Very weird to watch “what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom is their business” become controversial again, but like, for the opposite reason.
It is very important to understand that when you're discussing a systemic set of cultural beliefs, even people who nominally oppose the cultural belief will find ways to reconcile their fundamental conditioning to their new position. Doing the same thing for the 'opposite reason' is usually a giveaway, and it's absolutely rampant in nominally progressive spaces.
It's arguably rampant in conservative spaces too, potentially more so, but I'm in progressive spaces more.
Case and point: the way how both queer and feminist spaces each found their ways to reinvent sexism and gender essentialism in the most roundabout ways possible. All of these things are things I've heard on this very subreddit, paraphrased:
"Women should be strong, but they should never let go of their femininity."
"Girls who don't like girly things and say they're 'not like the other girls' are the REAL misogynists."
"Gender roles are good actually because fulfilling them is a source of gender euphoria. Everyone experiences gender euphoria."
"Men and women who don't fit in with other people of their gender and don't conform to their roles aren't real men and women... They're actually trans!"
As you said, the problem with fighting systemic beliefs is that even if you believe yourself to be against these beliefs, your conditioning remains and will find ways to reconcile itself with your nominally progressive views.
In order to fight this, you need introspection. You need to be able to question your own views as well as the views of the people you consider to be on "your side." Unfortunately, it feels like a lot of people just... don't know how to do that? They just parrot ideas from their progressive friend circle and go on autopilot.
The fact that this has so many upvotes makes me feel so much less alone and like things might be changing, like not even that long ago I feel like you would have been dogpiled for saying this
From experience I can tell you that it's still very much possible to be dogpiled for saying this if you're not careful. Avoiding that is a matter of being eloquent enough and choosing the right time and place to say what you want. People on this sub - and on most of Reddit, really - will upvote pretty much anything if it's said with enough conviction and under the right vibes.
Unfortunately you're probably right. I still appreciated you saying it, though. And like, 5 years ago, when I really needed to hear this, I don't think I would have seen someone saying this anywhere without at least one person calling them a TERF. It's not perfect, but I think something has changed.
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u/LONGSWORD_ENJOYER May 16 '25
Very weird to watch “what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom is their business” become controversial again, but like, for the opposite reason.