal on Medium. Quite sure they're the reason why I *was* banned last fall, even though Medium never told me which article it was. But I kept predicting, as I wrote the last article, that this was the one that would do it, because I was critical of trans-activist misogyny.
Hate is okay on Medium as long as you're a chick with a dick (it's always the transwomen...)
It's a bit amazing how much power that group has in online spaces, to shut down even non-hateful but off-narrative discussion.
I wonder what future generations will think of this era. It's hard not to think of the (perhaps apocryphal) stories of table legs being covered up in Victorian times, where we shake our heads and wonder how far out of reasonability they got themselves.
Hey, maybe Meghan Murphy will be able to return to Twitter in the future! She got booted by the same forces.
"It's a bit amazing how much power that group has in online spaces, to shut down even non-hateful but off-narrative discussion."
I'm constantly amazed by this too. It's really difficult to keep the tin-foil hat off sometimes! I don't think I've ever seen another group wield so much influence over discourse.
And that power arose amazingly fast.
One partial explanation I've heard is that the major LGB advocacy organizations, after decades of slow buildup, were at peak power when they got their major demands met (eg: in the US, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage). They could have reduced their staff and fundraising to a more "maintenance" level, fighting smaller residual battles. Or they could quickly shift most of their efforts to a new battle (in particular concentrating on the added T), and perhaps increase the staffing, fundraising, and political influence. So the T issue pretty suddenly had front and center attention from an already geared up advocacy industry which needed a new focus to maintain its staffing and relevancy.
This dynamic could go beyond the donation supported major and minor activist organizations; for example, some celebrities and politicians also need to find the next righteous cause.
Another factor is the strong emphasis on life and death, both "Trans folks are being killed all the time" and "Trans folks kill themselves all the time unless...". While those are serious issues that nobody would dismiss, there are some rational questions about magnitudes which tend to get swept under the rug in the heat of activist rhetoric.
(This emotional tactic is also used regarding race in America; liberals tend to overestimate the frequency of police killing of unarmed Blacks by a factor of 10 to 1000, based on media emphasis and rhetoric. If such killings were 1000 times higher, I would have a very different take on the issues too, so I am more emotionally sympathetic to them when I remember their assumptions. [Just as I would have a very different take on abortion if I really believed it was murder.] However, I try to rely on facts rather than being steered by media emphasis and impressions and activist distortions, so my emotional sympathy for the motives of the duped does not mean I agree with their conclusions.)
One of my theories is that the trans movement is a place where misogynist men (and particularly white men) can go and finally be accepted as 'victims' and even, bonus, get idiot regressive lefty feminists to go along with them and do their bidding! Also, emphasis on the violence transwomen face distracts from the group that gets aggressed against far more: Natal women, and particularly by transwomen acting an awful lot like entitled men.
I check in on Feminist Current from time to time, although it's not terribly right wing, it sometimes has a bit of a right-wing hysterics to it. Still, there are a lot of good articles there and I get some good book recs off it.
The trans movement has become a haven for traditional misogynist men who've figured out they can get at least some feminists to support them and do their bidding if they pretend to be women themselves. The Achilles heel of regressive feminism is its unwillingness to be exclusive in any manner or critique or challenge marginalized groups. Transfolk are genuinely marginalized, but some of the activists are clearly men in dresses with a hate-on for women, who are making life much more difficult for *genuine* transfolk.
We are truly living in an age of extreme illogic, where the insanity comes equally from both sides of the social & political divide.
Have you searched on The Word on Medium? See if other articles use it, or any *recent* articles, given Medium's hard left editorial team?
Any teacher who tried to teach Huckleberry Finn today would likely lose their job. I personally wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole if I was a teacher, although I'll admit I couldn't get through it when I tried to read it, too depressing and frankly the story didn't seem to be going anywhere. There it is, my second heresy of the day. I'm on a roll :)
Ooh! I just did! Yep, plenty of uncensored n-words around. By both black and white writers. Haha heretic! One more transgression and we'll burn you at the stake.
Good to know you can at least still freely use The N-Word there, even if you can't say, "Biology is real and only women can menstruate!" Medium (d)RULEZ!!! 🤤
Ha ha, Medium can't burn me at the stake!!! I'm already dead to them!!! 😁