Social Network Debating

[Heald]

Roughly 25 and a half years ago, my Scottish mother gave birth to me and my paternal father, also Scottish, was there as well. I was born with a penis and as such the doctor recorded that I was a male on my birth certificate.

Later in life I had to come to a realisation of whether I wanted to become romantically involved with males, females, both or neither. I chose females as that's what felt natural to me and I haven't considered changing this.

Oh, and that penis I mentioned earlier? Yeah I still have that, as well as my balls, and I have not considered changing my designated gender.

I am also a reasonably open-minded person. I do not think that anyone is better or worse for having a different sexual preference than me, nor if they were born to different nationality or race of parents, or if they have decided to change the designation of the gender that they were given by a doctor at birth.

This is all well and good, but where does this lead to?

Well, on social networks, if you choose to comment or express an opinion, then you are usually displaying slightly more personal info about yourself than on a message board or anonymous commenting facility. Up until a few years ago this did not really matter, but in recent years I have noticed a trend of people in a similar situation to me, when expressing opinions or making some kind of comment or statement, will often get this kind of response:

'Yeah well you only think that because you're white hetero male cis scum #checkyourprivilege'

Bear in mind this is not anonymous feedback you're receiving: people who are displaying their real names and profile pictures are saying this, so it doesn't really come under the definition of anonymous trolling. But what it boils down to is that if you are born into a position of perceived privilege then you don't get to have an opinion.

I don't see this as a tactic for 'winning an argument'. There seems to be a growing mentality where unless you can claim you are not privileged, then you do not get to participate in the discussion of society, democracy or politics.

What has spurred me to create this thread is in recent months, the satire website The Onion has come under fire for its satirisation of events that were notable to the African-American community (The murder of Trayvon Martin being a recent one). The main complaint has been that the Onion has not treated these events with the sensitivity that such news stories might require, given the fact that anti-black laws are still very much in the living memory of much of the USA's population. This has led to some claiming that the Onion is racist or is orchestrating a racist agenda.

Some people - from all backgrounds - have attempted to defend the Onion and that it is colorblind in who or what it chooses to satirise. For those condemning the Onion, instead of reasonably replying to such defences, simply point that those defending the Onion are privileged and cis and so do not get to have an opinion.

Anyway, thoughts? Does my penis and whiteness mean my opinions are invalid, or are my opinions just shit? Answers to the usual address.

*disclaimer - this is not an attack on feminists or LGBTs, just on people, many of whom are white male cis, who use this line of attack to shut down healthy discussion.

It is also not an attack on those who legitimately call out someone who is cis or hetero who has unsavoury opinions on LGBT.

[Zak]

I post controversial/debatable opinions on facebook all the time and I've never gotten a comment remotely like that, and I would say the same applies to me.

Of course, people have to be 'friends' with you on social networking sites to be able to comment, so... are you saying these people are your 'friends'?

[RedStarWarrior]

I posted a rant about the transgendered 6 year-old (which is utter bullshit) on Facebook and got surprisingly positive responses.

I guess it just depends on which friends you have.

[Heald]

This hasn't happened to me personally, but I've seen it happen:

- people who I am friends with on Facebook posting in general about how much they hate cis scum telling her what to think
- people posting a public Facebook threads on public Pages (see The Onion's or Penny Arcade's for example)
- generally more prevalent on Twitter or on blogs where people comment on a blog via Facebook or Twitter

I personally have yet to be called cis scum by anyone (that I know of) but have seen people publicly posting stuff that I agree with on Facebook and then subsequently being denounced as cis scum.

Of course if anyone I was actually friends with referred to me as cis or scum, I would probably just unfriend them.

[Magmar]

I usually get a get out of jail free card for being gay and, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. That being said, there's one too many eff-straight-white-cisgender-men blogs out there when some of the most open-minded and progressive people I know are straight white cisgender men. We need more eff-bigotry blogs, really, and more comprehensive education.

[Heald]

That's exactly what I think, I was hoping that other people were also picking up on this anti-free speech tactic. I had a feeling you'd be on side Gavin, you're pretty level-headed on these kinds of things.

Case in point, anyone who knows Penny Arcade might want to see the kind of cis-phobic hatred that is being turned at Gabe's Twitter Feed because of his entirely legitimate views on transsexuality. He is only stating what he believes but because it doesn't seem to fit in with the militant feminist and LGBT wing of his audience, there is lots of 'shut up cis scum' type of posts being sent his way. He's gotten to the point where he's said he's going to ignore anyone using the term cis as pretty much everyone using it is using it as a term of abuse.

I admire what the actual LGBT community goes through and gets done, today being a case in point, but the militant wing who use cis as a term of hatred and an excuse to shut down free speech are no better than fundamentalists who use anti-LGBT language.

[RedStarWarrior]

I'm of the opinion that affirmative action is racism.

Whenever you bring any sort of physical or sexual descriptor into any equation when making judgements about people is completely wrong. We are fucking human. I only measure of worth should be how we contribute (or don't detract) from the quality of life in our society.

[Telume]

I get off on 2 counts:

1. I have several gay friends
2. I'm male, but I'm not white.

Frankly, I support whatever lifestyle you want. As long as you don't try to invade my personal space with it (I.E.: try to hit on me if you're gay), we're cool.

[Magmar]

As long as you don't try to invade my personal space with it (I.E.: try to hit on me if you're gay), we're cool.

Isn't hitting on anyone, then, invading the other's personal space and making assumptions about their sexuality?

[kurai]

virtually all public policy is implemented in a discriminatory nature - that is, it applies to one particular group and not others while attending to a given objective. in a democratic/parliamentary-driven system of governance, we ought to expect these objectives to be responsive to society itself.

is society colour-blind? probably not, and it should be no surprise as a result that race remains a category of interest in legislation, as its discussion in general is both constant and insistent. affirmative action as a form of preferential discrimination arises from a balance of interests in the social order which recognizes vast historical injustices, as is analogous to any practice which provides a preferential advantage to an identifiable group.

as we can not set aside discrimination without setting aside the act of collective governance (which, in a utopian sense, is a valid inquiry, but rather off-topic presently), the question then becomes whether or not the consequences of a particular policy are subjectively fair...

but! the answer to that is rather contingent on one's ideological framing - which interestingly points back to heald's opening remarks - personally, i reject the notion of collectivized identities as lacking in nuance and therefore deficient in their representation of the self. at the same time, some people are highly motivated in their pursuit of one label or another, and the denial of such would also involve a negation of their self-determination.

the standard for 'hate' as opposed to acceptable speech in most countries is essentially either the advocacy of crime against an identifiable group or the denial of past atrocities. given the proper framing, the denial of someone's identity is easily construed as an attempt to deny their existence, which historically does not lead to positive outcomes. in effect, a fundamental contradiction arises in which the freedom of thought, speech, opinion and personhood of @cwgabriel stands opposed to the same principles as held by his objectors.

what a dilemma! but it is a rather inevitable consequence of allowing for individual subjectivity - modern politics are not deduced from objective first principles, and as multiple potential subjects allows for multiple potential truths, discrimination and subjectivity go hand-in-hand. thus, are the consequences of affirmative action subjectively fair? maybe not to you. does it seem wrong to demand silence from someone who appears to be silencing you? maybe not to you.

consider: "As long as you don't try to invade my personal space with it, we're cool" - a common sentiment. but the notion of personal space - the ability to have personal space - doubtlessly leads to conflict in reality. to that end:

The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy. [...]

The political enemy need not be morally evil or aesthetically ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor, and it may even be advantageous to engage with him in business transactions. But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible. These can neither be decided by a previously determined general norm nor by the judgment of a disinterested and therefore neutral third party.

Only the actual participants can correctly recognize, understand, and judge the concrete situation and settle the extreme case of conflict. Each participant is in a position to judge whether the adversary intends to negate his opponent's way of life and therefore must be repulsed or fought in order to preserve one's own form of existence. [...]

The enemy is not merely any competitor or just any partner of a conflict in general. He is also not the private adversary whom one hates. An enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity. [...]

such a notion might serve to explain the dialogue between gabe and his opponents, given the context that i have outlined above. but what of affirmative action? one might say that it is the duty of the state to prevent outwardly explosive conflict, while at the same time, abstaining from any denials of the fundamental freedom of self-determination by its citizens. in practice, affirmative action serves to reshape, rather than nullify, historically disadvantaged identities in response to their actually existing demands. justice is found in the preservation of overall peace through establishing hope for those who might otherwise find a friend/enemy distinction between their own identity group and a perceived adversary. peace in a multifaceted society is quite an achievement, even if it is at the cost of idealized perfection.

[Blademaster]

Social network 'debates' are fucking ludicrous nowadays. I don't even know if I'm in favor of equality anymore since modern 'equality' basically means "Do and say whatever the fuck you feel like (unless you're a white male)." Every argument is a fucking fallacy and is fueled by hypocrisy (e.g., If you're a minority and can't do something, it's because of oppression; if you're a man and you can't do that same something, you should probably stop being such a loser.).

The sick twisted irony is that the more 'equality' that people tend to get, the more that they promptly take it and show me and the rest of the Internet (and really the rest of the world that isn't super-liberal lobbyists and their braindead militant followers) that they simply do not deserve it.

[Nall]

Case in point, anyone who knows Penny Arcade might want to see the kind of cis-phobic hatred that is being turned at Gabe's Twitter Feed because of his entirely legitimate views on transsexuality. He is only stating what he believes but because it doesn't seem to fit in with the militant feminist and LGBT wing of his audience, there is lots of 'shut up cis scum' type of posts being sent his way. He's gotten to the point where he's said he's going to ignore anyone using the term cis as pretty much everyone using it is using it as a term of abuse.

Speaking as a gender-impaired individual, I wouldn't call Gabe's views "entirely legitimate" at all. Having a legitimate opinion requires you to be informed. Regardless of whether or not he meant anything mean by it, what he said was ignorant and dismissive of an entire group of people, and he's in a position where his words influence people (whether he thinks so or not). I don't think he meant anything malicious by it, he just made some extremely insensitive word choices. That being said, the people that lashed out at him for it are in many cases just as bad (or worse) than him. Essentially, they took one uneducated and not-that-inaccurate statement (he said that a game that teaches how to masturbate with a vagina is aimed at women) and nitpicked it to bait him into saying the things that he said. Lots of people, Gabe included, are ignorant of transgender people - they don't hate them, they just don't understand it because they don't know anybody who's trans and it's a tough issue to wrap your brain around if you aren't personally experiencing it and you don't know anyone who is.

Before I say anything else, I wanna state that I think all the "check your privilege white cis scum" stuff is complete bullshit, because anyone can have valid opinions, buuut depending on the issue at hand, your opinion may be less relevant. I believe people are allowed to tell you when your opinion doesn't matter as much as the next person's, but have some goddamn civility. And like I said before, for your opinion to be legit, you need to to have the information to form a legit opinion and sometimes you just can't do that from the viewpoint of a white cis male. Not to say it's impossible to gain perspective - you can always expand your world view, meet new people, form new opinions. While being a cisgender, heterosexual white male doesn't invalidate your opinion completely by any means, having a close friend who's transgender, gay, black, or whatever does lend credibility to it.

Generally, though, I try not to befriend anybody who's hateful or ignorant regardless of their background. Spouting "die cis scum" would get you blocked by me just as quickly as posting a bunch of homophobic/transphobic/racist bullshit. It is generally a good indicator that you are a foul human being and I want nothing to do with you.

[Magmar]

Nall, you'll have to forgive my intrusive question, but what exactly does "gender-impaired" mean?

(Other than that adjective, I totally agree with your whole post...)

Let's say Person X's identifies with primarily dominant groups--straight, white, male, somewhat Christian, reasonably fit, no disabilities, upper middle class, etc. Person X performs to a crowd that is as diverse as possible, and performs a comedy routine that is based entirely upon humor that denigrates certain minority groups, of which Person X has little to no experience with. If people in the crowd boo him and speak out against that humor, and Person X tries to play the victim and cry that it's his freedom of speech, etc., then Person X is just showing that he has no real defense of his own comments and is also completely unwilling to relinquish the power over the non-dominant groups that he, as a "dominant" person in the group's society, has been unfairly bestowed.

It's the same thing as white people whining about whether or not they can use the n-word if people of color can use it. The word was used to establish power over people of color, and the non-dominant group reclaimed the word and now has established power over a word that was in dominant culture once a pejorative against them. To be so thoroughly disappointed that you can't use the n-word for that reason is to pine for the power that you once had over the word.

I mean if you think about it, the amount of times people who aren't LGBT throw the word f****t around in Mt. Moon is kind of appalling, and as someone who is LGBT I could really be offended, or I could reclaim the word so that it doesn't have the power over me that it otherwise could have, or I could say "screw it it's Mt. Moon and I know these people anyway they don't mean any harm". And yet, if one of you straight folks were to go saying the word on a city bus and LGBT people were to hear you saying the word, because they don't know you and don't know that you don't mean any harm by it, they'd probably be offended. Same thing with white people using the n-word in public... if a white person is really immersed in black culture, has lots of black friends, black roommates, lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, etc. and all their friends use the n-word they might be able to get away with using it among that circle, but probably not get away with using it around strangers.

[Lady Vulpix]

Bigotry is bigotry, regardless of who's the bigot and who's the target. It would save everyone a lot of trouble if they just realized that physical appearance, gender, sexual orientation, religion or social status are not reasons to judge people.

That said, some people say similar things in a different sense: replying to criticism by telling the critics that they don't know what it's like to be in their shoes. While the words they use sound similar to the former, the attitude and intention are completely different, and these ones are usually worth listening to.

[Oslo]

I tend to look at "cis scum" as a dig at cis privilege rather than a bigoted attack on cis identities. When that privilege rears its head—which is to say, when someone like Penny Arcade’s Gabe recites a fairly ubiquitous view handed down to him through our cisnormative education system—trans people really shouldn’t have to take that lying down. "Cis scum" probably isn’t the most pleasant epithet to read but I think it’s good to have our privileges rendered visible in a manner that might occasionally jar us.

[Heald]

Speaking as a gender-impaired individual, I wouldn't call Gabe's views "entirely legitimate" at all. Having a legitimate opinion requires you to be informed. Regardless of whether or not he meant anything mean by it, what he said was ignorant and dismissive of an entire group of people, and he's in a position where his words influence people (whether he thinks so or not). I don't think he meant anything malicious by it, he just made some extremely insensitive word choices. That being said, the people that lashed out at him for it are in many cases just as bad (or worse) than him. Essentially, they took one uneducated and not-that-inaccurate statement (he said that a game that teaches how to masturbate with a vagina is aimed at women) and nitpicked it to bait him into saying the things that he said. Lots of people, Gabe included, are ignorant of transgender people - they don't hate them, they just don't understand it because they don't know anybody who's trans and it's a tough issue to wrap your brain around if you aren't personally experiencing it and you don't know anyone who is.

I feel I ought to clear things up. It's perhaps lazy referring to views on things like race, gender and sexuality as views or opinions. It's like having an opinion on blacks or women having the vote: nowadays you generally aren't meant to have an opinion on it, you just accept the fact that you can't discriminate on who you give the vote to and therefore actively having an opinion on such matters is unnecessary.

Now, onto what Gabe actually said and what actually occurred. Apparently someone, somewhere decided to get their knickers in a twist over the fact that Gabe said that a game about vaginal masturbation was generally aimed at women. Apparently this is exclusionary because not all women have vaginas. But this isn't about transphobia, this is about semantics. OK yes, not all women have vaginas. And not all flies have wings (yes, this is true, there are varieties of flies that cannot actually fly). But if you were asked to describe a fly, you would generally include wings or flying in the description. Likewise, if you were asked to describe a woman, or the difference between a man and a woman from a biological perspective, then one would generally include vaginas in the description. If you had enough time or space, you could include a caveat that not all women have vaginas. But Gabe was mentioning a video game's target audience in a throwaway sentence, not writing a comprehensive review on human female biology.

Anyway, so someone who probably already hated Penny Arcade and/or Gabe in the first place decided to take offence to this semantic error and attempted to spin it into Penny Arcade being a transphobic website. Given that this is a website that is only there to host a comic about dickwolves and a machine that fucks fruit, I'm not really sure why anyone could have possibly expected specific clauses referring to transgender individuals into everything they did regarding gender-related topics.

Anyway, the whole thing escalated and Gabe said some pretty sarcastic shit that probably didn't win him any favours, but he has since apologised, although the bloggers and tweeters who were wrongly demonising him have yet to make similar apologies and retractions.

It's one thing to point out someone's ignorance, and helpfully some people did do this. It's another to just personally attack and slander someone just because you want attention/people to read your blog.

I mean if you think about it, the amount of times people who aren't LGBT throw the word f****t around in Mt. Moon is kind of appalling, and as someone who is LGBT I could really be offended, or I could reclaim the word so that it doesn't have the power over me that it otherwise could have, or I could say "screw it it's Mt. Moon and I know these people anyway they don't mean any harm". And yet, if one of you straight folks were to go saying the word on a city bus and LGBT people were to hear you saying the word, because they don't know you and don't know that you don't mean any harm by it, they'd probably be offended. Same thing with white people using the n-word in public... if a white person is really immersed in black culture, has lots of black friends, black roommates, lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, etc. and all their friends use the n-word they might be able to get away with using it among that circle, but probably not get away with using it around strangers.

I'll put my hand up and say yes, I do throw the word f****t (I wouldn't normally use asterisks but since you did I'll use them out of respect) around in Mt Moon, and very occasionally outside of Mt Moon. I think this is mainly because it is not really seen as that bad a word in the UK and I imagine it is probably a lot worse, context wise, in the USA. I don't actually use it to refer to homosexuals except a few instances in Mt Moon when I'm attempting to use it for shock/humorous effect, and the fact that it's Mt Moon so nothing anyone says is meant to be taken seriously. This isn't an excuse and doesn't justify the use of the word, just why I use it from time to time. I don't think it's OK to use the word because I hate gays or think I'm better than them, I use it because I think it's a funny word and use it predominately to refer to a pathetic individual without any implication of sexuality. This doesn't make it OK though, and I don't say it IRL. But if you genuinely dislike reading that word, even in Mt Moon, I'll stop using it.

[Magmar]

I appreciate the gesture, Heald, but I really don't mind what's said in Mt. Moon to be honest. That's the route I take with it... I won't be offended by Mt. Moon and expect the same respect in return. That's why I used asterisks here, because there's 9 year olds who look around Misc. (see: age thread) but really say whatever the hell you want in Mt. Moon

[Nall]

Nall, you'll have to forgive my intrusive question, but what exactly does "gender-impaired" mean?

That is my oh so witty way of saying that I'm transgender.

I won't quote your full post but I wanna say that I could not have said it better myself. Seriously, I was gonna try to but my post started getting rambly and long so I shut up.

Now, onto what Gabe actually said and what actually occurred. Apparently someone, somewhere decided to get their knickers in a twist over the fact that Gabe said that a game about vaginal masturbation was generally aimed at women. Apparently this is exclusionary because not all women have vaginas. But this isn't about transphobia, this is about semantics. OK yes, not all women have vaginas. And not all flies have wings (yes, this is true, there are varieties of flies that cannot actually fly). But if you were asked to describe a fly, you would generally include wings or flying in the description. Likewise, if you were asked to describe a woman, or the difference between a man and a woman from a biological perspective, then one would generally include vaginas in the description. If you had enough time or space, you could include a caveat that not all women have vaginas. But Gabe was mentioning a video game's target audience in a throwaway sentence, not writing a comprehensive review on human female biology.

It wasn't so much his original statement that offended/annoyed me (as I said, it's not technically inaccurate at all to say a game about vaginal masturbation is aimed at women), it was the stuff he said to follow it up. But I agree that he was totally egged on by people who wanted nothing more than to make him look bad. And since he's apologized, although I still don't care for Penny Arcade for a number of other reasons, I'm not gonna go around complaining about what a transphobic a-hole Gabe is.

One thing to consider is that these are people who spent their whole lives being harassed, mocked, and bullied just for being themselves. And then they finally find a place where they're accepted as themselves, and a way to make their voice heard, they use it to become a replica of the people who harassed them when they were young. They think that spewing hate in the opposite direction will somehow neutralize all of it; that if you yell loud enough you'll eventually be right. It's equally ignorant to the people who just hate or fear what they don't understand. I just find it sad, and hopefully someday these people will grow up and realize they're not helping.

I will admit that when I was younger I threw the f-bomb around quite freely, did the whole "call things you don't like gay" bit, all of that. Personally, I haven't been able to use that word at all, even jokingly, since seeing this NSFW scene from Louie (lots and lots of f****t usage) where a gay comic explains how it came to mean "gay person". My opinion of the word and its usage is pretty much the same as his. Use it, get your laughs, but know what it means.