schleudersturz

I'm sure that dead-naming is far worse but would I be wrong to think that this lies in the same vein as dead-naming?

This is fascinating to me. I've never changed my name so I cannot have been dead-named but I do know how I feel when my family treats me in a way that denies the facets of my identity that I have accepted in my more recent adulthood – concretely: my neuro-diversity, because they don't know that I don't think of myself as binary.

Of course, these are not the same thing but people understand differences by bridging gaps based on common ground and all of this discussion builds common ground, in my mind. That's why I'm asking.

I cannot agree.

I have very week, most frequently non-existent gender allegiance but I do know that there's a tonne of stuff that's odd about me and I often am offended or driven off by people who do things that simply don't work with my mind-set so I can well understand why being "misgendered" (sarcasm quotes: yours.) might just be a thing that drives someone else away.

I'm not here because I'm accepting "fault" upon myself. I'm here because I want to be part of a tolerant future and I feel that this is important given the trajectory straight into hell that we are clearly currently set upon. I'm here because I'd at least like to ask "why" before I decide how I will behave in relation to others.

I choose to live as if the world was one in which I'd choose to live and, in that world, people get to choose their identities however they please. I can't relate to why someone takes offence at "they"/"them" but, if they are offended, I can and will accept that and, conversely, I would wish that they might realise that I will surely make mistakes and get this wrong even if I do or did understand.

This is the only fair deal: I try in good faith, they understand and offer the benefit of the doubt.

I don't perceive any attention-seeking but that's besides the point. Even if they choose to seek attention, I don't begrudge them that: sometimes, people seek attention. Why should I object?

Your comments might be more relevant to me than you know. I don't know if I'm "agender" or something else. I know I very definitely do perceive that I have a gender, sometimes. Maybe an hour here and there, an evening, … but I can definitely identify with that "don't even perceive my own gender" bit for the vast majority of my life, integrating over time.

And, as you can clearly tell, I haven't perceived my own gender intensely enough to bother to find the right label for it so I mostly just let the world slap whatever labels they think makes them happy.

I guess that that annoys me, though, now that I come to think about it. I do know that I'm not what they label me. Most think I'm heterosexual male because that's how I suppose I present in real life – how I dress and what you'd see on the "FKK" swimming lawn – and the rest label me "gay"-as-in-perjorative (I'm from a toxic-masculine culture, born in the 80's, with a voice pitched too high and a body that's not tall enough. What else would you expect?) I'm definitely neither of these. Or: nearly always neither of those and never only either of those.

Maybe this unacknowledged irritation is why I'm here, looking to find the right way to treat others even while I've long given up on being treated right by the wrong sort of others? (I am exceedingly lucky in that I can fly below the radar and live in a safe country so I literally can treat people who deny my existence as simply beneath my notice.)

That's fair. Insightful.

I have very nuanced bi-sexual tendencies and, to me, I don't personally have strong feelings towards my own pronouns but I have not personally realised any deep affiliation with "male" (my assigned gender) or "female" but I can well imagine that it is much more critical for a trans person who has realised an identity deeply enough to inspire them to transition.

I mean: I don't even care about my own gender – call me whatever. At certain times, I have an attraction one way or the other. I'm married to a woman. I'm a father. These facts are all true but I honestly couldn't care what pronouns or gender or sex you write down, for me. This is probably why I started this topic: I'm trying to understand how this is for others who care far more than I do.

I don't care but I do care to honour those who do care. I certainly care to honour those who care enough to choose to transition!

But oh dear, though. That does not help me. I'd love to call your hypothetical trans woman a woman on purpose but that would require me to notice what she thinks "normal" people "normally" notice and, yeah: autistic. Maybe I'll stop defaulting to "they" / "them" – at least online – and default to confused-blob-cat or something for pronouns.

I found this through other means[^1] and appreciated it. It introduced new ideas to me while also describing a lot of things that resonate with me, personally, in words that I wouldn't have strung together, myself.

[^1]: Unbelievably, 'twas the YT Algorithm. Is it because I block ads? Perhaps YT has truly given up all hope of brain-washing me and just fallen back on giving me more of what I want[^2] like a parent tired of a child's nagging? Is this some kind of gas-lighting initiative? Are Alphabet actually not that evil?

[^2]: Kinda wish the creator didn't have to skirt around "acceptable content" policies to survive YT, though. While watching it, I felt their frustration at needing to self-censor coming through and it did threaten to frustrate their argument.

In summary, the argument it makes is that "inclusivity" in games is performative at best and, nearly always, just a token gesture that looks good on the tin and gets praised by the mainstream press but is always implemented in a way that is aimed squarely at cis-het. male players.

One of the strongest examples used to support this is how female player-characters are usually intended to be characters that the player observes, like a voyeur, in the second-person, and player-characters which are intended for the player to identify with and project themselves into are invariably cis-het. males. Lara Croft vs Geralt.

I'm intending to watch it through, again, soon and it might not stand up to the scrutiny of a second, more critical viewing but I certainly found it thought-provoking on round 1.

I'd love to hear other opinions on the video's arguments, though.

puritan

Ooh. Good. "Victorian" also comes to mind, now.

EDIT: I rather like "victorian" because it's secular and more recent and has the right connotations suggesting how contrived the very concept of "proper" sexuality is – and how absurd. I fear that "puritan" might get bogged down in concepts of religious phobia and zeal which are certainly appropriate but could be a distraction – it's adding trees to distract from the wood.

We won't.

It might look likely through the lens that is appropriate for the rest of the "democratic" world but that lens is not reliable for Germany. In the rest of the "democratic" world, the extreme fascists are hidden much like a dirty secret and so any noise from them that slips through is hugely amplified because it signals the existence of a much larger and more significant fascist movement. In Germany, the extreme right are in clear sight and much more of their noise gets through and the lens that amplifies that noise makes it seem that they might win.

That same democracy will ensure that they do not. In Germany, we can see them for what they are and their seats in parliament represent a more accurate measure of their support base. That support base is tragically large and significant but not enough to give them more than seats in parliament: they do not have a majority and would only form a majority through a coalition with other parties and, here, the transparency is a disadvantage: other parties who stand to be part of the next coalition won't join with the AfD.

Our democracy is not a two-party system. They will not win by jerrymandering or by playing the game. They cannot even sneak power by having a better candidate for key seats because individual seats are won through "first votes" while winning a majority in parliament would require them to take a majority of "second votes" – the system would put those "better" candidates in their seats while correcting the share of seats, overall.

The reason that they are given any space at all is also to their detriment: in Germany, there is exactly one way a political party can be blocked and that is if they contravene the constitution: Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar, usw.

This is why we tolerate their presence and one sees the noise they make: they haven't – yet – violated that consequentially, and so they cannot be blocked. Blocking the AfD would be great – I'm all for it, in isolation – but it would compromise something about German democracy and the cure would be worse than the disease because it would only silence their noise: the movement would proceed apace and their movement is, itself, a symptom of a greater problem: there are people who are ill served by the status-quo and the AfD seem to be an "alternative."

If the AfD ever did gain power, however, they simply could not do what they insinuate because that would tear it and the constitutional court would smash them. This is also true if they form part of a coalition: that coalition could not execute on the plans they hint at.

Now, "unantastbar" is a fantastic German word that cannot readily be translated to a single English one but one aspect of it implies immeasurability. The AfD could never pass legislation that discriminated against LGBTQ+ people because that would necessarily divide "people" into two groups and apply a comparator between them and that cannot be done if people's worth is immeasurable. The constitutional court knows this, as do the defence teams who have surely prepared this argument for the day when it becomes necessary.

Germany is by no means perfect and even German democracy is flawed in some ways but, largely, Germany is a good place to live. There are many archaic laws that persist – the gendered language and gendered baby name things count among a legacy of problems – but, largely, these are being progressively overturned. (Albeit slowly.)

Sometimes, we make a few steps forward and then a few (hopefully fewer) backwards but, largely, I think Germany is on the right track.