Edit for context:
My view is transracial isn’t valid and this person is trying to dogwhistle. I’ve already blocked this person, and now they’re going after my friend saying my friend is transphobic because they disagreed with them about transracial being a thing (they’re purposefully leaving the context out so my friend looks transphobic when what my friend really said was transgender is valid but transracial isn’t)
So you allow them to influence other people with their ideas?
It’s stuff like this why people in real life all share the same opinion on trans issues and other right wing issues. It’s this stuff that has allowed their arguments to spread. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what you were supposed to be doing. You gave them a red carpet and helped contribute to the spread of their propaganda by disengaging. Changing their opinion was not ever said as a goal. You need to challenge their opinion to show it is badly formed. If it isn’t then you need to evaluate yours.
Disengaging does not help spread propaganda. Engaging and giving horrible ideas a platform does help spread propaganda.
Your “debate bro” advice is about ten years out of date.
You’re wrong. Completely wrong on so many levels. This is all about engagement. That whole “too enlightened to engage” attitude is exactly how the right managed to take over so much of the online space. Right-wing think tanks and PR firms invested in engagement, nonstop posts, repetition, platform saturation. And it worked.
People see the same ideas echoed over and over again, and eventually it shapes how they think. That’s why regular, everyday people, people who aren’t even political start parroting right-wing talking points. Even my kids and their friends are saying this stuff.
It’s not because they believe it. It’s because that’s what they see. All the time.
The reason it’s gotten this bad? A whole chunk of people on the left thought disengaging was smart. That if they just ignored it, it would go away. It didn’t. It spread. And now we’re here.
You are 100% correct on this part.
The problem is, arguing with them magnifies that effect, it doesn’t challenge it.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t push back. I don’t mean smile and agree, or just ignore them. Deplatforming works, protests work, proud visibility works, civil disobedience works. Responding negatively works. Making it so that there is a social cost to being a transphobe works.
But debating them isn’t any of those things. Debating them is engaging with them, and in the act of arguing with you, they actually solidify the beliefs they already hold, and this is especially true of heavily polarised issues. Here’s some research on it https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01623-8 (PDF link), and an article that goes in to the topic a bit https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/why-is-it-that-even-proven-facts-cant-change-some-peoples-minds
As much as it feels right to argue with them, all you are doing is strengthening their already held beliefs when you do. It might feel like its helping, but it isn’t. You’ll read my response, and you’ll likely go “screw that, you’re wrong, I’m going to keep arguing”. And that’s the exact effect I’m talking about at play. Every time you argue with someone, they have that same internal reaction to your comments, no matter what you say, or how strongly you believe it.
No, absolutely not. I run instances to give gender diverse folk safe spaces. I ban transphobes the instant they appear, I don’t debate them. Offline, I’m visible, active and proud. I am an volunteer at my local parkrun, I’ve spoken openly with people at my workplace, I’ve hosted a queer community radio show, I host a vodcast, and I used to be active in organising events for my local gender diverse community. Because what gets people to change their minds, is an emotional connection with the group they’re targeting. When they start to see us as people, just the same as them, then they start to make choices that aren’t harmful to us, and they start to wind back their own arguments.
Pushing back is incredibly important, but debating them isn’t effective. Like most people, when confronted with debate points in regards to a topic they hold on to for emotional reasons, they will shift goal posts, and only see the things that validate what they already believe, whilst ignoring the things that challenge it. When they get to the point where they’re ready to challenge their ideas (because their emotional position has shifted) then, lots of the talking points you would normally debate become relevant, but by that stage, it’s a discussion, not a debate.
Thanks for all you do Ada, you continue to be an inspiration.
I’m prepared to trust other people’s intelligence to see through it, and if they can’t, fuck them as well.
Part of being intelligent is being social. Being social means we mirror and sometimes go with the crowd. That’s just how it is. Which means if you think people are intelligent, it means it also should understand they will be susceptible to certain things like this. I think it’s a sign of intelligence to be susceptible to certain things like this because these tactics are built on the idea that groups of people share similar social habits. Shared social habits is a sign of intelligence. It’s anti social people who failed to socialize that are harder to manipulate.
Absolutely. If people like the idiot this post is referring to are allowed to spew bullshit without push back, then other idiots will believe it and spread it. These people need to be shamed and publicly corrected for their bullshit stance that can hurt others. I say hurt others, because an idea like this can be used to delegitimize transgender people.
I remember a study once showing that you can skew the views of any group if only 10% of that group change their opinion.
I think this is really important here because if you’re on an social media and you see nothing but right wing views, I think it does influence lots of people. This is why I get so mad seeing attitudes suggesting we should all just ignore it all like it’s a waste of time.