Last Update - Tue Jan 07 2025
Princeton IV 2023 | Round 4 | Room: Arcane Chancel of Light CO | OW | Tejas Subramanium 83 | Activism Youtube Link (Time Stamped) Here Recordings of Two other rooms are available where entirely different were caselines were used Introduction The problem with Opening Opposition is they make a massive logical leap because they do not explain why the lgbtq movement saying gender isn't a social construct means the LGBTQ movement is apparently telling people that gender should be abolished and that it means nothing including to trans people themselves What Matt gives you in extension is an explanation for why even you as the movement isn't advocating for the literal abolition of gender but simply communicating OG's nuanced Narrative of you thinking gender as a social construct. This fragments the movement and it changes its composition of leadership in a way that damages its ability to protect the trans people closing government claims we have a moral obligation to. Meta-Debating I have four responses to this claim on buy-in -allegedly the crowd of people who believe gender isn’t a social construct will dissuade media from platforming the counter narrative 4. But fourth, flip this argument. It actually creates a narrative that makes it easy to blame trans people. Why ? because if you view this as a social construct then you can easily think “well being trans is a choice” and then when you're flooded with conservative narratives about how trans people are dangerous. You can think why did you make this decision to cause this trauma to happen to yourself. Why CG’s response isn’t enough Example like the queer movement in the United States transitioning to focusing on marriage equality rather than marriage abolition to get broader buy-in Their second claim is the alternative. It's a construct that believes that the person is in a wrong body and this is coercive to them because it causes them to try to change their biology it caused them to seek things like surgery. What if people are not open to seeking things like surgery If gender isn’t a social construct then it presupposes that biology dictates gender identity and expression Sub Claim Number One, they do do not explain why this is the alternative on our side of the house We are happy to Advocate for a movement that is agnostic about the precise definition of gender rather than simply attaching itself to a biological one and pushing a broader narrative that says different trans people interpret and interact with their gender in different ways. Analysis Some might think it's a social construct but many trans people think it is predetermined for them not just due to their biology but due to things like their faith and their religion. There are a bunch of other narratives we can push. Following up on GW's Example But Ilya's(CG’s) examples at the start of a speech flip the argument for us. Because he himself says Iran was willing to accept a fatwa that allowed sex reassignment surgery to happen. Fatwa:A fatwa is a religious ruling or opinion on a point of Islamic law, issued by a qualified Islamic scholar called a mufti. Muslims may request a fatwa when they are in doubt about conduct, disputes, life, belief, or law. In 1987, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Shi'ite theocracy, issued a fatwa that legalized sex reassignment surgery in Iran. The fatwa was a religious decree that called for respect of transgender people and opened the way for official support of gender transition surgery. The current leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, has reconfirmed Khomeini's fatwa, and many other Iranian clerics support it. National protocol for gender dysphoria In 2010, the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization created a national protocol for diagnosing and treating gender dysphoria. In 2014, the Transgender Studies Center was established at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. help the trans Community more, we win on this very obligation. Let me talk about our extension and how it weighs against opening opposition We gave you three mechanisms in our extension that get overwhelmingly strawmanned The first one is about fragmenting the movement. Trans people are not a monolith -some of them engage with viewing gender as a social construct, many other trans people including heavily disadvantaged trans people in context like indigenous communities ( two-spirit people) or people who Define their gender based on their religion do not view it as a social construct. By picking one narrative over another you are fragmenting the trans movement and making it substantially weaker by disabling its ability to achieve its aims Second, you are making the movement academic and exclusive. Ilya's response, ‘they do not explain why it happens to be Judith Butler and Simone de Beauvoir (French philosopher, feminist and activist) You can easily make this messaging inclusive’ - you can but Matt gives you the structural reasons for why you won't that they ignore. Reason one you are likely to draw heavily on the origins of gender as a social construct so people who are key leaders within the feminist movements often emerge from things like Humanities education. This is the first place where they heard what gender being a social construct is but second communication even if the movement doesn't over position Judith Butler, Judith Butler gets a lot more attention from of the being the first person to say gender is performative when the movement does this meaning media organizations approve them and they become a symbol for the movement but third we change the composition of the movement by making it less exclusive How does this weigh against opening opposition the first is it goes beyond their mechanism because their mechanism simply assumes that claiming gender as a social construct means claiming/believing gender is irrelevant and ought to be abolished so all the arguments about acceptance by conservative communities for example seems to assume that people will be really mad because gender is an important part of their lives or trans people will be really annoyed because gender is important to trans people but at no point did the gov bench say we think gender is completely unimportant our mechanism makes a much cleaner link to explaining why any version of claiming gender as a social construct is bad POI Before I complete this weighing opening government do you have a POI The second thing is they lack a comparative because opening opposition themselves identify the religious texts that tell people that gender is a binary that trans people are bad but they do not explain why the movement has a comparative Pathway to actually helping trans people what we say is if the external buy-in is impossible at least we get internal mobilization. We get people on the streets and we get people protesting unlike their side of the house that actually alienates people. One conservatives can weaponize their unified narrative views because if the lgbtq movement more broadly says gender is a social construct, it's easy for conservatives to paint this as them saying gender doesn't exist By the way this response mechanizes the opening opposition case because the point is the conservative movement can say they think it's a social construct thinking if the social construct means thinking it is imaginary and present their ideas in this way but second on our side the movement doesn't not have a comparison content out of it it doesn't say nothing instead it says many different definitions of gender are consistent with trans rights for example biology influence is consistent when you see that trans men for example have brains more similar to CIS men non-biological definitions that come from things like Faith are consistent and the social construction is consistent thus beating OG's Echo chamber claim for all these reasons.
Arcane Glintstone (Recommended)
Let me start with some rebuttal to closing government extensions
Their first claim is we have more buy-in and they give you seven mechanisms but I think pretty clearly illustrate the biggest problem in modern debating where they give you seven sentences each of them describing a bunch of different avenues like the news media, entertainment and culture for how things will be repetitively consumed and then do not explain why that if consumption leads to any social change whatsoever
1. number one the media is reluctant to platform this narrative so all avenues they described like the news media, the entertainment and culture realize this is an unprofitable narrative to platform insofar as large numbers of people believe that gender is not a social construct, one movement telling you that it is insufficient for you to think this is worth platforming
-Another ROOM based their argument on the interpretation that corporations will not “aggressively” platform the narrative
2.Second, repetition can have the opposite effect flipping their claim because repetitively having a message that challenges your intuitions about the world doesn't make you think “hey I've heard this much as 300 times rather than 30 times let me change my mind right now”. Rather it can make you feel frustrated as an individual about not being heard by what the movement is telling you
3. Third, it's unclear why these messages reach moderates or conservatives. Lots of people live in Social Echo Chambers due to things like social media algorithms and the types of media that they consume. So the fact these messages are coming onto media does not mean you will be exposed to that them
The only mechanism from closing government is “look guys Norms change over time. This happened with gay rights already, why can't it happen with believing gender as a social construct”. But no, change doesn't happen by waving a wand it happens when disciplined social movements that often take compromises and try to appeal to broader basis of buy-in
Clarifies CO’s stance on the motion
Mechanism
Impact
What that means is the narrative that people are in the wrong body even if it's not true of most trans people - is a pretty good narrative to push for Trans acceptance.
Finally they claim there is a moral obligation to this specific Community. If we prove we
Two-Spirit: Two-spirit refers to people who are part of any Indigenous American native group and who identify as having both feminine and masculine traits. Often characterized by someone embodying the souls of man and a women. Sometimes used as an umbrella term to refer to the LGBTQI+ community of Native American descent. Two-Spirit identity was widely believed to be the result of supernatural intervention in the form of visions or dreams and sanctioned by tribal mythology. In many tribes, Two-Spirit people filled special religious roles as healers, shamans, and ceremonial leaders.
Conversation regarding Gender being a social construct has inherent academic roots thus, making it too complicated i.e more exclusionary towards the massses
Weighing Over OO
“Given our argument that mainstream media in conservative countries are likely to platform the idea that gay people are a produce….. idea anyway you still alienate other people………..
I’ll respond to that, let me just finish the swing okay…..
Weighing Over OG
Finally on opening government, their core claim is that the conservatives will think the lgbtq movement as believing a more extreme version of this two responses
-if something is socially constructed it implies that it’s false or made up