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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)DR
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  • Actually "normal" conceptually has not been around for millenia, it's origin is actually only roughly three to four hundred years old and came about during the period where societies started industrializing and jobs began having more specific requirements for whom they hired. Prior to that there wasn't really any idea of what a "normal" person was. Differently abled people were quite regular as losing function to injury, infection or disease was very common and not really seen as creating a different class of person. There's evidence of people who had pretty impairing birth defects like fused limbs who were obviously soldiers or hard labourers given their physical development. Personal mental oddities in the absence of the field of psychology categorizing things were just chalked up to being the way that person was and the way people were was myriad.

    In English the word "normal" came into being in the tail end of the 17th century and was borrowed off the word for a 90 degree carpenter square to mean "theoretically fit for all kinds of work" . It's entirely a recent social invention in the grand scheme of things.

  • The thing is that that concept of business having different responsibilities that scale with size isn't a thing. It doesn't matter if they are a print shop or own half the god damn world they operate on the same principles. That is what make these giant conglomerates scary and why anti trust options and breaking businesses into more smaller options is a good idea. But applying your ideas of government to a business is stupid. If you want a town square get the town to build a square where those rights are protected - don't go down to the Mall owned by a management group and then crow freedom of speech when they throw you out for yelling obnoxious shit in the food court.

    Freedom of Speech is a concept - but there are two distinct ones. The actual legal protection and this fictional cootie shot bullshit of "I should be able to say whatever I want and no private citzen or group of private citizens should be able to challenge me in any way". Honestly the second part is just entitlement half the time because last I checked those who usually advocate for the latter are usually the most willing to remove the former from entire groups of people. Personal consequences and social accountability should be and are part of that freedom. There are countries all over the world that have the freedom of speech enshrined in law but every single one places limitations of some sort of how it is protected and exercised . The US for instance has obscenity law, protected classes for whom services cannot be denied and people have the right to sue for defamation or libel. What counts as a legitimate protest (or exercise of free speech) and what gets the unruly unlawful mob treatment is also governed by a web of concepts and law. Free Speech is not an access card that removes all barriers, it's a protection from your government and if you want your government to properly protect you from it you need to increase the space, services and property the government runs on where those rules are protected. You privatize a library you lose a lot of protections immediately because a federal or state institution has to play ball and businesses are closer to autocratic rule.

    Freedom of Speech is nebulous and nuanced but in all cases, every single country that protects expression, the responsibility, rights and restrictions given to businesses work on private citizen rules and the right for a private entity to refuse or withdraw participation is just as enshrined.

  • It's not censorship. Censorship is something demanded of by a government. As a business owner if you use the assets of my business I am passively participating and enabling you to spread your message. If I find out what you do is horrible I have the right to retract any level of my participation from your endeavor. You are still allowed to say whatever you want but I am NOT compelled to help you even passively.

    We have protected classes to stop people from uaing this right to exile vulnerable groups from being able to use all servicea in society this way as a counter measure to this right but if the form of removal is not based automatically out of what body you are walking around in or what your religious beliefs are and the ban doesn't apply unilaterally to all members of your group for that sole reason - then it is valid.

  • A business is not a government and people need to start recognizing the boundaries of what you are actually entitled to as a basic versus what is extra.

    If you walked into my printshop and used MY photocopier to routinely print Nazi fliers and this is something that I become aware of I should have the right to veto what use my photocopier is being put to. They are free to say what they want but I do not need to provide them service to assist them in it. They do not have the right to my compliance or my passive participation through use of my business to spread their garbage.

    Companies can say no. Freedom of speech protects you from the government it doesn't entitle you to use of a privately owned platform to serve as your personal megaphone.

  • I think one take might be that the cause might be based out of a fear of being perceived as being gay. I mean you have generations of men who faced everything from hanging, to chemical castration to prison sentences for being gay. Policing expression of things like any sign of physical signs of affection or "womanly" displays of emotional connection put men in physical danger. That generational trauma of emotional amputation for preservation of life doesn't go away in a day.

    Internally a lot of guys still have their guards up because that was the model of behaviour their fathers and male community members have because their Dads were like that so even if the underlying cause isn't known the behaviour seems more "normal". It's what the people you saw as grown ups did and what they trained you to emulate to be like them. Under those circumstances everything else becomes the deviation because it feels counter to what you were taught or are mirroring. Fighting that feeling of oddness requires an act of conscious will. A lot of people still look at being gay or femme is a failure state. A weakness of moral character... because it is a rejection of internalized homophobia and misogyny and rejecting the notion that these things are deviant is seen as an endorsement. Compulsory straightness was and is a pretty facist system and all facist systems require a "failure state" to demonize. You don't want to be the target of violence so you enact the violence asked of you to prove you aren't one of the failures.

    These systems self perpetuate by default.

  • Republicans operate on a very strict internal "no accountability" model. A "whataboutism" isn't just a defense to the outsider it is a thought terminating measure to the party member. They are trained when approached with fault to immediately and thoughtlessly dismiss it and turn around and point at some form of impropriety elsewhere. Their presidential candidate has provably done any number of things - at this point criminal and immoral - but a lot of them defend him by saying that they don't care if it's true because they would still vote for him even if it was.

    The left ( the Democrats to a far lesser degree) however is accountability hungry. If one of their own is prone to gross hypocrisy most people will turn on them like a pack of wolves and work to fully contextualize it to determine exactly how much "fuck that guy" should be applied. Did they apologize? Do they understand what they did and have it properly explained ? Did they mean it? Did they try to defend themselves for the indefensible or did they properly take their lumps ? Is the mistake such that a genuine promise to do better is enough that further consequences should be applied or does this damage this person's character so much that they can never be trusted again?

    The different mindsets are irreconcilable to each other. Republicans can't generally understand the nature of the leftist distain for the Democrats as "the party with a more tolerable tab of lukewarm behaviour that will be voted for in absence of an actual paragon". But they recognize it as a weakness that they can exploit.

  • Conservatives lost their shit over one beer can being sent to a trans streamer and en mass posted memes of them blowing up and shooting their beer.

    Honestly at this point I think we can just leave the bunch of the bigoted whiners behind and stop giving a shit that they are unhappy. Giving someone the option to play a trans character in a videogame is just giving all players more options on how to experience the game. If you decide to not take the option meant to be someone else's yum then it's not gunna impact your gameplay aside from checking a box at the beginning of the game around the same time you are deciding the exact slope of your nose.

    It's like when people find themselves unreasonably annoyed that a vegan option is available on a menu. Why the hell should anyone give a damn that you're unhappy with food you ain't gunna eat when you can order whatever you like?

  • What is the main issue is residuals. Writers used to get decent kickbacks from repeat airing of their work and that accumulated body of work was how you gained security in an industry where the next gig might not materialize. Most people in film live a feast and famine lifestyle but writers are less secure than most technicians. Also it's kind of modeled over how we deal with creative IP like books. The body of work belongs in some way to it's creator tied by legal strings.

    What happened was basically streaming services got cut a really REALLY good deal particularly on writing labor and residuals (though there were other kickbacks) when they debuted because nobody wanted to kill the baby that was the experimental model of streaming. That meant those jobs were far less lucrative... But all those higher paying jobs in network television were still around.

    Streaming ain't a baby anymore. It grew up and it became the dominant model taking over the space that used to be network jobs meaning all those good paying jobs dried up. The streaming kid is out of college and working full time earning more money than the parents yet still gobbling all the food in the fridge, it's time to kick them out of their parent's basement and let them live as an adult. That good deal they got initially cut was not supposed to last them into the level of success where they were in a position to use it to perpetually starve everyone who helped make them successful in the first place.

  • Depends on the country how often those documents are actually used. In some places (like Canada or the UK for instance) your birth certificate needs to match those other documents or else you are SOL getting your passport and driver's license updated. Otherwise as a document it can also play a role in applying for government services or schooling in a lot of places which means you can get misgendered during times where you are already under duress or opens you up to being forcefully outed to post secondary administrators and teachers.

    Medical records are usually better served with more accurate information because if you've transitioned your reactions to medication are more closely linked to your horomones meaning the dosages you receive by any trans health untrained doctor may be off and it is actually safer in most emergencies to have their first instinct be to treat someone as their listed gender and not their birth sex.

    From a beaurcratic standpoint listing the sex of someone on their birth certificate isn't exactly useful past a point either. The main purpose of the things is to establish a time or location of the person's birth for determining nationality. That's why you can change your name regardless of what you were called at birth, so it remains a reflection of your current state... Also census data logs everything at your registration so later changes don't impact anything significant. The other reason birth certificates exist is for enthusiasts to track genealogy.

    There isn't exactly a compelling reason to disallow people some autonomy over how they are recorded for posterity sake... aside from a lack of empathy.

  • In an ideal world people would be disqualified from these positions if they were bigots. But good luck getting any trans friendly protections on the books. People over the past decade have become way more comfortable in harassing trans people in public in a general sense. Enforcement is also spotty. Airline security particularly is given a lot of benefit of the doubt and not an amazing amount of oversight. Systemic persecution of Muslims has been an issue for decades and surprise - people still get hassled. Police, police unions and the courts of law they serve are also often very good at covering for each other.

    In reality these issues apply on a worldwide scale. If you are traveling by air and have even a layover in a country where it is not safe to be openly trans you are in danger every time someone asks to see your documents.

    Also every border guard or police officer in every country is a patchwork. All it takes is one particularly bad one and you could end up with PTSD, injured or dead. There is good reason why police officers in uniform are generally not welcome at Prides. It is a known trigger that causes folk who have experienced this kind of violence to have involuntary flashbacks or panic attacks.

    It is ultimately safer to give someone the tools to be safer than to trust every official in every country you might ever want to risk visiting to be a good official. Even if you are going to one that is supposed to be safe.

  • The main issue with these specific legal documents though is that often if you can't change your birth cert you can't change your passport or driver's license and those two things are way more impactful.

    Travelling as a trans person can be incredibly scary. If you look, sound and act like something not listed in the sex category of your documents there's a solid chance that your documents will be treated as suspicious or if you happen to be in a place where people aren't shy about being bigoted it gives an avenue that immediately flags you as trans can offer people the pretext to detain, harass and abuse you or to deny you services. Being strip or cavity searched by airport security to sate their personal curiosities is a real threat.

    Being as invisible as possible offers safety to trans people from bigotry particularly during vulnerable moments of dealing with authorities. If you have physically transitioned then some times you can't pass as your birth gender anymore which means your documents, adhereing to some sort of perfunctory definition of sex can make you actually less safe. It's not about "feelings".

  • The issue is that listed sex on a birth certificate has actual effects that limit the options available to trans people. Like if you otherwise pass as your gender but say your passport lists your birth sex you are immediately recognizable as trans to immigrations officials in airports or border officials will treat your documents as suspicious which means chances are way better of you being detained, harassed and abused by security personnel.

    If it's on a driver's licence then that immediately opens you up to bigoted behaviour by anyone you need to hand that document over to. Cops can decide that maybe they want to find something worth arresting you for since they already have you pulled over, that apartment you were applying for to rent? Well you're noticeably trans on your documentation so maybe they just put you to the bottom of the stack.

    A lot of trans folk look at being able to pass as their window of hope to walk the world more safely. If you have a full on beard, deep voice, male sounding name but an F in the sex category on your passport travelling becomes an absolute misery.

  • Different challenges these days for sure. As glad as I am in a place when I do not have to resort to spy codes just to feel like myself I still find the modern ones to be kind of great. Like every stripe of the LGBTQIA has their own hidden messages. Like if I saw a Blahaj Ikea shark wearing a bandana around it's "waist" chomping on a piece of garlic bread surrounded by toadstools I would be like... Well that's basically a pride flag.

  • The world used to be a chaotic hellhole for all of humans existence minus the last few decades.

    This is a somewhat disingenuous take on history as a whole. History is a lot less chaotic than one might expect. A lot of the common conception is a little like how the news focuses on crimes and violence. Like people honestly don't realize how much the average European peasantry of the 1200's could actually read or write... Not because they were spending their time penning novels but because of how litigious they were. Cities often created weird exceptions but even in the height of people being executed for minor crimes that violence was more or less concentrated to major cities particularly population centers that hosted the ruling class and those laws were mostly enforced on their dime because of a desire for orderliness in their own backyard.

    While there are some advancements in development of ethical principles of law, rights of people to be recognized by the ruling elite, lots of healthcare and quality of life advancements particularly in food supply and sanitation ... But as far as your average human goes adjusted for Governmental sanctioned violence and suppression of women we are about as individually as violent as we ever were. Some of the medieval violence even seems weirdly quaint by comparison. Particularly some of the anecdotes from the more successful uprisings of the peasant classes from way back. The Victorians were actually quite successful in red washing a lot of history to make it seem much more brutal and horrible than it was... While ignoring their own fairly callous expansions of empire.

    Applying this desire to kill or be killed as a inviolable part of human nature isn't supportable. In general the majority of people will put up with quite a lot trying to remain safe and non-violent until it becomes clear that things are getting worse beyond fixing and they reach a more universal concensus that they have a potential future beyond a period of violence.

    Basically the sanction of violence being the domain of government agents only is your main hurdle. You'd be much more likely to find support in fining their asses into oblivion so they have no free time to march.

  • In general if someone wants to do you harm getting in their car and being transported to a secondary location causes survival rates to plummet. Drivers do have more options by default than their passenger unless the passenger is holding them at gunpoint.

    There's also a stunning number of cases of male Uber and Lyft drivers stalking female clients meaning the threat comes at first point of contact when someone learns where you live.

  • Facilitating allowing the sex or gender selection of a service person at a company is generally illegal because it is a discriminatory work practice. There is however some flexibility to be made that keeps the company safe from greater liability when it is in the interest of safety for women because safety issues on a systemic scale are provable in a court of law.

    If anything you should probably be arguing for more services - maybe a safe driver selection based on years of safe driving and spotless customer record which would potentially benefit those with social anxiety or previous trauma. More than one service can exist at the same time after all.

    When you argue for a service to be removed from a vulnerable group because of personal spite usually the reaction isn't favorable. You'd be better off directing that energy somewhere positive than spending on sour grapes.

  • Generally there is an underlying concept of "being more evenly matched". On average women do face more risk of being physically outmatched by men. If another woman became aggressive then their chances of coming out of the altercation would be more "fair" when matching like with like. If you've ever been in a good natured but honest wrestling match with the opposite sex you can usually see the power difference and the results can be pretty sobering to a female participant. These dynamics apply to social situations. If you are afraid of the outsized potential of harm someone has towards you then you are more or less forced to behave in an oppressed fashion if they choose to be a jerk because sticking up for yourself comes with the potential of a threat you are not equipped to come out on top of.

    The chance of a woman being abused by another woman is also not zero but the level of threat is more on par with what they are physically and psychologically equipped to combat.