Some students are returning to school with new bans in effect

[vdeane]

For instance, I think being gay in the 1970s would have been a lot harder than it is now.

At least in the 1970s politicians didn't openly call for a LGBTQ genocide.

Hm.  Back then, I think they were happy with the status quo of the LGBTQ community being shoved to the barely seen fringe.

There certainly are advantages to being invisible rather than having a target on your back...

I feel like there have been quite a few changes over the last decade in particular.  For example, even those who weren't fond of trans people tended to have a begrudging tolerance of those who were post-op; that's gone now.

I think people are engaging in a overly rosy view of what people considered acceptable in the past.

"Considered acceptable" and "what the state will reasonably be expected to punish for those who live stealth" are two completely different things.  For instance, last I checked, banning transgender people from using public bathrooms (as has happened in Florida and other states) is a recent invention.

[SEWIGuy]

For instance, I think being gay in the 1970s would have been a lot harder than it is now.

At least in the 1970s politicians didn't openly call for a LGBTQ genocide.

Hm.  Back then, I think they were happy with the status quo of the LGBTQ community being shoved to the barely seen fringe.

There certainly are advantages to being invisible rather than having a target on your back...

I feel like there have been quite a few changes over the last decade in particular.  For example, even those who weren't fond of trans people tended to have a begrudging tolerance of those who were post-op; that's gone now.

I think people are engaging in a overly rosy view of what people considered acceptable in the past.

"Considered acceptable" and "what the state will reasonably be expected to punish for those who live stealth" are two completely different things.  For instance, last I checked, banning transgender people from using public bathrooms (as has happened in Florida and other states) is a recent invention.

And you think that's because people were just fine with transgender people before??? Yikes.

[Max Rockatansky]

Even the 1980s didn't have a high degree of societal tolerance.  There was way too many people who were causally okay with overt normalized day to day bigotry.  As bad as things can be sometimes now, it only gets worse the further back in time you go.

[bugo]

You didn't have kindergarten?

I didn't go to kindergarten. I was highly advanced when I was of kindergarten age. I could read when I was 2, and I was smarter than most of the other kids (which isn't a flex, I went to school in a small redneck town in the South) and I would have been bored silly in kindergarten. My parents wanted me to skip kindergarten and go right to 1st grade, but the school district wouldn't allow it, so I ended up going to a tutor. Classes with the tutor were 1 hour 3 days a week and 2 hours one day. They taught us fairly advanced math, and I learned to write in cursive in that class. It was cool to only have an hour or two of school each day, and only 4 days a week. I learned a lot more with the tutor than I ever would have in kindergarten. I was a smart kid, but unfortunately I didn't get any smarter than I was then.

[bugo]

Even the 1980s didn't have a high degree of societal tolerance.  There was way too many people who were causally okay with overt normalized day to day bigotry.  As bad as things can be sometimes now, it only gets worse the further back in time you go.

I went to school in the 1980s, and I was treated very poorly. The bullies treated anybody who was different in any way like garbage, and I'm talking physical violence and threats of violence. I don't know why they hated me so much, but it's probably because I was smarter then most of the kids (Again, that's not a flex...) and they resented me for it. It's a form of bigotry. There were no minorities in the redneck school I went to, so they didn't have any black kids to pick on, so they picked on me. They might have thought I was gay, because I got called a "biscuit" a lot. This abuse gave me PTSD, and it still affects me to this day. Bullies need to be punished harshly and thoroughly.

[vdeane]

For instance, I think being gay in the 1970s would have been a lot harder than it is now.

At least in the 1970s politicians didn't openly call for a LGBTQ genocide.

Hm.  Back then, I think they were happy with the status quo of the LGBTQ community being shoved to the barely seen fringe.

There certainly are advantages to being invisible rather than having a target on your back...

I feel like there have been quite a few changes over the last decade in particular.  For example, even those who weren't fond of trans people tended to have a begrudging tolerance of those who were post-op; that's gone now.

I think people are engaging in a overly rosy view of what people considered acceptable in the past.

"Considered acceptable" and "what the state will reasonably be expected to punish for those who live stealth" are two completely different things.  For instance, last I checked, banning transgender people from using public bathrooms (as has happened in Florida and other states) is a recent invention.

And you think that's because people were just fine with transgender people before??? Yikes.

And where, exactly, did I say that?  Don't extrapolate beyond that which I say.  First of all, yes, there was a bit more tolerance (which is not the same as "just fine", as tolerance does not imply acceptance, even though the two are often incorrectly used as synonyms) of post-op trans women in places like bathrooms and prisons that did not extend to pre-op trans women, which is now gone, as evidenced by recent restrictions passed in red states having no exception for any trans women regardless of where they are in transition (likewise, prior to recent total bans, many women's sports allowed trans women who were on hormone replacement therapy for a certain period of time).  Society has shifted as trans people became more visible and lots of people who previously had no opinion now have one.  Likewise, increased awareness makes it more difficult for all LGBT people to live under the radar; a trans person who mostly but not completely passes is now more likely to be "clocked" rather than have someone think "there's something different about them, but I can't figure out what" and a same-sex couple is less likely to be assumed to be good friends absent obvious PDA than before, too.

Are you not at all familiar with how this issue has evolved?  In 2016, North Carolina passed HB2 into law, restricting transgender access to bathrooms, to national outcry and boycotts.  Now, in the past four years, multiple states have passed even more restrictive bans, and nobody cares.

Also, and more importantly, the argument was about government actions, not social acceptance.  This was the  entire point of the comment you quoted, in fact, which you seem to have missed!  Note that Liliana was talking about politicians (and influential politicians, at that).

Even the 1980s didn't have a high degree of societal tolerance.  There was way too many people who were causally okay with overt normalized day to day bigotry.  As bad as things can be sometimes now, it only gets worse the further back in time you go.

Quite frankly, I care more about what the government can do to me than what individual people think.  Bigots who are empowered by government legislation that supports them are much more dangerous than bigots who are powerless and can't legally do anything more than yell slurs.

[bandit957]

Bullies need to be required to register, like sex offenders.

[Max Rockatansky]

Even the 1980s didn't have a high degree of societal tolerance.  There was way too many people who were causally okay with overt normalized day to day bigotry.  As bad as things can be sometimes now, it only gets worse the further back in time you go.

I went to school in the 1980s, and I was treated very poorly. The bullies treated anybody who was different in any way like garbage, and I'm talking physical violence and threats of violence. I don't know why they hated me so much, but it's probably because I was smarter then most of the kids (Again, that's not a flex...) and they resented me for it. It's a form of bigotry. There were no minorities in the redneck school I went to, so they didn't have any black kids to pick on, so they picked on me. They might have thought I was gay, because I got called a "biscuit" a lot. This abuse gave me PTSD, and it still affects me to this day. Bullies need to be punished harshly and thoroughly.

At the time being a bully or jock (if not both) meant you were atop the school social pecking order.  I recall hiding the fact that we owned a computer, and an NES console many times to protect my social standing.  Intelligence (being a nerd) was not going to get you much beyond ridicule in the 1980s K-12 environment.

[Rothman]

Thw "f" slur against gay men was much more common and accepted in the 1980s. "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits (1985) is an example.

And, young men were taught that if a gay man ever made a pass at you, you were to punch them.

[bugo]

Thw "f" slur against gay men was much more common and accepted in the 1980s. "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits (1985) is an example.

"One in a Million" by Guns and Roses and the Cross Canadian Ragweed version of "Boys from Oklahoma" use the word.

And, young men were taught that if a gay man ever made a pass at you, you were to punch them.

I find it highly flattering when a guy hits on me. It makes me feel good. I don't know why other guys get so mad about it. I'm secure enough and gay men are not a threat to me.

[kkt]

Thw "f" slur against gay men was much more common and accepted in the 1980s. "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits (1985) is an example.

And, young men were taught that if a gay man ever made a pass at you, you were to punch them.

Really?  I must have been sick the day they taught that.  When I received a pass, I turned it down with a "no thank you".  I had no idea I was supposed to hit him!

The academic parts of kindergarten aren't the real point.  It's about:  hands to yourself, do what the class is doing, follow directions, line up in an orderly fashion when going to another room rather than getting spread out all over the hallways, share, treat your classmates as friends.  Yes, also students come in to kindergarten with vastly different competence.  Some are reading and writing, others are not even recognizing the letters.  Some can do addition and subtraction or even more, others have no idea.

[1995hoo]

.... Yes, also students come in to kindergarten with vastly different competence. Some are reading and writing, others are not even recognizing the letters. Some can do addition and subtraction or even more, others have no idea.

This is one of the things I remember well from kindergarten. My parents always gave my kindergarten teacher a lot of credit for recognizing which of us could read (three of us could) and for giving us different assignments from the rest of the kids. I remember most of the kids used a book that employed a sort of hybrid rebus system. A "rebus" puzzle is the type that uses pictograms to represent words. I recall the book those kids were using used pictograms to substitute for some words and then gradually introduced the words to replace them, but I don't remember much else about it because the other two kids and I didn't use that book—our teacher assigned us the first-grade reading curriculum. All three of us finished the entire set of three first-grade reading books by the end of kindergarten. (I recall in first grade I spent half the day in the second-grade classroom and then in second grade I spent half the day in the third-grade classroom, basically because the teachers were trying to find something to challenge me and keep me from being bored.)

For some reason, I remember how when I was in kindergarten I would see the "short stories" some of the second-graders would write that invariably began with "Ones upon a time." Even as a kindergarten kid I knew that was not how you spell "once." I guess they were sounding it out and simply adding an "s" sound to the end of "one." In retrospect it sort of surprises me that they didn't spell it "wuns" or some such (simply because if you were sounding out "one," it seems more likely you'd come up with "wun" than "one").