[goldenchrome]

The argument that a person can be a different gender than the one that all their physical biology points to is absolutely not an open-and-shut case. I know many people believe that it is, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t valid opposing arguments. To me, that means that you shouldn’t be banned for contesting the idea of transgenderism.

I think a more reasonable argument is that people should be allowed to present themselves how they want without prejudice, but that there are still some undeniable facts about the world. Clearly there are people who want to have this discussion and silencing one side of the discussion doesn’t resolve it. It just causes the tension to fester. Get it out in the open and the truth will come out.

[Volundr]

> To me, that means that you shouldn’t be banned for contesting the idea of transgenderism.

While I'm mixed on the ban, this is a mischaracterization of what they were banned for. They were banned for misgendering a specific person not questioning transgenderism. There is a significant distinction between questioning an idea and targeting a specific person.

[hackeraccount]

Toleration is a funny thing isn't it? If you have a problem with transgenderism how much do you need to support it to be tolerant? If you have a problem with people who have a problem with transgenderism how much do you have to support them to be tolerant?

There are great yard sticks to this question in theory "I tolerate everything except intolerance. Your right to swing your arms stops when they come into contact with someone's nose." In practice though it's always easy - on every side - to pick out the things we don't like and decide that they're violent or intolerant.

Everyone is tolerant of the things they like - and they ask everyone to join them in that if they like those things or not.

[Volundr]

I see what your saying here, and it might be a relevant discussion in a different context, but here it's really not. If they wrote a deep thoughtful article about Rachel Levine, but simply misgendered her because they don't believe in trans people for religious or whatever reasons it'd be worth asking " If you have a problem with transgenderism how much do you need to support it to be tolerant?". But they didn't. The entire point of their post was to misgender her. Not misgendering her didn't require showing any kind of support for transgenderism, it simply required... doing nothing. Instead they deliberately singled out an individual person to mock for being transgender.

If this was some random trans Rachel from Boring, Oregon, I'd call this a clear case of bullying and say the ban was 100% justified and shouldn't remain, but I think there is a much, much higher bar when the target is a government official or celebrity. But that doesn't change the fact that the entire point was singling out an individual for mockery.

[socialismisok]

Sure. But Twitter has said "we want to make sure that we have trans voices on our platform, so in the interest of a broader marketplace of ideas, we're going to say no to one particular idea - making fun of trans people, who typically face a much higher level of violence, rejection, discrimination, and hate than most".

[_-david-_]

If Babylon Bee makes a joke about trans people how is that removing trans voices from the platform? If making a joke about a group is the same as encouraging violence or whatever then you can't make any jokes about people.

[socialismisok]

Why would I stay on a platform that lets people berate me? Independent of what my identity is?

It's just a shitty experience.

[_-david-_]

If you think trans people shouldn't be allowed to be berated online then why not ban berating of Trump or whites? Why should their experience on Twitter be a "shitty experience"?

Regardless, you didn't answer my question: "If Babylon Bee makes a joke about trans people how is that removing trans voices from the platform?"

People voluntarily leaving is not removing voices.

[socialismisok]

> People voluntarily leaving is not removing voices.

This is naive. If a Klan bar doesn't literally throw out Black people, they still are preventing Black people from being there by making the environment so unpleasant they cannot remain.

[_-david-_]

You could make that argument about any group that has a large amount of critics. Congress, for example, has an approval rating under that of trans people.

I propose Twitter bans anybody who "berates" a politician. If we don't do that then Twitter is allowing the environment to be too unpleasant for one the most marginalized groups out there.

Why would my plan be bad, but yours good?

Just because there is an environment that is too unpleasant for some people to remain in, doesn't mean that environment should change to conform to the wants of that person. People who are sensitive to sound can't go to some loud bar and demand everybody stop making noise. (Well they could demand it, but nobody will care). The bar isn't forcing the person to leave by not lowering the volume.

[hackeraccount]

Doesn't this make it a race to see how everyone can be like the peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

"Help Help I'm being oppressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"