A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
Historically they didn't give a fuck about a lot of things until they are searching for reasons to hate someone or a group of people.
Take drag performance... drag is an ANCIENT tradition in Western theater that goes back into Ancient Greece. Name a comedian active in the black and white film era and I will show you a drag performance they made. Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, they all did it, and exactly no one told them it was wrong.
The name is never the problem, it's that the person with the name exists that people get so butt hurt about
Going back a ways bigots had a problem with both Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) and Kareem Abdul Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) but were fine with John Wayne (Marion Morrison).
And it's not something new or anything like that. There are lots of cultures through history in which people choose their own names or alternate names throughout their life for a variety of reasons.
Popes change their names all the time.
Actors and actresses have to register their name with a guild and sometimes change it because it is too close to another previous actor's name or they don't want to show their nepo roots or whatever reason.
So to just skip that problem they make up a registered stage name. Not that it lends any more authenticity but rather there is a structural professional reason that they do that.
And I have no problem with people using any name as long as they don't mock me for needing help spelling it.
They don't seem to mind that JD Vance has had a bunch of different names.
I would call myself JD too if my parents named me Jerkin Dapenis as well.
"JV Dunce"
Or that he's referred to a JD.
Change your name to make yourself more palatable to a wider audience? Good.
Change your name to make yourself more palatable for yourself? Bad, apparently.
Pen names are ancient, too. Mark Twain? Real name is Samuel Clements. Charles Dickens used the pen name Boz for some reason, and Stephen King used multiple pen names, especially early in his career.
And still affects no one. People bitching about stuff that has literally nothing to do with them worrying about everyone else's genitals.
All businesses choose a fake name to suit their identity. All business managers choose job titles to suit their identity.
Those who have a problem with transgender people are arrogant egotistical full-of-themselves narcicists who see others as lower class animals that exist only to be managed.
Damn, never thought about the fake ass job titles lol. I don't even care what mine is. Good point. It's all made up bullshit like country borders, people killing each other stepping over an invisible line.
What about people who have a problem with society moving quicker than science or medicine allows?
What is it about the trans community and talking in absolutes so often? I would think that trans people would be a more skeptical bunch but they are the ones banning people for asking clarifying questions on platforms like lemmy.
What do you mean by society moving quicker than science? Transgender people have existed before most scientific advancements. They existed in ancient Greece, they exist in Norse Mythology... They were persecuted in several government systems in the past such as Germany, they have always been here. It's just that social media and the Internet brings more information to people than ever before. So instead of never having met a trans person in your life more people are being introduced to them than ever before. Which also means some people who may have never understood what was going on with themselves and why they felt so different than the boxes society around them was placing them into. I know I'm a guy, I was born one and have always been one. If you look at Women's athletics, say the Olympics you will see many women that have naturally occuring high levels of testosterone that may be higher than your average male. You will also find men who have extremely low testosterone. So scientifically I see it as a blend that the hormones in our bodies have naturally created showing that what we define as man, and woman doesn't encompass everything. Only when we try to put someone in a group do we start to think that there is something abnormal about a person having higher or lower testosterone. Then you can get into the facet of sexual parts. 1.7/100 people are born with intersexual traits. If we say a person has to be a man or a woman, then there is a 1.7% chance a person doesn't fit into either box at birth. I see no reason that person shouldnt be able to live a happy life, not be treated the same as everyone else around them.
I'm not a trans person, I am not well educated on all of it because it isn't something I had to educate myself on. But using that number there, scientifically there were 5.78 million people in the U.S. that were born outside the box of Man or Woman. To put that into perspective, 28 of the 50 states have less people in them, than the number of people born with intersex traits.
So when someone downplays them and acts like they shouldn't exist, maybe it's easier to look at it as saying all of a U.S. state shouldn't exist simply because they were born there.
Note: most of this was focused on intersex, not gender.. but I think it helps open the mind to understanding the world isn't as man/woman as we often think of it.
I was only ok with the fake name of Guynan.
Whoopi suck. Guyana, helped picard saved humanity.
The main difference is that nobody considers referring to Whoopi Goldberg as Caryn Elaine Johnson a hate crime.
I don't think anyone considers calling someone by another name a crime, it's just considered rude and non professional/business like. If I went into work and called someone I didn't like by another random name all the time until the point it was making them feel uncomfortable, HR would come ask me to stop creating a less than ideal work environment and making my coworkers uncomfortable. If I refused to do so, I would expect the HR department to end my employment for that company. None of it is a hate crime, but people have a right to exist and be not be treated in a way you wouldn't treat others.
this dint start until conservatives,right wing groups started pushing the anti-trans narrative. which was pretty recent, like within 5-10years. nobody gave a poop about it til trumps 1st term. Now everyone is either afraid, or freaks out over names that should be ONE sex or the other, or gendered, plus this also applies to characther names in movies and shows. there was one trek show that made it forced and wierd, like that is making statement.
It is pretty arbitrary which names we consider masculine and which names we consider feminine. On Big Brother Canada, there was a man named Hope. A man named Ashley works as a writer for Marvel Studios.
And we cannot forget one of the best comedy actors of all time, Leslie Neilson
Who also has astonishing range, too. He was a serious actor before Airplane. Since halloween is coming up, watch the 1982 movie Creepshow. There was a short with him in it (it is an anthology) and he very convincingly plays a murderous wealthy Creep.
That's the problem.
Gender change is a premium feature, how dare ypu, peasant!
I think the issue is people getting hung up on the gender identity, not the name. I have known lots of people who go by preferred names, whether chosen themselves or given to them by friends as nicknames. Hell, there are a few people I knew for years only by their preferred name/nickname without realizing it wasn't their given name.
And stage names make a lot of sense from a practical standpoint. Being famous by your given name can make it hard to separate professional life from personal life.
Don't know if it's the case in her situation, but there's also the thing with stage names where Guild rules require names to be unique. Like Michael J. Fox's middle name is actually Andrew. There was already a Michael Fox on the books so couldn't use that, Andrew or Andy Fox didn't feel right, and Michael A. Fox felt presumptuous (Michael, a fox. Fox having recently come into play as a synonym for attractive) or Canadian (Michael Eh? Fox)
This is why in The Simpson you will see David S. Cohen and in Futurama he is David X. Cohen. I think in a Futurama commentary he told about confusion in a guild or royalty payments that made him change how he was credited.
I feel silly now for not realizing that was a stage name.
I straight up thought her actual name was "Whoopi".
About every actor or actress you've ever heard of is using a stage name. I forget the rules, but the name has to be unique, never used before. Acting guild thing? I forget.
I think having a cute stage name is something people accept after you're famous.
I'm gonna come in with maybe an unpopular hot take. I have no problems people being trans or choosing a name that suits your preferred gender, but--perhaps because of the repression earlier in life--it seems there is often an... aggressively creative search for names?
I know about 8 MtF people (0 FtM for some reason?), and they are not picking mainstream names like Mary, Samantha, or Norah for example. Eris, Athena, Cybelle, Malice, and Laika are 5 of the 8 names chosen. It's not a problem, you pick it and I will use it, but it IS jarring. I'm not making excuses for transphobia because that's stupid, but it is strange to me to ostensibly want to blend in with everybody else, but then choose a name that obviously marks you out? It's like the line between choosing a name for your heroine DND character and for yourself is suddenly completely erased and it's absolutely your right, but as an outsider it's honestly kinda weird.
I support a parents right to pick names for their kids, but aeslyn and breeleigh and brandaeden are weird names. Same for people who pick their own names regardless of gender identity. If you pick a name that is kinda weird... well it's kinda weird.
What a silly argument. The name has to be on the list that you feel is an appropriate name for what ever gender were talking about. I feel you are perpetuating the problem.
So change your name to pupscent IRL?
You or anyone else can change their names to anything you want anytime; however, you can't force people to like it.
Sure, if you want dream_weasel to like it, you can ask for the approved list. If you want to name yourself General Buttfuckingnaked you absolutely can, but if people don't like it that's YOUR problem. It isn't trans insensitive to be weirded out by you naming yourself Incestte, it's just a weird fucking name.
I feel like if you're trying to mandate what people MUST like, you are CAUSING a problem. You can't force me to say a black belt and brown pants and shoes go together because a trans person picked it, that is still a shitty choice. Names are same deal. Being trans doesn't mean you are instantly exempt from every form of taste.
Coming up with a stage name is usually something that agents will tell their clients to do if their name sounds "too ethnic". Happens when they are auditioning for roles, not when they get famous.
Random fact I heard the other day: Leonardo DiCaprio almost sent out headshots with a stage name at the advice of his agent, but his dad talked him out of it and told him to be proud of his name. I forget what they told him his stage name should be, but it was way more generic and forgettable than his real name.
Dang, we could have had Longboy DiCaprio. Or like Lyman or something.
chooses a name
Whoopi
Gotta hand it to her, it's done wonders for recognition. No one's mistaking the name.
Does it ever make you think that when her parents were having sex that one fateful night, they would later be able to look back upon it and say that they were making Whoopi?
JD Vance isn't a real name, and that's cool. Apparently.
His name is James Donald Bowman, and I will deadname him every chance I get.
Ted Cruz is, afaik, not using a pseudonym, but he is a literal Oogie Boogie (see; a writhing mass of bugs wrapped in a pseudo-skin) and nobody seems to have a problem with that either
Edit: I scrolled down and am now aware the Ted is not his name. Shoulda known an boogie boogie would use a pseudonym. SMH my whole head rn
If you know anyone who is anti trans but goes by a nickname, start calling them by their given name. Doug, you're Douglas. Alex, you're Alexander or Alexis or whatever. Bill: William. Ted: Rafael (might only apply to one Senator).
Not really.
The people who have an issue with that, don't have an issue with Rafael Cruz making up a white name.
They just don't like people transitioning.
You're implying transphobia is a common view.
The people who have an issue with that, don’t have an issue with Rafael Cruz making up a white name.
Nobody is mad at Ted for changing his name. Folks are mad at him for pulling the rope up now that his family is here "legally", then trying to white wash his identity so you don't question him on it.
You’re implying transphobia is a common view.
It absolutely is. And it used to be a lot worse. Took a lot of people coming out at risk of their lives and livelihoods before we reached even this level of support for transgender civil rights.