Silicon Valley's Perks Culture is Largely Dead (nytimes.com) 146
Major tech companies are scaling back workplace perks amid industry-wide layoffs and increased focus on AI development. Google, Meta, and Salesforce have reduced or eliminated benefits ranging from massage services to retreat centers, marking a shift from the lavish "perks culture" that defined Silicon Valley for two decades.
Netflix has informally shortened its parental leave, while Meta fired employees for misusing meal vouchers. The industry saw over 264,000 layoffs in 2023, suggesting the end of an era where companies competed for talent with luxury amenities
Netflix has informally shortened its parental leave, while Meta fired employees for misusing meal vouchers. The industry saw over 264,000 layoffs in 2023, suggesting the end of an era where companies competed for talent with luxury amenities
Parental Leave is the odd one out (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of these were excessive (I've seen some of these perks up close), but having good parental leave policies is a healthy work-life balance thing and probably should be among the last of the perks to be considered for reduction.
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Forget work-life balance, a country with a shrinking population can't afford to go cheap on supporting those producing the next generation - unless it wants to hand the nation over to whatever foreign culture has an excess of people looking to emigrate.
Generous parental leave needs to be enshrined in law and taxpayer funded.
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I'm shocked that benefit is still in there. I would have thought that it was one of the first to go because it would cause a large increase in health insurance premiums.
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"Generous parental leave needs to be enshrined in law and taxpayer funded."
Why not just free money for the people you say? Why the complicated justification? Money for me, not for thee.
The elite are not concerned with shrinking population, they want to accelerate it. The current political climate is exactly the opposite of what you advocate.
Personally, I oppose taxpayer funded parental leave, I prefer investment in education and free school meals. I want money to actually go to the children, not prefere
Re: Parental Leave is the odd one out (Score:5, Interesting)
From an economic standpoint we almost double our workforce when we incentivize mothers to woek and have full time careers. The age of a parent staying at home and there being only a single income in the household is quickly disappearing. If a relatively short few months of taxpayer funded leave keeps someone on track for a higher paying careee, that is a net increase in tax revenue.
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And higher household income with lower individual income... Sorry, I meant discretionary income.
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Life was better when normal average Joe blue collar workers could afford a house, car, and to put 2 kids through college.
Agreed. But there is no way to bring that back that I am aware of. Globalization has left that idea behind.
What is so much better about 2 incomes plus day care fees than having a parent at home to raise the kids instead of strangers doing it?
Skilled labor can grow their skills while leaving their 1-2 children with day care workers. And as a child gets older the amount of day care require drops off dramatically. A day care system better and results in higher productivity for households that have skilled labor and especially for knowledge workers.
But more important, it's the situation we find ourselves in, rather than dreaming that we live i
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What is so much better about 2 incomes plus day care fees than having a parent at home to raise the kids instead of strangers doing it?
The fact that some girls and some women have other interest in life than staying decade at home playing "baby popping factory"? Or you want to completely forbid half of the population from ever doing interesting jobs like becoming scientist, engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc. just because they happen to be born with a certain type of plumbing between their legs? Or do you want to completely forbid anyone wanting to have an interesting career from ever having kids?
There's nothing wrong with both parents *choosing* to work. What's wrong is for the cost of living to be so high that most families feel that both parents *must* work just to make ends meet. We've reached a point where it is exceedingly difficult for a family with only a single wage earner to get by. Families should at least have the option of one parent staying home with the kids, regardless of which parent that happens to be (and yes, I've known a number of stay-at-home dads over the years; this is not
Help for parents (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with both parents *choosing* to work. What's wrong is for the cost of living to be so high that most families feel that both parents *must* work just to make ends meet. We've reached a point where it is exceedingly difficult for a family with only a single wage earner to get by. Families should at least have the option of one parent staying home with the kids, regardless of which parent that happens to be (and yes, I've known a number of stay-at-home dads over the years; this is not strictly a gender issue).
That, I agree. The option should exist. This could be addressed at several levels. The most direct for parent would be proper social welfare to support them.
(In adition to proper regulation to avoid some of the corporate abuses that led to the current prices you're experiencing).
Not to speak for the GP or anything, but I suspect that it is less about whether you trust the nannies and more about wanting to actually be able to spend time getting to know your own kids before you retire. :-)
There's a whole range of options between 1 parent is glued at home, and both parent live permanently in their offices.
Parental leave can only last so long,
In some countries they last several years (in Czech republic they can be spread over a period of up to 3-4 year),
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Maybe don't have kids if you want a career?
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Then as a country we'll have to import labor to make up the gap.
You're almost suggesting that a lack of plan is better than fixing an obvious problem. Plodding down the same path that our ancestors followed without taking into consideration different conditions is a big of a gamble isn't it?
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I bought a gun and a holster for each cat to open carry. I could not find lasers that they wouldn't immediately chase, lighting everything on fire along the way.
The dogs don't get guns because chihuahua-terrier mixes are less trustworthy than a cat.
Re:Parental Leave is the odd one out (Score:5, Insightful)
The US population is not shrinking. And we have always had immigrants in large numbers. I don't understand this "hand over the culture" idea, it smacks of ethno-nationalism to me. Our culture is not particularly special and we have always incorporated immigrant contributions. Christmas as it is currently celebrated with Santa and trees and so on was imported. In 1850 no one celebrated Saint Patrick's Day openly because the Irish were the problem immigrants of the day. Every popular music style owes a huge amount to other cultures including so called "native" forms like rock, jazz and hip-hop. In 1960 there was no Thai food in the US, Chinese was rare outside of cities, mexican and anything spicy was rare outside of the southwest, and even italian was considered a bit weird. Good coffe made well and european style cafes were rare. All of these are now common and considered part of American culture. Suggesting that culture is somehow static and can be "handed over" is a pretty awful sentiment.
I completely agree with the last statement: Generous parental leave needs to be enshrined in law and taxpayer funded.
Re:Parental Leave is the odd one out (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not anti-immigrant or a racist worried about 'them' replacing 'us'. However, if you churn the culture too quickly you get conflict... And instead of getting the best of both worlds, if there's one primary source of immigration it will tend to replace the existing one over time. I think there's one or two cultural standards I'd prefer to see persist.
And the population is only not shrinking because of immigration - combined with an insane economic system that requires eternal growth, this is one of the reasons I think the current anti-immigrant politics are stupid and self-defeating. As with my country, Americans aren't making enough babies to sustain the population nevermind grow it.
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I'm not anti-immigrant or a racist worried about 'them' replacing 'us'. However, if you churn the culture too quickly you get conflict... And instead of getting the best of both worlds, if there's one primary source of immigration it will tend to replace the existing one over time. I think there's one or two cultural standards I'd prefer to see persist.
And the population is only not shrinking because of immigration - combined with an insane economic system that requires eternal growth, this is one of the reasons I think the current anti-immigrant politics are stupid and self-defeating. As with my country, Americans aren't making enough babies to sustain the population nevermind grow it.
Any conflict is usually in the imaginations of, or directly caused by the people claiming they're being replaced.
The problem is that society has abandoned them, rather their problem is that things aren't the same as they were 50 years ago when these people refused to adapt. Even with that refusal, society still abides them... a shame they wont afford anyone else the same courtesy.
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unless it wants to hand the nation over to whatever foreign culture has an excess of people looking to emigrate.
That's... always been the official policy of canada? And until recently the policy of the US? Did you fail US history? It's not a coincidence that both europe an america are full of white people despite having an ocean between them
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Are we arguing that native american's lost because they didn't have adequate social policy to procreate enough?
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foreign culture has an excess of people looking to emigrate.
Like Ireland, Germany and Italy in the 1800s and early 1900s. The KKK in the 1920s was bigger north of the Mason Dixon line and was mainly aimed Irish, Italians and French immigrants. But people really underestimate the power and attraction of becoming American, which was what all those people ended up becoming. We're still America, but with pizza and spaghetti and corned beef on St Patrick's day.
Anti-immigrant Bigotry as old as the Republic (Score:3)
Benjamin Franklin complained about all the German speakers in Pennsylvania and worried their culture would drown out his own English culture.
The story of Washington crossing the Delaware at Christmas often plays on those prejudices by including the claim the Hessian mercenaries were drunk from celebrating Christmas. Christmas apparently was not celebrated at all by the Puritans and other protestants and certainly not by partying. So the idea of the drunken Germans fighting for the British was good propaga
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Why should tax money be used to make people's lives miserable?
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychol... [bps.org.uk]
The government should be agnostic towards people's existential choices in life.
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Usually perk reduction is a sign of an enterprise in trouble. But it depends what is done. Slashing about the board is very bad. Keeping some and slashing some with actual though going into it is not that bad. But here is a thing: When an enterprise starts to slash toilet paper quality and "female supplies" in the restrooms, it is high time to leave.
Fed Law - 12 weeks, job protected (Score:2)
A lot of these were excessive (I've seen some of these perks up close), but having good parental leave policies is a healthy work-life balance thing and probably should be among the last of the perks to be considered for reduction.
Like many good "perks", or good benefits won by label unions, they become law. The US has federal law that requires 12 weeks and job projection. Some states have added to that.
Re: Fed Law - 12 weeks, job protected (Score:2)
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Norway has approx one year of paid parental leave, plus the right to unpaid leave longer than that. After that, you have a right to kindergarten - which is subsidized and costs about 180 USD/month. This allows Norway to have a very high work participation rate.
Kindergarten is part of our public school system. There are also pre-school programs for younger kids but access is not universal. Some localities do subsidize pre-school, possibly free for lower income.
Also, if I understand things correctly, Norway is one of the oil exporting nations that is not a kleptocracy and actually uses profits to benefit citizens. So those generous time durations are more doable. The USA may be an oil exporter, and soon we may be doing quite a bit more (especially LNG), but our
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Norway has approx one year of paid parental leave, plus the right to unpaid leave longer than that. After that, you have a right to kindergarten - which is subsidized and costs about 180 USD/month. This allows Norway to have a very high work participation rate.
Kindergarten is part of our public school system. There are also pre-school programs for younger kids but access is not universal. Some localities do subsidize pre-school, possibly free for lower income. Also, if I understand things correctly, Norway is one of the oil exporting nations that is not a kleptocracy and actually uses profits to benefit citizens. So those generous time durations are more doable. The USA may be an oil exporter, and soon we may be doing quite a bit more (especially LNG), but our government is so bloated and wasteful it's doubtful we could be so generous. If we compare pre-college public school spending, what in the USA we refer to as K-12, Kindergarten through 12th grade, we probably outspend Norway per student and do a far poorer job. In addition the government problems mentioned previously add a teacher's union that is more concerned with enriching itself and empowering itself politically than actually teaching the children. So much money never makes it to the classroom.
Yes, we have oil - but this would most years be dwarfed by the loss of income if women left the work force and became "homemakers" rather than working. As for the US - I think the biggest improvement you could do to decrease cost would be to transform healthcare. You spend so much more on healthcare as percentage of GDP than any other countries, with far worse results. A free market depends on informed, rational customers - and you can't have that in healthcare. Also, since the cost is going to be so high c
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You're talking about unpaid leave. All that means is they don't fire you for not working.
The company also maintains your health insurance.
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A lot of these were excessive (I've seen some of these perks up close), but having good parental leave policies is a healthy work-life balance thing and probably should be among the last of the perks to be considered for reduction.
Their policy is unlimited parental leave during the first year. That means up to 1 year parental leave. That policy hasn't changed. The only thing that changed was a removal of some text that read "4-8 months is typical" and addition of "work with your manager". Still sounds extremely generous.
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Realistically, these 'parental leave' benefits were/are primarily a gender discriminatory benefit : primarily, women will take them, and hoist that burden on their male coworkers.
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Realistically, these 'parental leave' benefits were/are primarily a gender discriminatory benefit : primarily, women will take them, and hoist that burden on their male coworkers.
For the companies that I've worked for, fathers have taken the max parental leave possible. Mothers do get more time off, since it's a physical and not just an emotional thing for them. But both want and take the leave.
There are indeed men who consider parental leave unfair. Of course, the same men consider the vastly greater and superior implicit benefits they enjoy to be earned and not bestowed. It's not a matter of the benefits as much as the hypocritical attitude of entitlement. What I got I earned sole
Re:Parental Leave is the odd one out (Score:5, Insightful)
A good work life balance is the biggest cop-out in USA working culture. It works like this:
"Hey everyone, come work for me, we have work life balance, you get more leave, flex time, parental leave etc. Also don't forget when we performance rank our employees you will be stack ranked by bosses who can't help but notice how often you come to work and put in that "extra effort", are you keeping up with your colleagues, or will you be in the bottom 10% and get put on a performance plan?"
Somehow the USA is a country which both has the lowest leave entitlements on the planet while equally having the largest *unused* leave entitlements expire. It's a great thing to offer "work life balance" knowing fully well your employees will destroy their own lives in order to work for you anyway. It's like offering parental leave to an sterile person.
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There's nothing about my generalities about USA work culture that is specific to white collar. The practice transcends all working classes. It's a culture of live to work rather than work to live.
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But seriously if you thought parental leave wasn't something on the tech oligarch's chopping block for a while, you're delusional. The only life you have to them is WORK.
Re: Parental Leave is the odd one out (Score:2)
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A lot of these were excessive (I've seen some of these perks up close), but having good parental leave policies is a healthy work-life balance thing and probably should be among the last of the perks to be considered for reduction.
That's why it'll be the first things they cut. These are stealth layoffs.
perx for womxn (Score:5, Insightful)
Turns out perx cost money.
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Best paid for by revenue (Score:2)
Turns out perx cost money.
And the money spent on them better be from revenue not investors or new senior management may soon take over.
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How will billion dollar tech companies survive?
Re: perx for womxn (Score:2)
I thought all the cool kids were working out of their homes? If you want to work from home, you have to buy your own dang foosball table & snacks!
Side-effect of perks (Score:5, Insightful)
All the at-work goodies encourage you to be at work every waking minute. Your work is your life.
...laura
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All the at-work goodies encourage you to be at work every waking minute.
Free meals, a laundry service, and a gym/showers, more so. Other perks, less so.
Most perks are gimmicks these days (Score:2)
Sure, Google had some real perks, like free lunches. But in the real world, most of the perks we are offered are little more than a line item in a list that nobody even looks at. You know, like discount gym memberships or logo coffee mugs. Real perks cost too much.
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Sure, Google had some real perks, like free lunches. But in the real world, most of the perks we are offered are little more than a line item in a list that nobody even looks at. You know, like discount gym memberships or logo coffee mugs. Real perks cost too much.
Some expensive ones are tax deductions. Look at your reimbursement limit for college educational expenses, the limit is probably un-coincidentally the corporate tax deduction.
my company never liked doing perks (Score:4, Insightful)
The CEO said he would rather give us stock and we can choose to spend it on lunches, t-shirts, whatever. Yet he gives us 22 weeks of parental leave because retaining good people is how you keep a business going. And most people eventually want to start a family, and we will welcome then back once things have settled down with thier baby. This kind of policy is easier for a big company than a smaller one of course.
Ya, but ... (Score:2)
Will they still get free coffee and tea? I got free coffee and tea. (*sigh*) :-(
delightful (Score:2, Flamebait)
Silicon Valley produces the worst examples of humanity on the planet, it represents the absolute worst of VC greed culture. Delightful to see the teets drying up. Next up, those salaries double industry average for junior talent.
Remember, these companies can work anywhere including remote, but VC scumbags want to sit on their golden thrones and have grovelers come to them. Silicon Valley exists solely because VC investors are incompetent AND lazy. Proximity ceased to be important decades ago.
So... (Score:2)
You're stuck living in a place with such poor growth policies that you live like a poor person while earning six figures and now you don't even get free shit at work? Why does anyone even chose to work in the valley anymore?
Meal vouchers (Score:2)
Netflix has informally shortened its parental leave, while Meta fired employees for misusing meal vouchers. The industry saw over 264,000 layoffs in 2023, suggesting the end of an era where companies competed for talent with luxury amenities
One of these things is not like the others. If you're stealing, you should probably be let go. I dunno, maybe I'm just old fashioned.
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Especially when you consider that they sent out a company wide warning to stop or be fired prior to firing anyone. No one who got canned has any real excuse.
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Yeah, including that one was rather bizarre. Perhaps the author thinks that employees have the right to misuse company resources? The NY Times might want to look into that more closely...
Anyway, here's the story on that particular bit (since the NYT article is paywalled):
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/17... [cnn.com]
8 years ago... (Score:3)
I used to only work for companies that offered perks like massages, catered breakfast, lunches, beer kegerators, game rooms and good common spaces. But after that I went to work from home in 2018 and haven't looked back. None of these perks replaced the time and heart ache of getting up an hour and a half early before having to be at work. I've wasted enough of my life sitting in traffic going to and from a "workplace" when I could do the same thing from home... and I'm done doing it.
Employees Spoke (Score:3)
They'd rather work from home, and although exec's can't say it with their outside voice, productivity did not drop. People who produce, continue to produce. Useless people continue to be useless. So why spend money on office perks?
Of course, they continue to demand we be in office at least 60% of the days of the week, because they want those tax breaks and their REIT ETFs might just evaporate. So here we are, no perks and no wfh.
First hit is free (Score:2)
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You do realize you're the mirror image of that dude typing in all caps on Breitbart, right?
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Lots of things are already in motion in anticipation of Trump's next term. While chaos is expected, the general direction is obvious (and we have the previous term as a lower bound), and it doesn't favour the working class at all.
You should expect worker's rights to be eroded, and respect for workers to receive less lip service from business owners.
Biden isn't completely absolved, but at this point nobody's worried about his reactions, they're worried about Trump's.
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You should expect worker's rights to be eroded, and respect for workers to receive less lip service from business owners.
The "worker friendly" party has already announced its plans to neuter the NRLB.
https://www.americanprogress.o... [americanprogress.org]
Here's the bottom line: the right of American politics plans to make the USA poorer. Increased wealth disparity in societies is negatively correlated with growth rates. But they don't care, because the 0.001% will be better off and a bunch of rubes will continue to cheer them on while they get poorer.
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The other tries to repeal and destroy it any chance they get.
#bothsides
Turn off TV, go talk to blue collar workers (Score:3)
the general direction is obvious, and it doesn't favour the working class at all.
Perhaps you haven't noticed but that is the perspective of the elites, the actual working class thinks differently. Hence the election results, the political shift of blue collar workers. Seriously, push "off" on your TV remote and go talk to some blue collar workers. You will likely hear something different than the talking heads on TV and the web.
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Right and you'll hear them say "he promised to reduce grocery prices, housing costs, and gas!" ...
(1) Doubtful. What you are likely to hear is that despite the admin saying things are doing well, objective reality at the grocery store and elsewhere was saying something else. They see gaslighting on the economy, on the border, on crime ... so they lost faith in the administration. Which in turn led to a loss of faith in a candidate that would not discuss policy details and would not differentiate themselves from administration policies. Hence they abandoned more of the same and turned towards something d
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2) We're already pumping more than ever before and OPEC is really the one setting the price for energy. Gas is already under $3 a gallon and that's as cheap as it's been for a decade or more excepting the COVID dip when literally no one was traveling and dem
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1) Lol no they are literally saying they voted for him because he said he'd bring prices down. ...
More oil production would increase supply and lower the price, which would lower costs for farmers, transportation of food to processing plants, transportation of food to markets.
About half of inflation was attributed to the misnamed inflation reduction act. Canceling a significant amount of that unspent fu
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what matters is what happens in the real world
Guess what, the blue collar workers are closer to the real world than the ivory tower elites.
You can't think happy thoughts and prevent the Trump tariffs from spiking inflation
Trumps tariffs are largely retaliatory for abuse, which is why Biden kept so many. Tariff threats are also used as a negotiations tools. That too was successful in his past admin and seems to be showing success in this pre-inauguration period where he is already negotiating policy, which I think is illegal to do so. But with the state of the current president no one seems bothered by.
None of which was explained to those blue (or white) collar workers.
What the workers see is these sa
Re:I doesn't really matter what those workers "thi (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't change your mind, but you can't change reality. Lie all you want, things will get worse and you'll tell new lies to pretend that isn't happening.
I mean, those lies are what convinced the blue collars to vote for Trump, so there's an effect on reality, sure, but it won't increase productivity or standard of living. We know how corrupt oligarchies work in practice, and America's rapidly accelerating in that direction.
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Guess what, the blue collar workers are closer to the real world than the ivory tower elites.
I can't change your mind, but you can't change reality. Lie all you want ...
LOL
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I can't change your mind, but you can't change reality.
Again, don't make up your mind based on what talking heads on TV say, or what people on the internet write. Go talk to blue collar workers yourself. You won't discover reality sitting in your room or office.
Re: Remember when you voted (Score:3)
While chaos is expected, the general direction is obvious (and we have the previous term as a lower bound), and it doesn't favour the working class at all.
Curious, who benefited more when Trump doubled the standard deduction? Millionaires and billionaires, or the "working class"?
For extra points, who promised to retain that tax cut, and who promised to end it?
Isn't it curious that Biden never rolled-back the Trump tax cuts or tariffs? Wonder why that is... Hmmm...
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Yep, pretty much. There is a degree of enshittification in democracy where the voters have lost all sanity and are basically voting against their own interest because they have no clue how things work anymore. The US has reached that point. Have fun, Trump voters, but do not complain about what you did to yourself.
And yes, I realize the other side is somewhat better, but not that much. Happens when you have one strongly conservative right-wing party and one extremist conservative right-wing part to chose fr
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I guess you won't have to see a trans woman in your bathrooms, which statistically you had about a 0.25% chance of happening. I'll give you that much. Oh, and trans girls can't get puberty blockers anymore. So they'll grow up looking like dudes and you won't have to risk hitting on a chick with a dick.
I am not at all surprised that THIS is why you think Democrats lost. I'd normally just laugh, be we can't have GOP without credible political challenger, this is how things go off the rails.
Re:Remember when you voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it is contentious. It is only "spot on" if you share those opinions. If you voted differently, or even if you're just like me and don't really like Trump but also don't fear him and get really sick and tired of the FUD and partisan bullshittery ... then it's a troll because it invites people into knee-jerk flame wars about which political party in the USA is going to fuck everyone the hardest. It's exhausting, largely off topic and arguably driven more by ideology than logic (this is true no matter which side you're on).
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which political party in the USA is going to fuck everyone the hardest
One political party tries to fix healthcare and make it better.
The other tries to repeal and destroy it any chance they get.
#bothsides
Re: Remember when you voted (Score:2)
One political party tries to fix healthcare and make it better.
Let's not forget that one party directed countless millions of new subscribers to UnitedHealthCare and rewarded the insurer with obscene profits *guaranteed* by the government.
When I think of healthcare coverage in America, I think of the word "fix", not "fixed" - as in "the fix is in"...
It was only after one party "fixed" healthcare coverage that millions of Americans found themselves with $5,000 deducables in their "affordable" coverage.
Re: Remember when you voted (Score:2)
"It was only after one party "fixed" healthcare coverage that millions of Americans found themselves with $5,000 deducables in their "affordable" coverage."
In California you can get a silver plan with premiums under $500 with no care deductable and $10 prescriptions. I know because I've seen them on the exchange. On the other hand, I have employer insurance, and I realistically have to go out of county for care because we have Providence and they are shit
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The other tries to repeal and destroy it any chance they get.
Here you go again with your bothsides shit. Picture drawing time.
If the other side wants to destroy it, that means that evil corporation that got "rewarded" with obscene profits will get even more. There will no longer be any guardrails to stop their theft and killing.
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I don't think you can talk about Trump voters (Score:3)
It's the exact same problem that Britain had with brexit where nobody really wanted to do it and they all voted for it as a fuck you to the government and then it just sort of happened and they couldn't stop it. Now you've got a bunch of baby boomers over in Britain who are saying they will let
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Gays and transsexuals are different type of people (Score:2, Troll)
ya know, I agree with your post and want to add on a little here.... what in the hell is so threatening to straight guys about gay guys? Who is stupid enough to believe that on monday you will send your little Johnny off to grammar school and suddenly, when he comes home, he will be Joanna, with no more dick but a man made pussy, and tits?
You do realize that gay guys don't do that? That transsexual is an entirely different type of person from gay?
The other thing you fail to realize is that what parents are freaking about is that teacher are claiming the right to put little Johnny on that path without notifying the parents.
In the future could you make your straw men more challenging. Thanks in advance.
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well, gee. so what part of " what in the hell is so threatening to straight guys about gay guys?" did you not understand?
The part where you erroneously conflate gay and transexual, the part where you added an example of transgender care for minors as an example gay issue.
Gays are rarely transexual, and transexuals are not necessarily gay.
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I conflated them?
Where you added an example of transgender care for minors as an example gay issue.
No I mentioned BOTH of them, ...
If so, poorly done. You asked what the problem was in one sentence, and in the next mocked a suggested answer to your question. The connection was implied. You gave no indication you were changing subjects.
Hint, re-read what I actually said, not what you believe I said.
We also have your suggested "problem" being a gross misrepresentation of reality. Given the latter gross error the former was easy to believe as well.
Hint: In the writer's fault, not the reader's, if the text is ambiguous
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"what in the hell is so threatening to straight guys about gay guys? Who is stupid enough to believe that on monday you will send your little Johnny off to grammar school and suddenly, when he comes home, he will be Joanna, with no more dick but a man made pussy, and tits"
Two different sentences, two different thoughts. Maybe you missed that.
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Ambiguous?
Yes, you identified a subject in the first sentence, and posed a question. Then in the second sentence you provided a hypothetical answer (a gross misrepresentation btw) with no indication that you had changed subject.
Two different sentences, two different thoughts.
Nope and nope. S1: Subject and question. S2: Hypothetical answer.
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A large part of the US live in deep rooted fear that their little boy is just one gay cartoon character away from slobbering on dick. Either they're wrong, or they've got the most suggestible or easily led children in history,
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I did exactly as they desired, far be it from me to misname or misgender someone purposefully.
Shirley was a brilliant scientist and I attended every one of her lectures i could.
Fred didn't stay very long because as a jewish guy, he was being ostracized in this town for his sexuality, so moved somewhere where he could find a good job and a jewish community that accepted him for what he was. I miss him because we used to have interesting talks from
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Rsilvergun was just trolling. I don't know a singe person who voted for Trump because of the culture war stuff, and likely if you live in the USA, statistically speaking you probably know a few Trump voters too.
The anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is what Fox News runs as rage bait when it's a slow news day. I'd personally love it if the Republican Party would join the 21st century and denounce the homo/trans phobia, but there's still a few folks in their "basket of deplorables" that they're pandering to and they don
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I see the bots are triggered hard on this topic. This post is amazingly accurate.
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Rape (Score:2, Interesting)
A woman can't rape a man. She's just not physically strong enough. But another man can rape a man. And that scares a lot of them.
For trans there's also the uncanny valley effect, e.g. trans woman who can't "pass" (god there needs to be a better way to say that...) cause our brains to hiccup a bit. You're seeing two contradictory esthetics (male & female) and it throws off the lizard brain responsible for pattern recognition.
Also the propaganda around trans woman has co
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For trans there's also the uncanny valley effect, e.g. trans woman who can't "pass" (god there needs to be a better way to say that...) cause our brains to hiccup a bit. You're seeing two contradictory esthetics (male & female) and it throws off the lizard brain responsible for pattern recognition.
You feel a lot better after you stop trying to categorize everyone by gender all the time. In most situations it just doesn't matter.
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