I think signalling is an even better explanation for the vocal transgender "allies". You are (virtue-)signalling you are caring, sympathetic, and part of the "good" group. Very low cost, decent reward in the boom period. Now that the boom is over, the pronouns in bios are disappearing like flies. They’re quickly becoming a signal of naivety, or worse.
So what will be the new signal? Trans-speciesism is too similar to trans-genderism, trans-racialism and trans-ableism failed to gain traction. Even environmental activism is just pissing people off now. As for open-borders; it's only popular as a signal until the migrants show up in the signaler's neighborhood, school, or workplace.
Maybe because if you admit to striving for truth, beauty, and goodness, you will almost certainly fall short of others, let alone those lofty ideals. Whereas you can just aim at your own foot and then proceed to shoot it.
But, if I understand you correctly, for an identity to be readily and openly signalled on a large scale, the social context should be positive and very well disposed to it.
So, could it also be the case that an increasingly negative social attitude towards trans and non-binary ideology (not specific individuals) is at the root of the increasing decline in the adoption of the associated identities along with the adoption of the associated outward signals?
Gender identity attitudes and ideology have come under increasing scrutiny and this has brought to light the ugly side of it. So, although it's become easier and cheaper to signal trans or non-binary gender identity adoption, as the article points out, what is being signalled isn't just, or even mostly, positive character traits or virtuous dispositions.
This could play a plausible causal role in the drop in the numbers of self-identifying individuals while the noise surrounding the signals could simply be an accompanying epiphenomenon of widely adopted attitudes and ideologies with no direct bearing on the decline of the behaviour or attitude that's being signalled.
Perhaps, the high degree of noise could lead to deeper social scrutiny, which could lead to wider social criticisms, which in turn could lead to a drop in adoption and in signalling.
Yeah, it's why barely any high school girls identify as bisexual now. I used to identify as pansexual and omnisexual, and I would tell my parents about my sexuality at the dinnertable. 😑 The LGBT movement really was a neo-pedophilia movement with how entrenched in sex it caused children to be.
Although it would be remiss to ignore the role played by the political competition from 2022 - 2024. The gender identity signalling found itself at the forefront of the political menu and this probably created a polarizing environment where signaling other identitifiers allowed access to other groups wielding power. Momentum and herd behavior also helps explain ebbs and flows. Realistically children and young adults are more easily malleable and influenced.
Every few decades the word shifts, the mood changes on androgyny, the effect is the same (until recently: surgery)
1900s – Invert
(Psychological term used for homosexuals and sex-nonconforming people; medicalized identity) Oscar Wilde as avatar
1910s – Uranian
(Used in early queer literature; referenced male-male love and aestheticism, often with androgynous undertones) Vesta Tilley/Ma Rainey as avatar
1920s – Dandy / Flapper
(Gender-subversive fashion: feminine masculinity and masculine femininity both gained visibility) Josephine Baker and Julian Eltinge as avatars
1930s – Pansy Craze
(Drag queens and effeminate men in clubs; temporarily popular before crackdown) Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, Noël Coward as androgynous avatars
1940s – Female Impersonator
(Term used for performers, often coded for transvestism or gay identity, sanitized for mainstream) Tallulah Bankhead as avatar
1950s – Transsexual and Queen
(Scientific and underground term gaining popularity) Christine Jorgensen, Liberace as avatars
1960s – Transvestism
(Became a subcultural identity with a growing press and advocacy presence; emergence of early transgender rhetoric) Virgina Prince as avatar
1970s – Gender-Bending / Bisexual Chic
(Pop culture flirted ambiguity and sexual fluidity; glam rock and punk pushed this, “Rocky Horror, Kiss”) David Bowie, Grace Jones, Sylvester as avatar
1980s – Androgyny / Genderfuck
(Club kids, performance art, and post-punk scenes elevated androgyny as rebellion; “genderfuck” as shock aesthetic) Boy George / Annie Lennox / Pete Burns as avatar
1990s – Tranny Queer decade
(Reappropriation and slur usage intertwined; zines, queer theory explored non-binary concepts) Dennis Rodman, Riot Grrrl, as avatar
2000s – Genderqueer
(First widely adopted umbrella term online for non-binary, not-male/not-female identities) Justin Vivian Bond, Tilda Swinton as avatars
2010s – Non-Binary
(Mainstreaming of gender identities outside the binary, with institutional and social recognition growing) Sam Smith, Janelle Monae as avatars
2020s – Transmasc / Transfem / Enby
(Micro-identities, internet neologisms, and TikTok aesthetics multiply; identity becomes hyper-granular) Dylan Mulvany and Elliot Page as avatars
It’s the same old song in a different key.
The EVENT was that the 2020’s version flipped over into surgery and chemistry. Dropping acid, Xtasy, a Doobie, or a nice K-hole was replaced.
That was the beginning of the end, when teenage and twenty’s youth rebellion suddenly was medicalized, hardened and became something you which would eat you alive.
Or “Dead or Alive” as Pete Burns might say.
Compare KISS’s Gene Simmons, Oscar Wilde, Liberace to Dylan Mulvaney, And Baker, Dietrich, Jones and Elliot Page.
What makes you think that a desire by unhinged men to humilate women is behind this societal trend? There surely can't be that many such men around. Also, we must always have had a certain proportion of the mentally ill around, so why now? (or rather, why ten years ago?)
Benevolent rules created to "help" the transgenders (most importantly, self-identification and access to women's spaces for the self-identified) were exploited by the pervs. How could the social engineers have thought of that?
I understand this thread is about a minority subset of transgender males who want to invade women’s spaces and get a kick out of it (by humiliating women or otherwise).
There has probably been a decline in this subset as well.
So to answer your last question: “Do the pervs no longer want to exploit the benevolent rules?” Yes, they do and they will - proportionally to how benevolent the rules will be.
I think signalling is an even better explanation for the vocal transgender "allies". You are (virtue-)signalling you are caring, sympathetic, and part of the "good" group. Very low cost, decent reward in the boom period. Now that the boom is over, the pronouns in bios are disappearing like flies. They’re quickly becoming a signal of naivety, or worse.
So what will be the new signal? Trans-speciesism is too similar to trans-genderism, trans-racialism and trans-ableism failed to gain traction. Even environmental activism is just pissing people off now. As for open-borders; it's only popular as a signal until the migrants show up in the signaler's neighborhood, school, or workplace.
Good work. Why are people so desperate to be different?
Maybe because if you admit to striving for truth, beauty, and goodness, you will almost certainly fall short of others, let alone those lofty ideals. Whereas you can just aim at your own foot and then proceed to shoot it.
There is a tendency in people who fall short, to throw the baby out with the bath water: "If I cannot be special, I'll be awkward"
Or like Lucifer: if I can't be the most high angel in Heaven, I'll be the worst demon in Hell.
Or too many young men: I'd rather be wanted for murder than not wanted at all.
"Good work. Why are people so desperate to be different?"
Yes, in so unconstructive ways.
It makes sense.
But, if I understand you correctly, for an identity to be readily and openly signalled on a large scale, the social context should be positive and very well disposed to it.
So, could it also be the case that an increasingly negative social attitude towards trans and non-binary ideology (not specific individuals) is at the root of the increasing decline in the adoption of the associated identities along with the adoption of the associated outward signals?
Gender identity attitudes and ideology have come under increasing scrutiny and this has brought to light the ugly side of it. So, although it's become easier and cheaper to signal trans or non-binary gender identity adoption, as the article points out, what is being signalled isn't just, or even mostly, positive character traits or virtuous dispositions.
This could play a plausible causal role in the drop in the numbers of self-identifying individuals while the noise surrounding the signals could simply be an accompanying epiphenomenon of widely adopted attitudes and ideologies with no direct bearing on the decline of the behaviour or attitude that's being signalled.
Perhaps, the high degree of noise could lead to deeper social scrutiny, which could lead to wider social criticisms, which in turn could lead to a drop in adoption and in signalling.
Yeah, it's why barely any high school girls identify as bisexual now. I used to identify as pansexual and omnisexual, and I would tell my parents about my sexuality at the dinnertable. 😑 The LGBT movement really was a neo-pedophilia movement with how entrenched in sex it caused children to be.
Although it would be remiss to ignore the role played by the political competition from 2022 - 2024. The gender identity signalling found itself at the forefront of the political menu and this probably created a polarizing environment where signaling other identitifiers allowed access to other groups wielding power. Momentum and herd behavior also helps explain ebbs and flows. Realistically children and young adults are more easily malleable and influenced.
"a reliable signal of progressive views" which rang the death knell of the progressive movement. It was a bridge too far which gave the game away.
Insightful. Makes sense.
Well done.
Thank you.
Some people crave attention.
Beware! Too many "liked by Aporia" will tend to devalue the meaning of that signal!
Forget about WHAT people are signaling.
We don't want our fellow shareholders of Earth and Lofe signaling *anything*.
Group identities of any kind are a bad idea.
They exist for the beleaguered, imprisoned, post-apocalyptic and conspirators.
Oh - AND - for people who have it all figured out and need a way to keep out anybody who hasn't.
That of course is the EXCUSE every group gives for exclusivity - and it's not a very good one.
See: https://youtu.be/De5lWoTPTTY
Yadidya
"Straight American Jewish Cis-Male" (😂 - true but not - I'm just me, as you are just you)
Every few decades the word shifts, the mood changes on androgyny, the effect is the same (until recently: surgery)
1900s – Invert
(Psychological term used for homosexuals and sex-nonconforming people; medicalized identity) Oscar Wilde as avatar
1910s – Uranian
(Used in early queer literature; referenced male-male love and aestheticism, often with androgynous undertones) Vesta Tilley/Ma Rainey as avatar
1920s – Dandy / Flapper
(Gender-subversive fashion: feminine masculinity and masculine femininity both gained visibility) Josephine Baker and Julian Eltinge as avatars
1930s – Pansy Craze
(Drag queens and effeminate men in clubs; temporarily popular before crackdown) Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, Noël Coward as androgynous avatars
1940s – Female Impersonator
(Term used for performers, often coded for transvestism or gay identity, sanitized for mainstream) Tallulah Bankhead as avatar
1950s – Transsexual and Queen
(Scientific and underground term gaining popularity) Christine Jorgensen, Liberace as avatars
1960s – Transvestism
(Became a subcultural identity with a growing press and advocacy presence; emergence of early transgender rhetoric) Virgina Prince as avatar
1970s – Gender-Bending / Bisexual Chic
(Pop culture flirted ambiguity and sexual fluidity; glam rock and punk pushed this, “Rocky Horror, Kiss”) David Bowie, Grace Jones, Sylvester as avatar
1980s – Androgyny / Genderfuck
(Club kids, performance art, and post-punk scenes elevated androgyny as rebellion; “genderfuck” as shock aesthetic) Boy George / Annie Lennox / Pete Burns as avatar
1990s – Tranny Queer decade
(Reappropriation and slur usage intertwined; zines, queer theory explored non-binary concepts) Dennis Rodman, Riot Grrrl, as avatar
2000s – Genderqueer
(First widely adopted umbrella term online for non-binary, not-male/not-female identities) Justin Vivian Bond, Tilda Swinton as avatars
2010s – Non-Binary
(Mainstreaming of gender identities outside the binary, with institutional and social recognition growing) Sam Smith, Janelle Monae as avatars
2020s – Transmasc / Transfem / Enby
(Micro-identities, internet neologisms, and TikTok aesthetics multiply; identity becomes hyper-granular) Dylan Mulvany and Elliot Page as avatars
It’s the same old song in a different key.
The EVENT was that the 2020’s version flipped over into surgery and chemistry. Dropping acid, Xtasy, a Doobie, or a nice K-hole was replaced.
That was the beginning of the end, when teenage and twenty’s youth rebellion suddenly was medicalized, hardened and became something you which would eat you alive.
Or “Dead or Alive” as Pete Burns might say.
Compare KISS’s Gene Simmons, Oscar Wilde, Liberace to Dylan Mulvaney, And Baker, Dietrich, Jones and Elliot Page.
What did u do? Friggin buy dope on signal and draw that weird swirly nigger picture?
What makes you think that a desire by unhinged men to humilate women is behind this societal trend? There surely can't be that many such men around. Also, we must always have had a certain proportion of the mentally ill around, so why now? (or rather, why ten years ago?)
Benevolent rules created to "help" the transgenders (most importantly, self-identification and access to women's spaces for the self-identified) were exploited by the pervs. How could the social engineers have thought of that?
And the reason the pervs no longer want to exploit the benevolent rules?
They don't?
The article is about the sudden rise and precipitous fall in people identifying as transgender. I thought we were both referring to that.
I understand this thread is about a minority subset of transgender males who want to invade women’s spaces and get a kick out of it (by humiliating women or otherwise).
There has probably been a decline in this subset as well.
So to answer your last question: “Do the pervs no longer want to exploit the benevolent rules?” Yes, they do and they will - proportionally to how benevolent the rules will be.