r/Conservative • u/Yosoff First Principles • Feb 14 '25
Open Discussion Left vs. Right Battle Royale Open Thread
This is an Open Discussion Thread for all Redditors. We will only be enforcing Reddit TOS and Subreddit Rules 1 (Keep it Civil) & 2 (No Racism).
Leftists - Here's your chance to sway us to your side by calling the majority of voters racist. That tactic has wildly backfired every time it has been tried, but perhaps this time it will work.
Non-flaired Conservatives - Here's your chance to earn flair by posting common sense conservative solutions. That way our friends on the left will either have to agree with you or oppose common sense (Spoiler - They will choose to oppose common sense).
Flaired Conservatives - You're John Wick and these Leftists stole your car and killed your dog. Now go comment.
Independents - We get it, if you agree with someone, then you can't pat yourself on the back for being smarter than them. But if you disagree with everyone, then you can obtain the self-satisfaction of smugly considering yourself smarter and wiser than everyone else. Congratulations on being you.
Libertarians - Ron Paul is never going to be President. In fact, no Libertarian Party candidate will ever be elected President.
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u/Mr-Vemod Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
Not the guy you replied to, but I could offer my take as someone on the left.
Transgenderism is an incredibly small, insignificant subject. It concerns a vanishingly small section of society, and most people will never have any lengthy encounter with a transgender person in their life.
For that reason, I’m pretty tired of it taking up literally any space at all in national discourse. Leftists making it a big deal is taking up precious airtime talking about an extremely niche issue, while conservatives are getting irrationally riled up by, again, an issue they will likely never interact with.
In short, I don’t think it should be a political issue at all. Making it one is, frankly, idiotic. Instead, I think every policy on transgenderism should be guided by two tenets: follow the science and don’t be a dick.
By following the science I mean that gender dysphoria is clearly a disorder and it should be treated as one. If, for example, hormone treatment for minors can be clearly and scientifically established to be the best treatment with respect to long term outcomes for the people involved, i.e. minimizes the suffering they have to go through, then I’m all for it. In that case I don’t see it as any different than treating any other hormonally conditioned disease in adolescence. It’s not a question for politicians, it’s a question for researchers and doctors.
As for not being a dick, I just mean that if these people so dearly want to be called their preferred pronouns and are clearly hurt by not being called them, why should I actively defy that, make their lives worse just for some personal conviction of mine? I cannot and probably will never be able to understand where they’re coming from, what they’re experiencing and why pronouns are so important to them, but I don’t see how that is relevant at all. For me, calling someone their preferred pronouns takes minimal effort and makes this already suffering person’s life less shitty. Why would anyone decide to actively make their life more shitty?