No, you didn't. The original person did. You then told me I was making a straw man by calling him out for it.
You could have just as easily not commented and I could have been dealing with the original commenter. You decided to comment, defending his absurdity. You don't get to now tell me I am "looking to be offended," especially when you take the side of the less reasonable position.
Do you really think the whole spectrum of LGBTQ identities isn't controversial?
We aren't saying good or bad, we aren't assigning value, we are simply saying controversial. Like, obviously you feel you have to fight everyone if there is so much as a chance someone is attacking you - that sort of supports the argument, no?
And no, my original argument was not that LGBTQ aligned folks should go back into the closet or any such nonsense as that. It was mostly that if you have hot takes on deep in-community debates (I give several examples above), maybe don't share them on twitter and disown everyone around you who disagrees.
Again, read arguments in the strongest possible sense. Read the entire context.
So, there are two points that you've yet to address and I doubt ever will, which casts an extremely negative light on your argument:
1) You have yet to provide any concrete examples of what it is you mean. You keep going "but I swear this isn't what I mean." Thus, I can only conclude that you mean the whole.
Am I to think you're saying that LGBTQ+ people shouldn't be allowed to discuss marriage rights, even though straight people have been afforded that right and freely talk about their marriages in front of people who are affected by laws outlawing their unions?
Am I to believe that you're saying that we shouldn't talk about whether trans people should be allowed to change their names without gender/sex reassignment surgery, even though straight people regularly change their names, get plastic surgery, and what-have-you?
There are no good answers. The very fact that you've not acknowledged that there is no good answer is the problem here. You could just accept that you're wrong, that this is offensive no matter how it is interpreted. But no, you feel an incessant need to defend yourself because you, as a straight man, couldn't possibly have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues and, thus, couldn't possibly be offending people.
2) You have yet to acknowledge the fact that you could just casually throw that in there without a second thought is the problem. The fact that you didn't need to think "does LGBTQ+ really belong here?" Your very doing that contributes to anti-LGBTQ+ and "don't say gay" mentalities.
> Am I to think you're saying that LGBTQ+ people shouldn't be allowed to discuss marriage rights, even though straight people have been afforded that right and freely talk about their marriages in front of people who are affected by laws outlawing their unions?
Are we to think you're honestly too stupid to see that discussing marriage rights is something totally different than talking about their actual marriages? We can, if you want. If not, we'd have to conclude it's a conscious tactic; twisting facts and your opponent's words into something they didn't say or doesn't happen.
We could then think this is a constant tactic of yours... But I'd prefer to ascribe it to temporary rhetorical overheating in discussing a burning cause. Hope you've put out the flames and cooled down now.
We live in a world where gay people still have to worry about being arrested for merely being gay in several countries! God help you if you're visibly trans and in a bad neighborhood!
What world do you live in where being _any_ of the LGBTQ spectrum is some overall totally safe and hunky dory existence!?
And if that wasn't bad enough, your fellow LGBTQ friends likely have all kinds of "ready to rip your throat out" hot takes - or did we already forget the shunning and rejection of Buck Angel?
It's incredible how men, especially straight white men, can demonstrate their understanding of the point by using all of its parts in twisted fashions to support their argument, but will never concede that the point was correct.
Yes, it is unsafe to be LGBTQ+. That is exactly why you can't put it in a box and go "you're not allowed to talk about these things in social situations because my game of Catan is more important."
Really ruminate on that last point. Your game of Catan is more important to you than whether the people in that game are comfortable being around you.
That is not what I said. Go back and read the original post.
It's amazing how strangers on the internet can just star gaze and determine my gender, sexuality, race and so on. It's less amazing how often wrong they are. I'd really take a moment and think whether predicting someones identity is aligned with your ethical beliefs on those topics.
If you want to fight straw men, please have the courtesy of doing it in private.
To be completely fair, if you're not a straight white man and people are regularly mistaking you for a straight white man, that generally means only one thing: you're on the wrong side of history.
And no, I think you should think a bit harder about what it is you said and how you said it. It's easy to claim that isn't what you meant, but you've yet to provide any concrete examples of what you mean, which I called you out for and you proceeded to be flippant. This is also a sign that you know your argument is lost.
You can continue to claim straw men, but you've yet to provide evidence that I've actually created a straw man.
EDIT: Moreover, if you want to say we should just not discuss LGBTQ+ issues in public and try and justify using a slur and then call LGBTQ+ people the problem when they get angry, maybe you should have the courtesy of doing that in private.
> To be completely fair, if you're not a straight white man and people are regularly mistaking you for a straight white man, that generally means only one thing: you're on the wrong side of history.
Because straight white men just are "on the wrong side of history, everyone knows that", or what?!?
Or perhaps it's just an attempt from straight men to not have to confront the fact that what they say is harmful.
Again, it's easy to say that I'm creating a straw man, but the facts are thus.
The OP said:
- My games of Catan work because we don't talk about things.
- Social media is bad because I have to confront the fact that I will disagree with people on things.
- These things that I will disagree with my Catan buddies on should either be "agree to disagree" matters or matters that don't get discussed.
- LGBTQ+ issues were one of the examples of such topics. Neither option is acceptable for LGBTQ+ people.
No examples of what sort of "LGBTQ+ political topics" either of you might mean have been given and yet I, the one providing examples and countering them, am the one creating the straw man?
All I can say is that, once again, you need to listen to the people affected when they say that what is said is harmful and stop acting like the LGBTQ+ people are the problem for telling you that it is, in fact, harmful.
EDIT: You're also defending a man who actively tried to justify using a slur. Doesn't reflect well on you, does it?
You could have just as easily not commented and I could have been dealing with the original commenter. You decided to comment, defending his absurdity. You don't get to now tell me I am "looking to be offended," especially when you take the side of the less reasonable position.