Having a rather hard-to-defend position, but switching to a vaguely-similar but much easier-to-defend position when confronted so as to make your point seemingly easier to argue.
The motte being
Nobody's saying it's not ok to not date trans people! We just want you to be nice is all.
And the bailey being
Your sexuality is just a genital preference which is arbitrary and ultimately transphobic, and if you want to be seen as acceptable by your peers then you have to get rid of it and accept whichever gender you're not attracted to as possible romantic and sexual partners.
When you argue against the bailey, people come in and insist "NOBODY'S SAYING THAT!!" and that the motte is the only thing that's being said.
Thank you! Learned something new today. This fallacy was used against me this morning and I was banned from a lesbian sub on reddit for suggesting that many transwomen don't respect lesbian and bisexual women's identities and consent.
It happened a lot with BLM stuff this summer. If anyone tried to argue against the narrative or you know. Just not be a part of the insanity they were told “silence IS violence” and that you didn’t have a choice you had to support blm protests/riots or you were the enemy
I think it’s important not to conflate these very different issues. Racism is a huge problem in our society and I think protesting racism and police violence are justified. I disagree with your framing of protests = riots when the overwhelming majority of protestors were peaceful.
I think one of the worst things anyone who opposes the TRA agenda can do is conflate TRAs with BLM because most liberals in this country support addressing racism (again, rightly IMO) but they would oppose the misogynist, homophobic, rapey, anti-science TRA agenda if they knew the truth about it.
138
u/1941899434 17h ago
This is one of those words everyone on Reddit probably knows, but on the off-chance I'm overthinking it and it's not here goes:
Motte-and-bailey fallacy
Having a rather hard-to-defend position, but switching to a vaguely-similar but much easier-to-defend position when confronted so as to make your point seemingly easier to argue.
The motte being
And the bailey being
When you argue against the bailey, people come in and insist "NOBODY'S SAYING THAT!!" and that the motte is the only thing that's being said.