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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 23rd November 2025 - awful.systems (awful.systems)
submitted 3 months ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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[-] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

As background: the Kaufmann report that prompted all this is a load of absolute garbage. As discussed fairly extensively on social media (example).

As for Aella's addition: oh god why did I read this?

The methodology was apparently running a "Big Kink Survey" which was "trending on TikTok" and had "very good SEO". I suppose this is the right data needed to draw conclusions about what rate 14 year olds are transgender.

The whole this is also full of weird gender essentialism (I never want to read the word "biofemales" again).

I think this is evidence for an increasing split between afabs and amabs

But don't worry she's very pro trans (JK Rowling sense):

Despite having been cancelled by the more radical subgroups of trans people, I’m nevertheless very pro trans.

Which is why she wants to make a massive reach and be concerned that maybe trans people are getting too much healthcare:

I think it’s unlikely that 11.5% of afabs are actually trans men in a way that would last through adulthood. If my data is measuring any real trend in the world, and if that trend meaningfully increases permanent changes to bodies, then this high percentage might actually be quite bad.

... Nevermind that her data doesn't even touch on stuff like rate of HRT, or regret rate; these "concerns" are all pulled out of thin air.

[-] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 12 points 3 months ago

(I also lament that this makes things really rough for the trans men for whom this is not a fad, and for whom earlier transitioning would be a huge quality of life improvement.)

Like dear cis people are you OK? Is society not transphobic enough for you? :'(

Are you worried that if a teenager is allowed to explore their gender a little that it will cause a bunch of precocious little cis girls to accidentally glance at a vial of testosterone the wrong way and grow a fantastic beard overnight?

When I started estrogen (later than I should have and fuck you Idaho) I was absolutely 100% sure that it was the right thing to try, and that I'd stop if I didn't like it. Never looked back (estrogen is tasty and I encourage everyone to try it at least once), and I had years before there was much you could call permanent.

But of course it's not the "permanent changes to bodies" that made me a 6ft tall amazonian beauty that people like Aella are concerned about. "What if we accidentally trans one of the cis??" fundamentally assumes it is OK to accidentally withhold critical medicine from countless trans people just to be "safe".

[-] nightsky@awful.systems 9 points 3 months ago

“What if we accidentally trans one of the cis??”

They always like to dress up these statements as medical concern. But it shines through that, despite whatever the person may express otherwise, deep down they think being trans is not really acceptable. Maybe partially acceptable at best, but should be avoided if possible. Very similar thought model to classics like "oh I'm fine with gay people, but what if my child sees two men holding hands and then wants to try it too??"

this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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