Submitted 12 hours ago by SwissArmyKazoo@lemmy.world to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
Looks to me like the supposed dad’s joke satirizes the bullshit that rightwingers peddle, while also complaining about the much less outlandish but actually real, and obviously infuriating, issue of teacher having to pay for chalk and other lesson supplies. That’s punching up, not down.
Really don’t think this is transphobia, quite the contrary… he’s actively making fun of Republicans who think school faculty could ever do such a thing. Like, simply pointing out the complete absurdity of that Republican stance.
It’s more the kind of “joke” that makes fun of people who think that kids just magically transition during a class period one day without approval or those considerations you spoke of.
Sometimes, people make tongue in cheek statements like this to spread the message and remind people just how idiotic the one’s spreading the misinformation are, and that I stand behind because normalizing that info without pointing out the blatant absurdity of the misinformation is how we end up spreading it further.
Is this bait? In what world is this transphobic? You could replace the punchline with any conspiracy and keep the joke. It isn’t punching down because the joke is at the expense of people who believe this not at the expense of people who are trans.
You’ve misread the joke. He’s making fun of transphobes and transphobic lawmaking.
Go outside
You wanna tell people what’s allowed for comedy? Wow.
Is it possible you have issues detecting satire, sarcasm, and tone? I’m generally pretty good with satire and sarcasm but I can have issues both reading into a tone that doesn’t exist in a message or conveying my thoughts in a message that doesn’t sound angry or aggressive. Realizing that that is a common thing for a lot of people on the internet has helped me understand the internet and people’s intensity on the internet better—being that they are responding to something they think is real hate. That problem seems tenfold on Lemmy somehow though
papalonian@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I disagree that the comment is harmful or transphobic. It isn’t punching down or attacking trans people, it’s making fun of the insane belief that school teachers are performing medical procedures on children without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
I want to make a few things clear before I go any further: body / gender dysmorphia is not something that magically begins at the age of 18, and the idea that treatment for it should be held off until that age is as ridiculous as implying depression or anxiety not be treated until then. There’s also a myriad of reasons as to why someone under 18 would want to seek this treatment without their parents’ knowledge.
That being said, the extent to which treatment and discretion should be provided is obviously a hot topic in today’s political climate, and whether you’re in the group that supports or condemns it, nowhere are there schools with teachers performing secret transition surgeries on children without their parents’ knowledge. The poster is not making fun of an actual thing that is happening or even has a high likelihood of happening; they’re making fun of the lunacy and (often intentional) failure to understand the actual argument, and highlighting the strawman behind their defense.
I was going to liken the comment to someone making fun of an anti-Semitic news article by saying something like, “my Jewish friends always say they’re too busy running the world to hang out with me”, which could be taken at face value as an anti-Semitic joke; but the comment in your OP doesn’t even say anything negative about trans people (or those that provide treatment for them, for that matter). The only ones really being mocked are the people that believe the second statement is true.
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
And in fact if you wait until 18 to provide any treatment, they’ll probably have greater dysphoria for the rest of their life from a puberty that is only partially reversible since you made them wait years without HRT or blockers, and usually requires surgery orders of magnitude more expensive, time consuming, and painful than early blockers would’ve been