Issue is usually in defining terms like 'transphobe' - I've encountered folks who define that as someone who wouldn't be willing to sleep with or be attracted to a trans person in the same way as a biological female. I think that's an example of an area people are just going to have to agree to disagree.

I know what you mean, even though I want trans people to feel comfortable in everyday life, dressing how they want and so on without prejudice, apparently it's 'transphobic' to recognise the material reality that transwomen are men and transmen are women. This activism really does feel like a religious cult that hounds non-believers.

That's a bit of a strawman. That's not transphobic. Nobody is obligated to have sex with anyone, trans or cis, period. That's not even up for discussion.

If one, however, goes out of their way to harass transexual people when stating this preference, then yeah, it's a bit transphobic. Intention matters.

I did just literally get into an argument with an acquaintance last week because she was insisting that it was not an ok or valid thing for someone to not want to date trans women as a category if they were ok with dating women. So I wouldn't call it a strawman.

I'd say it is a probably a minority position but it is a genuinely held one

What I said doesn't contradict any of what your acquaintance said. You can freely refuse to individually date as many trans women as you want, just as you could refuse to date a woman that is too old for you, or even too skinny, or too fat. Or just unattractive. But making a fuss out of it is an issue.

Whoever brought it up has some deep unresolved issues, however. Or was fishing for an argument.

EDIT: It's like fetishes. Preferences are fine and should be respected, but they're also better kept off private. Telling people of a specific ethnicity you're "into them" is also kinda creepy.

> Whoever brought it up has some deep unresolved issues, however. Or was fishing for an argument.

This was in the context one of those kink quizzes regarding what things someone was into, so genders, fetishes, bodily features, sex acts, etc. It isn't like someone just announced to a bar "I'd never date a transperson" out of nowhere.

That's an interesting take. Do you recall their points?

I wonder what their position is towards someone who prefers trans people.

> I wonder what their position is towards someone who prefers trans people.

They'd consider it fetishism, unless said person was also trans and only preferred other trans people because of wanting that shared life experience.

Their point was that thinking of trans women as different to women as a group was inherently bigoted.

> That's a bit of a strawman.

I think that depends on your social circle.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385 has some examples of people for whom this was clearly not a strawman as of 5 months ago.

Let's throw in a more complex example. Is someone who identifies as a "trap" trans? Is that self identification trans-phobic? Is it a valid self identity? What if someone identifies as a "trap" but not trans?

I've never heard of anyone identifying as a "trap" unironically. This sounds like a straw man.

I would equate a trans woman calling themselves a trap to being the same as a black person calling themselves the N word. It's a way of taking back a slur.

This was such a hot debate on a set of subreddits it caused a collapse of a huge subreddit, the ousting of a powermod, and several spinoff subreddits. Admittedly it was a few years ago, but it was an interesting fight to watch from the sidelines.

My preference here is to refer to people however they want to be referred to. When I adopted that view, I thought it was very safe but it has actually landed me in hot water many times. I still stand by it though.

A person referring to themselves using a common slur does not mean they want others to refer to them as that.

To hundreds of thousands of people who use that as an identity, it is not a slur.

You can call whatever this bizarre and obviously false claim is what you want, but this entire subthread is very transparently an attempt to justify using a slur. It has very "why can't I say the n word" energy.

This is an extremely poor faith interpretation of a reasonable argument: if someone asks me to call them a word that is often perceived as a slur, because they belong to a member of that group and would like to "reclaim" it, should I do so? Am I being racist by using the word? This is not a clear question like you present it to be, and has absolutely nothing to do with an inherent desire to use slurs against marginalized people.

This is absolutely not the situation that he has presented it as. Someone else has already stated what is going on here. These people do not identify as a slur. His entire argument hinges on this insane idea that people identify as a slur.

Reclaiming != identifying as.

The person you're defending even went on to say that his mentality has gotten him into hot water. The fact that you didn't read into that as "I have no idea what I'm talking about and these people clearly didn't want to be called this" is disconcerting.

And yes, if you are not a person of color and you use a slur traditionally used to describe a person of color to describe or talk about a person of color, you are racist. Full stop. The very fact that you're concocting some outlandish situation where you'd magically be allowed to use slurs is extremely telling, though. If you had any idea what you were talking about, you wouldn't ask that.

Maybe you should stop opining on things and listen to the parties these things affect. The usage of slurs isn't yours to have an opinion on if the slurs aren't words for you.

No, I actually think it's more complicated than that. I don't want to put words in their mouth, but if we go by your interpretation it really seems like they're coming to Hacker News to justify their use of slurs against people who do not appreciate it, which honestly just seems very unconvincing. If you really wanted to use a slur, you'd just use it…there's really no reason to come here to discuss it with people who are going to be overwhelmingly against what you are claiming you want to do.

Slurs are partially the actual word and partially the intent behind them. Once you get to know someone very well, it's typically the case that there is an understanding of no mutual malice between you and them. It is this context that "reclaiming" comes into the picture, because you have a shared perception of what the intent is. You might've heard of the "n-word pass"–it's kind of a meme, but before it was the concept was legitimate and the sentiment was that you're on good enough terms with someone that they know you're not trying to be malicious to them when you use it. It's a sign of trust, and to put it in vernacular, you can't "transfer" a n-word pass because it's a product of your individual relationship.

Putting it a in slightly different context, I (jokingly, of course…) call my mom old and senile when she forgets something in a dumb way ("Where did I put my phone, I've searched the entire house…oh, it was right in front of me where I put it down seconds ago"). She knows I am not directing hatred towards her. With that said, just because I can call her old and senile doesn't mean you can do it, or that I can go do it to any middle-aged woman. But because both of us know each other, it's totally fine to say this among ourselves because it's shared language to us.

Now, with that in mind, I don't think the commenter actually was trying to justify being able to go around calling any person they saw a slur. How would they get in trouble for this? Well, I look different enough from my mom that our relationship isn't immediately evident all the time. If called her old and senile within earshot of someone else, it could definitely look like I was being a jerk if they weren't aware we knew each other beforehand. If I did it around other women of the same age, it could really cause issues. I would certainly not consider either of these a wise thing to do, but in my eyes these are really more a lack of tact or maybe misunderstanding of the context you're in rather than just a racist person wanting to be racist.

(You might be wondering why I would choose to use these words at all…I think the answer to that is really what reclamation is about. Nobody wants to be old and senile, but it's a thing that happens. My mom appreciates it that it's something we can joke about, and I think it helps her deal with it in a way. My understanding is that mutual use of slurs on friendly terms has a similar effect. There's a more extreme form of reclamation of "I think anyone can call me these words, even if I don't really know them, because I'm just really confident/proud of this" but I understand that's not for everyone, and it's definitely something that you can't just assume about people.)

Anyways, to circle back to the original topic, I don't even think my interpretation is a good faith interpretation, it just seems like the more likely interpretation, which is that the commenter has situations where the slurs is normalized and even encouraged by the people who they apply to. You seem to have interpreted this as "the commenter thinks that this means its OK to use them generally because they are racist" but this just doesn't seem to be the case to me. (And if it is…I definitely don't support that.) That's basically all I wanted to bring up.

(One final thing that has more to do with the sentiment of your comment rather than its content, which I think is solid: it seems like you wrote it from the perspective that I'm, at best, woefully misinformed and isolated from marginalized communities, and at worst some sort of closet bigot which you can discern from my comments. I'm a real human being with real empathy and real experience and real faults! I understand that this is a topic you're passionate about, perhaps maybe one you're tired of discussing, but you don't have to attack me to express your opinions on it. Even if it sounds like I'm disagreeing with you, I'm here to interact with new perspectives and learn from them. I only ask that you don't immediately dismiss me as close-minded, as doing so from the start only makes that more likely, rather than less.)

To be clear, do you think black people calling each the N word means it is not a slur to them? Because you would be incredibly wrong.

That's more a problem of vagueness and guessing than real complexity, because it's slang with unclear/multiple meanings. Some people use "trap" to mean transgender, some people use it to mean transvestite. Everything beyond that is based on intent.

Could you clarify your point? Not sure I follow.

If given a topic like "lgbtq" issues, the debate is not "Do gay people get basic rights?". Nobody is actually having that debate anymore and you're fighting straw men.

Ie, these debates are not between "pro-lgbtq" and "anti-lgbtq".

Instead most of these debates are more nuanced and complicated. I picked the "trap" debate because it's hotly contested, with both sides swearing up and down they are pro-lgbtq and both sides would even claim to be more pro-lgbtq than their opponents.

Which is to say, you can probably ignore the debate and not care, still be pro-lgbtq, and go back to playing your board game, even with friends who have a different ideological position on that particular debate.

A lot of social media fights are about this scale.

Thanks for the clarification.

I think mutual respect also plays a part here. My respect, demeanor towards, and willingness to play Settlers with someone who believes LGBTQIA+ people are sinners depends a lot on whether or not that person engages in honest, consensual debate and respects the human on the other side. That is how we form good relationships and strengthen our collective understanding. I wish to underscore the importance of consensual debate, especially when there's a power gradient.

I will say though, "Do gay people get basic rights" is _very much_ still a subject of debate. Sadly.

> the debate is not "Do gay people get basic rights?". Nobody is actually having that debate anymore

On the contrary: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/texa...

>If given a topic like "lgbtq" issues, the debate is not "Do gay people get basic rights?".

Eeh, it's still "do gay people get basic rights" for many even in the United States. I've seen folks have last wills overturned by family through insidious legal maneuvers. I've seen doctors refuse to contact patients with biopsy results because their patients were trans. And I've seen folks even withhold paychecks from LGBT folks because of their religious nonsense. So, basic rights are still a matter of contention until it becomes not merely a legal formality that LGBT folks are equal under the law but that the entire population does not even think that they have a chance to violate those formalities and that they feel bad about thinking of doing such a thing. Until that happens, LGBT discussions will always go back to "do gay people have basic rights?".