Maybe refusing to treat people with respect and dignity makes one an asshole; but hey, life’s fulla’ shit. At what point do we insist that that’s a violation of the social contract?
“Maybe?”
How about at the point where they’re refusing to serve someone in a public accommodation because of a legally protected characteristic?
You know, the same way we’ve been dealing with discrimination in this country for the last sixty years?
I’m also struck how queer people being discriminated against just for existing merits a “hey, life’s full of shit, whaddaya gonna do about it?” but a bigot facing consequences for being a bigot is “oppression.”
In the Senate.
In the House, the 21 smallest states have 137 votes, and California has 52.
Which is the way it’s supposed to be.
Which brings up an interesting point: the distinction between what people do and what people are. Once upon a time “sodomy” was considered something people did, a decadent perversion they were indulging in, and hence worth of opprobrium; or more paternalistically a mental aberration they had no control over (there are regressives even today who insist homosexuality can be “cured”). The acceptance of gays as being inherently gay is the very template for people seeking to define themselves as a class worthy of protection.
Heck, what if being a bigot is something I am, not what I do? 
Don’t I deserve understanding? (Okay, obviously not; but there’s considerable debate over where the line should be drawn).
Not all that interesting, considering the very first set of civil rights enshrined in US law were religious freedoms, which is something you do, not something you are.
How is that distinct from literally every other civil rights movement?
What if it is? Not every conceivable human trait is deserving of legal protection.
“Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.” (variously attributed)
People are triggered by “stuff” on both sides. -It’s a given.
That’s part of the reason why we are so divided, but the trivial nuances of said division is already been discussed in a multitude of threads.
This thread has strayed far off the OP.
Well, that’s fine then, as there are no laws to punish you, or any push for such.
Now, there are some workplaces that wouldn’t allow you to harass or abuse your co-workers, and if you were a place of public accommodation, you may not be allowed to discriminate against someone because you didn’t feel that their preferred gender matched what you think it should be.
But that’s the thing, right wingers get themselves into a huff about things like that, and work themselves up into hyperboles, and then claim that they are being oppressed.
Let’s say you go to work, and some guy thinks that you look like a girl. So he constantly refers to you as a girl using feminine pronouns, a feminized version of your name, and titles you as miss rather than mister. He calls you out as a pervert if you go to the men’s bathroom. Would you at any point ask your employer to ask him to stop? If they did, would they be oppressing him? Do you have a “right” not to be treated that way, or is that some dubious thing that the left has defined as a "right? Does your co-worker have a legitimate grievance?
And as relates to this thread, would that justify him wanting to take up arms against the his fellow citizens and country?
It seems this is a serious topic for some:
Seems to me that it is a given that domestic terrorism from the Right will grow to become a constant feature of life in the US, merging with and becoming indistinguishable from mass shootings.
The critical question is, to me, if the police and military are full of people who support the aims of the terrorists, how full-hearted the attempts to suppress such terrorism will be.
It is possible that there will be a backlash from the public against the Right, as their violence begins to affect them and their loved ones.
It sounds like the far right is calling for a civil war at this point.
Not sure they will get one, and I’m sure they won’t like the results if they do.
Lots of agitation, little action. There was a story a couple days ago about how the dozen or so people outside Mar-a-Lago supporting ‘their’ president had traveled as far as five miles to do so.
There is the danger, though, that the search took them by surprise and it may take a while to cook up a counter strike. It was a month between the installation of Lincoln as President in March and the attack on Fort Sumter in April.
Not exactly no action. The attack on the Cincinnati FBI building certainly seemed to be predicated on starting something up.
Fortunately, he seemed to be a dumbass who thought a nail gun would allow him to breach the building, and then he got himself killed. If he had put on a more “useful” demonstration, I’d expect to see some copycats by now.
Remember WWI started with a few people who thoroughly bungled an assassination and then one guy, out of sheer luck, managed to shoot and kill their intended target.
My point is, you never know where that one spark might come from. I believe many had hoped Jan 6 would get the right-wing base into the streets. Didn’t happen but it seems they keep looking for that one spark.
Tim McVeigh supposedly hoped to spark an anti-government revolution in 1995. I’ve been hearing for decades from right-wing colleagues and relatives that a “race war” or some such is happening soon (usually when a Democrat is president). They always seem to think everyone is as pissed off as they are. And they get over it.
Could it be different now? I don’t know. A major economic downturn could certainly change things.
The problem with this is that it’s entirely unworkable to have each person’s “official gender” be what Lumpy thinks it ought to be, rather than what each person says it is.
It depends on what the consequences of that “official gender” are. Do you get to decide who each of us can marry and who we can’t? Do you get to direct us into the rest room you choose?
You’re suggesting that “testicles and a penis” would be a workable way of deciding. How do you implement that? Does somebody do genital inspections at every rest room door? Do people that lose these organs in an accident, or due to a medical condition, change gender? Do people who get FTM bottom surgery get a pass in your system?
No, Lumpy is not the person defining what one’s “official gender” is. But it shouldn’t be what each person says it is either. Otherwise gender terms become meaningless, like Humpty Dumpty saying that a word means just what he chooses it to mean, neither more nor less. And as you said gender has consequences. Call me old-fashioned but I have this quaint old notion that there’s such a thing as objective reality and that it matters. As for where the line gets drawn there will always be marginal cases, which is why we have lawyers arguing about laws.
Right, and to a transgender person, gender is actually more meaningful than to the average person.
The objective reality is that there are people who prefer to present as a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth. I don’t see why that matters to anyone but them, nor what the obsession with genitals is.
There will almost certainly never be a law that says you have to refer to someone as the gender they prefer. If I chose to refer to you as a woman because I thought you had feminine traits, you would have no legal recourse to get me to stop. I don’t know that you aren’t a woman, I’ve not checked your genitals, I just take your word for it, accepting you for what you present as.
OTOH, there are places where there are consequences for one’s actions and behaviors. On this board, for instance, I would draw sanction if I were to misgender you, a restriction that we agreed to in order to participate here. Depending on who your social group is, they may ostracize you if you do so(and some may reward you). Some workplaces do have policies against misgendering co-workers, and harassment and creating a hostile workplace can have legal consequences.
None of this is oppression. It just feels that way to those who want to oppress others.
I agree. Let me tell you about my objective reality. My reality is that my wife and I went through a period where we lost our son. He was extremely withdrawn, and often angry. He quit all of his activities. He completely shut down in certain classes at school. He started harming himself.
When we finally learned that he’s transgender, it was what some would describe as a miracle. Since adopting his preferred name and pronouns, we’ve gotten our son back. Fortunately for him and for us, everyone around us has been absolutely amazing. Our friends, sure, but also the school has been incredible. Even both sets of his (conservative) grandparents have been accepting. His grades have returned to their previous excellent state. He participates in class and in activities. He hangs out with friends. He stopped hurting himself and lashing out at us.
That’s my objective reality.
Maybe that’s the problem right there.