LGBT and The Matrix

[NeuroTypical]

44 minutes ago, Godless said:

it's a sad reality that this sometimes means protecting kids from their parents.

Yep, and the recourse already open to all teachers, bishops, and friends, is to call child protective services if they believe the child may be harmed at home, so the government can conduct an investigation.

What is happening in schools across America, is parents are being kept in the dark by school officials based sometimes on nothing more than the child's worry about their parent's reaction. 

This is largely a parents' rights vs. states' responsibility to protect it's citizens issue.  Both are important, there's always tinkering with where the various lines should be drawn.  But the pendulum has swung waaaaaay to far left in many areas.  

"My dad'll freak out if I tell him" is being interpreted as "this poor kid will commit suicide unless I provide gender-affirming care and help the child hide things from their parents".   I get you're worried about ignorant parents pushing hate into their kids.  Hopefully, in light of the stuff I've showed you (including "We'll convert your children.  Happens bit by bit.  Quietly and subtly, and you will barely notice it."), you might see there's more to the story happening here.  

They tell me maybe 1-2% of the humans might have some form of gender issue, from a biological (hormonal, structural, chromosomal, etc) issue, to a mental (gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, etc) issue.  In response, some elementary schools are asking children to pick their pronouns, middle schools are exposing children to sexually explicit adult drag shows, where sometimes the kids participate.  (You'll have to find those links yourself, posting them would be a violation of site rules, but I've seen at least five in the last year.)

There needs to be a happy medium found.  I'd suggest the 2nd great commandment is a good place to start, even for an atheist person such as yourself. 

[Just_A_Guy]

21 hours ago, Godless said:

Pressured by whom?

In Irreversible Damage (which I’ve written about on these forums before), Abigail Schrier discussed at some length the effect of social media influencers and peer groups; including the fascinating trend that within social circles—once one natal female “comes out” as transgender, two or three more tend to come out over the next few months.  She looks at it as a modern manifestation of the same sort of cultural phenomenon that drove the Salem Witch Trials (where an overwhelming number of convicts were accused by teenaged girls).

2 hours ago, Godless said:

OTOH, teachers have a responsibility to protect their students, and it's a sad reality that this sometimes means protecting kids from their parents. So I suppose my stance on this is that I don't want to be the type of parent that my son's teacher feels the need to protect him from.

Naturally, the million-dollar question here is, “define ‘protect’”?

If kids who come out are being killed, beaten, raped, etc. by their parents, then ok.

But overwhelmingly, that’s not what’s happening.  

What’s happening is that parents who react with anything less than a “full steam ahead”—even otherwise very progressive parents, and in some cases even parents who are themselves gay or lesbian—are by default presumed guilty of (or at least predisposed towards) bigotry and emotional abuse.  The fact that a teenager demands secrecy is often accepted as per se proof of the objective need for secrecy. (And to be fair, there are a LOT of parents who don’t handle this kind of thing well; including a few who go so far as to kick their kids out and more who visibly let their disgust for their child’s declared preference overshadow their underlying love for their child.  But then again—anecdotes of this nature tend to be clouded by the millennia-old predilection of teenagers for jumping to the conclusion that a parent expressing concern about the teenager’s potentially problematic behavior automatically translates as a complete lack of love.)

Remember 5-10 years ago, when Mormon bishops who encouraged teenagers to stay chaste in one-on-one interviews were accused of “grooming” even though the parents were fully aware of the timing and general character of those interviews?  And now here we are, with secular teachers telling kids in one-on-one interviews how to permanently modify their bodies to prepare for the sort of sexual experiences that the teacher thinks the child ought to find most pleasurable—and the consensus seems to be that it’s fine that parents aren’t even allowed to know about it!  My, how the worm has turned!

On 5/18/2023 at 12:06 PM, Godless said:

This is an interesting thought experiment. We see examples all the time of people being born into imperfect bodies, and modern technology has come a long way in giving us the ability to correct physical imperfections. Gender dysphoria is a condition under which a person feels very strongly that their biological gender is wrong. The mind (you can replace "mind" with "spirit") believes with every fiber of its being that it's in the wrong body. What is the medical justification for refusing to fix that?

From an LDS theological standpoint, I think the nuance getting missed here is that there is not a perfect identity between “mind” and “spirit”.  We know that physiological traits, chemical imbalances, and experiential trauma all impact how the “mind” functions; and that behavioral and personality disorders are real and often only (mostly) manageable, not curable.  We believe the spirit is “in there” playing a role, of course.  But there’s no reason to believe that the mortal mind is any more true to its ideal eternal, perfected spiritual form than the mortal body is.

It may well be that some “male” spirits are born into “female” bodies (and vice versa) (for what it’s worth, I suspect that this is more likely to have applicability to truly physiologically/genetically intersex folks, rather than those who merely experience gender dysphoria.) Similarly, by analogy, it may well be that the spirit doesn’t enter the fetus until sometime in the second or third trimester and so a first-trimester elective abortion is not a “killing” at all.  But in both cases—the consequences for blithely moving forward and being wrong are potentially so catastrophically damaging and morally abhorrent; that the Church recommends (and, frankly, demands) a certain course of action until we receive further light and knowledge.

In the secular/policy realm—for consenting adults, if they can find a doctor willing to do the surgery, then it’s none of my business (at least until we have universal health care; I don’t care to see my premiums going up to cover this sort of thing).  I do suspect we are going to need to change some liability statutes down the road to address the issue of detransitioners who feel they were pressured into transition or simply feel they weren’t vetted thoroughly enough to begin with.  But kids are another issue, and I’m not quite sure where I fall there.  I’ve been inclined to feel like those who equate hormone blockers/surgery for children with child abuse, are being too heavy-handed; I’d rather defer to parents.  I think drag shows/drag story hours should probably be evaluated on a case by case basis according to how sexualized they are (Mrs. Doubtfire OK; twerking, lingerie, and bouncing prosthetics not OK).  But I’ve seen some pretty scary crap lately with parents celebrating their children’s first doses of blockers even as the children themselves scream, cry, and try to physically resist their injections.  But again—even as I shudder at that, I think of all those parents who have their baby sons circumcised for little better reason than “tradition” or because they want the son to “look like Dad”.  (Yeah, I know there are still differences; but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just a bit of a hypocrite.)

At minimum, I think it’s fair to make parents perpetually civilly liable for any financial costs of de-transition that their children incur.  And of course if a parent is demanding transition over the child’s express objection, then by all means send it to CPS.  But I don’t know that I’d go further than that.  

Edited May 22, 2023 by Just_A_Guy

[NeuroTypical]

16 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I’ve seen some pretty scary crap lately with parents celebrating their children’s first doses of blockers even as the children themselves scream, cry, and try to physically resist their injections.

Years ago, I held down my 6 yr old daughter as the surgeon took the pins out of her feet.  She screamed in pain and fear.  Even in her 20's, she remembers the event as the last day she was a little girl, and the first day she was a big girl. 

So, she gets to walk and live a normal life because of that surgery and that pain.  

Given the rates of desistance (where more than 60% of trans-identifying youth don't feel the same way by adolescence or adulthood), I'm having a really hard time putting JAG's examples in the same boat.  

The smartest trans-friendly folks I know, talk about how important the 'informed consent' model of care is.  Zero of them seem to understand the rates of desistance.

[Vort]

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

But again—even as I shudder at that, I think of all those parents who have their baby sons circumcised for little better reason than “tradition” or because they want the son to “look like Dad”.  (Yeah, I know there are still differences; but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just a bit of a hypocrite.)

Um... no, not really, except that circumcision is vastly less damaging.

[Just_A_Guy]

12 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

In Irreversible Damage (which I’ve written about on these forums before), Abigail Schrier discussed at some length the effect of social media influencers and peer groups; including the fascinating trend that within social circles—once one natal female “comes out” as transgender, two or three more tend to come out over the next few months.  She looks at it as a modern manifestation of the same sort of cultural phenomenon that drove the Salem Witch Trials (where an overwhelming number of convicts were accused by teenaged girls).

In rereading this I suppose I ought to clarify that Schrier is not pooh-poohing transgenderism/gender dysphoria as a whole.  She is merely pointing out that in juvenile-onset, female-to-male transgenderism, there is a social contagion aspect to the spread of the phenomenon that suggests individual cases may not be permanent and thus render permanent hormonal* or surgical interventions particularly problematic.  

 

*She also makes a case that hormonal interventions are being touted as “completely reversible” even though they really aren’t.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Just_A_Guy

[Carborendum]

On 5/18/2023 at 1:06 PM, Godless said:

Gender dysphoria is a condition under which a person feels very strongly that their biological gender is wrong. The mind (you can replace "mind" with "spirit") believes with every fiber of its being that it's in the wrong body. What is the medical justification for refusing to fix that?

Trans activists state that "gender is malleable"  Do we really think that the body is more malleable?

Up until 2013 the accepted science was to try to change the mind to accept the physical reality of the body.  But now we're trying to change the body (which is less malleable) to fit the mind.

Changing the mind (which we all believe is more malleable) would be more reversible than a change to the body.  But changing the body is not reversible (yes minor examples to the contrary, but not really) but is being sold as being completely reversible.

The mind can change to accept the physical realities.  But the body can never be changed to become a fertile member of the opposite sex.

It would seem to me that you, as an atheist, would be more inclined to make decisions and base your philosophy on something that is physical, measurable, & tangible than the emotional/mental beliefs of an individual which cannot be measured in any meaningful way.

It is true that we don't control others and their beliefs (thank heaven).  But the trans movement goes further than that.  They want to change our entire language, grammar structure, and social order to line up with their desires to make them feel comfortable.  Should I give them a pillow for their neck as well?

Imagine if you were told that legally, you could never spout any anti-Mormon documents or arguments in public life -- ever.  In fact, you could never say anything negative about the faith at all.  You could not even express disbelief in our faith without being cancelled.

It is one thing to "live and let live."  It is another to say that my beliefs are so important that you are not allowed to have a differing opinion.

It truly is a religion.  Are you in favor of letting that religion rule over other religions?  Or should there be freedom to exercise & express your own beliefs?

[Ironhold]

On 5/21/2023 at 2:14 PM, NeuroTypical said:

Nickelodeon's Transformers:Earthspark now has a nonbinary character.

 

Blame IDW Publishing.

https://tfwiki.net/wiki/IDW

Not long after IDW got the license to produce Transformers comic books, one of their writers (I want to say industry legend Simon Furman, who has worked on the franchise off and on since the 1980s) declared that there would be no female Transformers. It would be an all-"male" cast of characters, with the robots being masculine but functionally genderless. 

Well, the writer underestimated the lasting popularity of Arcee, a female character first introduced in 1986. 

IDW found themselves in a position to where they needed to introduce Arcee into the comics, but didn't want to contradict their writer. 

So they decided that Arcee would be a male character who was forcibly transitioned into being female by a mad scientist.

Yes, you just read that.

This decision polarized the fandom, with even many LGBT individuals calling IDW out for making her being transgender into such a horrific plot point. 

However, IDW as it turned out leans hardcore "progressive", and there were enough so-called "progressives" in the fandom who cheered them on that IDW felt vindicated. This led to them inserting gender politics and LGBT themes into the comic as a whole, with multiple writing teams essentially being under mandate to make the franchise "woke". 

This culminated in the infamous issue "The Price Of You", where the character Blast-Off was promised that if he agreed to spy for someone that someone would brainwash Blast-Off's gay crush into loving them back. The fandom was coming apart at the seams due to real-world politics and other drama, and an unnamed individual inserting "MAGA" into the decor of a 2017 Transformers action figure using the fictional Cybertronix language from the franchise didn't help matters any. This issue essentially dropped a daisy cutter right into that fissure, making it permanent. 

IDW persisted, however, even working LGBT themes into G. I. Joe, My Little Pony, and other licensed franchises. Not even Hasbro hauling IDW out behind the woodshed after the controversies involving writer Aubrey Sitterson (who was leading the charge on making the Joe franchise more "woke") was enough to dissuade them. 

Whereas Hasbro was once a bastion of family-accessible franchises and entertainment, the monster that IDW unleashed has fused with the monster that is ESG scores and is now forcing Hasbro to stay their hand when writers and directors insist on bringing woke into their properties. Dungeons & Dragons is all but dead as a franchise because of it, the live-action Snake-Eyes movie that was meant to restart interest in the Joe franchise flopped because of it, and now it's infesting Transformers. 

[Ironhold]

To clarify the MAGA incident - 

https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Diaclone

All of the 1984 and 1985 toys, and a number of the 1986 toys, were either recycled from other toy lines or were originally intended to be used in other toy lines. Most of these came from Diaclone, a line produced by Hasbro's longtime Japanese partner Takara. The premise of Diaclone was that in order to fight off an alien invasion humanity created war machines that disguised themselves as everyday vehicles. 

Due to how loose the IP laws were in Japan at the time, four of these toys were quite literally unlicensed knock-offs of real life race cars. As IP laws in the United States were still fairly loose regarding toy production, Hasbro chose to make only token modifications to the liveries of the four toys before releasing them in the United States. 

One of these cars was a knock-off of the Martini Racing #4 Porsche 935 Turbo, who would become the 1984 character Jazz: https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Jazz_(G1)/toys#The_Transformers . 

The English-language dub of the 1980s cartoon would feature industry legend Scatman Carothers as his voice actor, which helped him stand out as a character. This, along with some clever writing in both the cartoon and Marvel US comics, made him a fan favorite. 

However, by 1986 it became apparent that not changing the livery was a bad idea. Fans who purchased a Jazz figure through a mail-in promotion from breakfast cereal brand Cookie Crisp discovered that the altered references to Martini Racing had been removed entirely and a few other token alterations had been made. Most subsequent releases of the character, be it a re-release of the original toy or a new figure entirely, have experimented with different designs in order to distance him from his origin as an unlicensed knock-off. This includes the 1993 "Generation Two" release (where his racing deco has been entirely replaced with music notes and he's now the #1 car) and the circa 2004 Binaltech / Alternators release (where he's entirely monochrome with no livery at all). 

It was no surprise, then, that the 2017 figure likewise courted the concept of the original deco without actually copying anything that could be truly lawsuit-worthy. 

However, fans who bought the first wave of product noted that the person who designed the deco hid "MAGA" in the deco, using a fictional text-replacement language created for the franchise to make it not readily apparent. 

For obvious reasons, most of the fandom was quite upset, believing that politics of this nature had no place in a toy line. As such, when Hasbro apologized and issued a statement claiming that the designer had been fired and the bit would be removed for subsequent releases of the figure, a large chunk of the fandom accepted that as fair consequences. 

However, the "woke" part of the fandom was still out for blood. In their eyes, Jazz was "black" because he was voiced by Scatman Carothers in the 1980s, and so they quite literally saw the MAGA bit as a hate crime. 

Yes, you read that.

Things got quite ugly at that point, with several then-popular fan forums being ripped apart. 

It seemed like things started healing, but then in 2020 Hasbro announced that they would be doing yet another new version of the figure. Jenevieve Frank, who IDW regarded as an "expert" on the Arcee character, saw that this incarnation of Jazz would be the #14 vehicle instead of the #4 vehicle and lost her mind on Twitter, accusing Hasbro of once again using Jazz to promote "white supremacy" because she saw his being the #14 as a reference to a popular saying among some white supremacist groups. 

...Only for Hasbro to explain that the original Diaclone version of Jazz was entry #14 in the official Diaclone product catalog, and since they could no longer have him be the #4 vehicle due to the aforementioned IP issues, he would now be the #14 vehicle. 

 

Yes, this is how headache-inducing the franchise has become. 

[JohnsonJones]

12 hours ago, Ironhold said:

Whereas Hasbro was once a bastion of family-accessible franchises and entertainment, the monster that IDW unleashed has fused with the monster that is ESG scores and is now forcing Hasbro to stay their hand when writers and directors insist on bringing woke into their properties. Dungeons & Dragons is all but dead as a franchise because of it, the live-action Snake-Eyes movie that was meant to restart interest in the Joe franchise flopped because of it, and now it's infesting Transformers. 

It was my understanding that Dungeons and Dragons is at an all time high with how many are playing it or participating in it.  I think it also just came out with a movie...didn't it?

I know there are a dedicated group of university students that play it and the amount of times they have reserved at the student center to play it has risen dramatically over the past year.  It seems they have several groups playing now and it's being advertised quite regularly.

I HAVE noticed that there seems to be a bit of an overlap between those playing this and games like it and the LGBTQ+ crowd these days though. 

[mirkwood]

2 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

It was my understanding that Dungeons and Dragons is at an all time high with how many are playing it or participating in it.  I think it also just came out with a movie...didn't it?

I know there are a dedicated group of university students that play it and the amount of times they have reserved at the student center to play it has risen dramatically over the past year.  It seems they have several groups playing now and it's being advertised quite regularly.

I HAVE noticed that there seems to be a bit of an overlap between those playing this and games like it and the LGBTQ+ crowd these days though. 

Not really, they are just a very vocal group and Hasbro/WOTC are extremely woke corporations.

[Ironhold]

6 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

It was my understanding that Dungeons and Dragons is at an all time high with how many are playing it or participating in it.  I think it also just came out with a movie...didn't it?

I know there are a dedicated group of university students that play it and the amount of times they have reserved at the student center to play it has risen dramatically over the past year.  It seems they have several groups playing now and it's being advertised quite regularly.

I HAVE noticed that there seems to be a bit of an overlap between those playing this and games like it and the LGBTQ+ crowd these days though. 

D&D is just about dead. 

For years, the current crop of writers and artists have gone out of their way to declare older fans like ourselves "obstacles" to their efforts to forcibly re-shape the game the way they saw fit. This included an infamous scenario module that featured THAC0 The Clown, a self-appointed gatekeeper who hated children. 

So fans were already steamed up when at the end of last year Wizards tried to claw back the OGL (Open Gaming License) that they themselves issued in the late 1990s / early 2000s for the d20 system they created for 3rd edition. Under the new license they wanted to implement, they would demand the right to use - without compensation - anything third-party created under the open license and would require royalties on anything that earned more than a given sum. 

This video here is a lawyer explaining the details of what Wizards was trying to do and offering his opinion on whether or not it would hold up in court. 

This got virtually the entire tabletop RPG community up in arms, with several companies - like Steve Jackson Games - quickly cobbling together alternative rules systems that they would hastily license out under their own open license. Meanwhile, popular online series Critical Roll blasted Wizards for the announcement, with observers rightly noting that Critical Roll wouldn't exist if not for the license and that they've done a lot to bring modern audiences to the game. 

Right about the time this hit, a new wave of action figures was hitting retailers, 4-inch figures based on the 80s cartoon and 6-inch figures based on the movie. Both figures would retail for $25 each, with the cartoon figures coming with an exclusive die to help balance the cost. 

Problem was, these figures were entirely encased in cardboard as part of Hasbro's new "eco-friendly" packaging scheme in which plastic bubbles were eliminated entirely. This meant that buyers had to rely on the images on the package to know what they were getting, something that should have resulted in Hasbro including a "product may vary" disclaimer on the package but didn't. Instead, buyers found themselves with decidedly unwelcome surprises when they did start purchasing these figures. For example, the Diana figure shown on the package has pivot joints in her thighs to allow for more movement, but the actual toy itself lacks these. 

Making matters worse is that the toys also suffered from poor quality control, such that the joints were so dangerously tight you had to bathe them in hot water to loosen up the plastic first before you could actually play with them or else you'd break the figure. 

The die? Monochrome dice consisting of white numbers on a single-color die. Mere pennies from the dice bins at your average gaming shop, and smaller than depicted on the packaging. 

So now, for obvious reasons, the toys are rotting on the shelves. Retailers are slowly starting to clearance them out, starting with those cartoon figures and the gelatinous cube toy (yes, they made one...). 

Then right before the movie came out, they announced a rules change to the way they were doing "half" races (half-elf, half-orc, and so on) which was worded in such a clumsy fashion that many people read it as Wizards denouncing all forms of interracial procreation, whether in the game or in real life. 

The movie itself was roadkill, with many fans - myself included - objecting to the movie mocking the 80s cartoon cast and potentially killing them off. 

Wizards all but destroyed Magic: The Gathering by over-printing cards, to the point that they've had to dispose of entire pallets of unsold product just to keep secondary market prices up. Now with D&D functionally dead, they're in a heap of trouble. And since they had been a cash cow for Hasbro, Hasbro is in it too.

[NeuroTypical]

I have a kiddo who is very into D&D.  She is often full of passion and outrage about current events in the D&D landscape.  She communicates with hundreds of other folks who are also full of passion and outrage as they get together to eat, live, and breathe D&D.

Kind of hard to have something be dead (even functionally dead), with so many people off eating/living/breathing it. 

 

[LDSGator]

41 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I have a kiddo who is very into D&D.  She is often full of passion and outrage about current events in the D&D landscape.  She communicates with hundreds of other folks who are also full of passion and outrage as they get together to eat, live, and breathe D&D.

Kind of hard to have something be dead (even functionally dead), with so many people off eating/living/breathing it. 

 

My nephew is obsessed with it too. It’s doing fine. 

[Ironhold]

24 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

My nephew is obsessed with it too. It’s doing fine. 

...Just like Bud Light is doing fine, since after all every store in America has plenty of it in stock...

[LDSGator]

4 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

...Just like Bud Light is doing fine, since after all every store in America has plenty of it in stock...

The right loves alarmism, this is no different. Sure, Bud is damaged now. No argument there. But will they (and AB) still be around in ten years? You betcha. Same with DnD. 

[Backroads]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

I have a kiddo who is very into D&D.  She is often full of passion and outrage about current events in the D&D landscape.  She communicates with hundreds of other folks who are also full of passion and outrage as they get together to eat, live, and breathe D&D.

Kind of hard to have something be dead (even functionally dead), with so many people off eating/living/breathing it. 

 

We've been playing a campaign with the kids. Frankly, I love D&D. Or, rather, the fantasy role-playing general game system. D&D has all sorts of head-scratching events going on with it that it's very possible I'll one day shift to another system with less dramatics.

But I think there's enough stubborn old people playing the game and ignoring the surrounding politics it has some life in it.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Backroads

[mirkwood]

I've been playing D&D since 1977.  We played last weekend.  We are playing this weekend.  I'm actually playing White Plume Mountain for the first time ever.

[Vort]

4 hours ago, mirkwood said:

I've been playing D&D since 1977.

Go to bed, you loser.