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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • There is one source.

    I recommend reading nurturing our humanity. Primates have two observable social systems. And they both exist in all societies along a spectrum.

    Domination and partnership.

    The more domination based a society, the more everybody suffers. Including those higher in the social hierarchy.

    Working class men, they are in a strange place because they have hierarchical status based on gender but not based on economic class. This makes it difficult for them to find solidarity with women. And thus more lonely in a system of loneliness.

    Communists would blame capitalism of course, and they’re not exactly wrong because capitalism is a domination-based system. Marx called this phenomena alienation.

    Feminists would blame patriarchy, and again they are not wrong it is a domination-based system.

    So on and so forth, but we can take a step back and look at ourselves as apes and see domination is the problem. The will to power.

    Buddhism calls this energy Mara, and would call the partnership energy Buddha nature.

    It’s all the same thing, it’s a strategy apes use to relate to each other and survive. Partnership is a better strategy. Assuming your goal is the health of society and the planet rather than personal gain.



  • On the other hand, belle hooks’, The Will to Change, is one of the most compassionate and understanding takes on the subject.

    So she has an opinion on the validity of the experience, and it is that capitalism and patriarchy is alienating for men, just like it is for others. Especially working class men.

    Nurturing Our Humanity, co-written by a female author, uses system science and primatology to validate what men experience in domination based societies.

    I know your point was more long the lines of critics shouldn’t criticize things that they don’t understand, but there are a lot of feminists that do understand and have an informed opinion, because they study how these systems of domination affect everyone, not just women.


  • I was also uncomfortable being in there. And I agree with you that the article doesn’t give us enough background of what was going on, because obviously there’s a lot more to the story if the school board did find that these kids were bullying.

    And I agree that filming wasn’t appropriate, presumably there would have been a lot of boys in there that weren’t bullies.

    Anyway, I think there is a lot more to this story than what is in the article. So us from the outside, it’s just conjecture. The scoreboard made a decision on what they thought was going to keep kids safe. And their decision was to suspend kids they perceived as being bullies.


  • I’m going to circle back around, there was an investigation launched. They don’t launch those investigations without evidence. And the boys were suspended, which means that the school board, with their experience dealing with bullies found that this was a situation where a trans boy was being bullied by his peers. The school used it’s experience to determine the answer question you posed. And suspended the bullies.

    In your comment that I initially replied to, you pushed the idea that these kids truly believe that this is a girl. I think it’s far more likely that they know he’s trans, and view him as a freak. Calling him a girl wasn’t there perception. It was the language they chose to bully someone they see as different.

    And incidents like this are why suicide rates are high in the trans population.


  • If there was a girl in my locker room in school, I would have been uncomfortable too.

    I was referencing specifically this part of your post.

    But I agree with your take overall. And see that in the quoted text you were referencing the boys perceptions. But it also sounds like this harassment was ongoing, hence the trans boy feeling the need to record it. Calling him a girl was likely part of that harassment. They likely know he’s trans. But are learning a lot of exclusionary rhetoric from their peers and likely adults too. Which they used to harass and exclude the trans boy.

    We need education, inclusion. And yeah, safe gender neutral spaces too.


  • It sounds like there wasn’t a girl in the locker room, but a trans boy.

    I’m not saying that isn’t awkward, but your perception of events aren’t exactly accurate either.

    I’m trans personally, and I think the solution to this is more gender-neutral spaces. If I use the men’s room, I make men uncomfortable because I’m a woman. If I didn’t pass, I might make folks uncomfortable in the women’s room instead.

    The issue is the gender binary and our cultures discomfort of anything outside it. Not that a trans boy was more comfortable in the boys locker room.

    That said, I don’t think the trans boy should have been filming. I get the he wanted to catch the harassment on video, but an audio recording would have served the same purpose.








  • There’s six realms in Buddhism, one is where the Indian Gods live.

    And they pay homage to the Buddha. Because he transcends all realms. Even theirs.

    He also let go of all attachment. King, God, he was beyond those things.

    So he spent his life teaching the way of understanding and compassion,because he was not attached to himself. And if you’re not attached to yourself, why do you care if your king or not?