But when the source of a coalition's power rests on the loyalty of the victims it protects, and of their allies, then those seeking to win more power for the coalition have an incentive to both create more victims, and distinguish loyal from fair-weather allies.
-Aggressively marketing "being trans" as an atomic identity that everyone needs to celebrate on pain of being responsible for someone's suicide, serves both functions: a lot of autogynephilic young men and [quirky but impressionable teenage girls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_onset_gender_dysphoria_controversy) get recruited to the victimhood coalition (who might have otherwise gotten married and joined the power base of the hegemonic social order), _and_ everyone who cares about having a public concept of biological sex gets "outed" as an insufficiently-loyal ally (who can't free-ride off the coalition's successes without contributing). [It works even better if](https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/09/real-meaning-of-diversity/) any group that doesn't have the necessary quota of trans people is marked for political attack on the grounds of being insufficiently inclusive.
+Aggressively marketing "being trans" as an atomic identity that [everyone needs to celebrate on pain of being responsible for someone's suicide](/2018/Jan/dont-negotiate-with-terrorist-memeplexes/), serves both functions: a lot of autogynephilic young men and [quirky but impressionable teenage girls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_onset_gender_dysphoria_controversy) get recruited to the victimhood coalition (who might have otherwise gotten married and joined the power base of the hegemonic social order), _and_ everyone who cares about having a public concept of biological sex gets "outed" as an insufficiently-loyal ally (who can't free-ride off the coalition's successes without contributing). [It works even better if](https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/09/real-meaning-of-diversity/) any group that doesn't have the necessary quota of trans people is marked for political attack on the grounds of being insufficiently inclusive.
-Again, [no individual mastermind is required](/2018/Jan/dont-negotiate-with-terrorist-memeplexes/) for [the collective outcome to play out this way](/2019/Aug/the-social-construction-of-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason/). Being proud of a political group identity and seeking to promote its strength and power is _normal_. Being suspicious of those who refuse to pay the cost of signaling loyalty to the group is _normal_. Wanting to change sex is—not "normal" exactly, but a _reasonably common and harmless fantasy_ (the scintillating but ultimately untrue thought) that a lot of people have without being in the homosexual extreme-right-tail-of-sex-atypical-behavior taxon that sex reassignment was invented for. ([A 1994 study found that](/papers/hsu_et_al-gender_differences_in_sexual_fantasy.pdf) among college students, 5.6% of males and 13.2% of females had fantasized about being the opposite sex.)
+Again, no individual mastermind is required for [the collective outcome to play out this way](/2019/Aug/the-social-construction-of-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason/). Being proud of a political group identity and seeking to promote its strength and power is _normal_. Being suspicious of those who refuse to pay the cost of signaling loyalty to the group is _normal_. Wanting to change sex is—not "normal" exactly, but a _reasonably common and harmless fantasy_ (the scintillating but ultimately untrue thought) that a lot of people have without being in the homosexual extreme-right-tail-of-sex-atypical-behavior taxon that sex reassignment was invented for. ([A 1994 study found that](/papers/hsu_et_al-gender_differences_in_sexual_fantasy.pdf) among college students, 5.6% of males and 13.2% of females had fantasized about being the opposite sex.)
As a transhumanist, I believe that fantasies deserve to be fulfilled—but _actually_ fulfilled, fulfilled _for real_, not humored by everyone forcing everyone else to pretend in order to maintain the equilibrium in some idiot political game.
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff