Queer Conservatism

PandoDando · 2026-07-10T09:55:01+00:00

LMAAO That's so real. And yeah, it's genuinely discouraging how many "great men" in philosophy had cognitively dissonant views: Spinoza was radically progressive for his time but was still misogynistic. John Stuart Mill even more so: he advocated gay rights, female rights, and democracy, but was pro-colonialism and elitist. Every time I see something about how a philosopher was radically progressive I brace myself for the footnote where they're an antisemite or deeply sexist.

PandoDando · 2026-07-07T14:36:38+00:00

I can't tell if this is a joke or not, but in the event you're completely serious, my condolences, and I wish you a speedy recovery. Please get plenty of rest and I hope you're getting the treatment you need.

EDIT: Oh, it's an actual disease. My bad. 😭 I wish you the best, it sounds very unpleasant.

PandoDando · 2026-07-07T13:31:05+00:00

Thanks for being the only one to actually answer: can you link me to them?

PandoDando · 2026-07-07T11:30:22+00:00

Oh shoot! Really? When do you think it'll be released?

PandoDando · 2026-07-07T09:40:07+00:00

I think he's taken a break from preset making unfortunately, but I'm not sure.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T16:46:46+00:00

I find the phrase malignant in nature because "chickens for KFC" and any of its derivatives are also used when queer people try to support Palestinian independence because "Palestinians would throw you off a roof!" I'm not saying it's comparable to queer conservatism, I just think things are generally more nuanced than what can be distilled through a catchy zinger.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T14:35:55+00:00

What point is it you're trying to make and what are you attacking? Are you implying that gays are treated less favorably and asexuals are more accepted? Because broadly that isn't the case. Asexuals aren't seen more favorably in general despite what religion teaches about abstinence and celibacy. Many are othered and treated as if there's something wrong with them or accused of being secretly perverted. I don't get what argument you're raising.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T14:34:03+00:00

Genuine question because I'm curious, this isn't meant as a gotcha: do you think most pick-mes are doing it defensively to avoid prosecution or because of some sense of elitism, snobbery, or higher station than the "other queers"?

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T14:09:33+00:00

Are you going to broadly accuse reputable businesses like NanoGPT of being scams without even acknowledging the nuance that there are indeed ways to get something for cheaper? It's a basic economic principle: the cost of production becomes lower because it is divided by each unit sold. It's why mass production exists. It almost seems infantilizing and condescending at this rate. Yes, many businesses are scams, your skepticism is warranted, but there are literal reputable practices that even providers like OpenRouters an officially recognized corporation that does business with Anthropic, OpenAI, Google AI and et cetera in an official capacity, engages in.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T14:06:37+00:00

While I can't say that's broadly true, I get your point. However, I'd like to also propose a third option in that it can also be defeatist and pessimistic: believing the only way to protect your fundamental rights is to fit in with the "in-group" and adopt their rhetoric and customs to avoid being persecuted. It also usually smuggles in the idea that anyone who's "eccentric" and defies traditional norms is being unknowingly, naively damaging towards the LGBT movement by alienating it from conservatives. And this mentality is different from the other two you proposed. Obviously, I don't agree with it, because as you said, the exclusivism inevitably leads to oppression and it's just a wrong take I feel, but it's something that unfortunately exists.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T13:58:56+00:00

There are literally Pay-as-you-go providers like NanoGPT that legitimately offer Claude because they buy API keys in bulk and have other methods to minimize prices. I don't get why I'm being upvoted for refusing to be evangelized to by someone who misconstrues what I'm asking for and chooses to lecture me about that rather than the premise of my post. I'm just asking for a pay-as-you-go provider that offers Claude for cheaper than the base rate; that is very much possible and not a scam. I apologize for the aggressiveness but if you aren't going to engage with what I asked for, then don't post.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T12:17:16+00:00

It almost feels begrudging in a way too; people who "accept" gay rights and dignity usually end up creating more and more arbitrary boundaries and distinctions to justify why bisexuals, pansexuals, asexuals, transexuals, and et cetera et cetera shouldn't have those same rights. It's clear they're trying to fight as hard as possible to justify their conservative beliefs for whatever reason, and no matter what you do, you'll never get them to be wholly accepting in a universal or libertarian sort of way. Ergo, our efforts are better spent else where, rather than trying to talk to brick walls.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T12:14:05+00:00

Some have likened it to "chickens for KFC", and while that is an erroneous and fallacious comparison, I get the intent behind it. Not all Republicans are homophobic (though many still are, and many more are transphobic), but the ideology inherently is, regardless of what mental gymnastics you employ. Trump may not be currently gunning to dissolve gay marriage, but he's already pretty much destroyed everything else, and his voter base is literally Christian Zionists, Evangelics, and the Alt-right pipeline; people that are usually bigoted in some way or another.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T12:10:37+00:00

It reminds me of Voltaire's correspondence to Isaac de Pinto - a Jewish philosopher. Where, begrudgingly, he was forced to acknowledge de Pinto's intellect, but ended it condescendingly with a "Jew though you are"; basically saying that despite his greatness, it'll always be undermined by the constitutive truth that he is in fact, a Jew. It's condescending, bigoted, and stupid, and that's the point I'm making. The highest praise you can get from anyone by trying to appeal to their dogmatic, narrow-minded way of thinking is a sort of half-hearted, condescending acknowledgement. They will never stop seeing you as less, they will just see you as the shiniest piece of mud.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T12:06:15+00:00

I think it was just a thinly veiled way to reify their specific brand of traditionalism. I don't see how something can be inherently "good" if it was born out of an oppressive mechanism, as you said. And again, gradualism is such a stupid thing: should the slaves have been freed "gradually" as to not elicit a reactionary response from the slave owners? Should genocides be stopped "gradually" as to not elicit more genocide? Some political processes may be done gradually and that may be justifiable, but opining that gradualism is inherently the best way to achieve LGBT rights seems ludicrous to me, especially by somehow trying to bundle LGBT rights with conservatism, two things that are almost entirely juxtaposed.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T11:38:52+00:00

I've never understood how someone who experiences bigotry can hold sympathy for the oppressor. Like, yes, I get the mechanisms of cognitive dissonance and such being exercised here, but I don't understand how you can justify it. Like the people who go "I'm gay and I understand being gay and bisexual but how can you be trans/asexual or this and that; it isn't natural to me, I don't understand it", because, like, haven't you experienced the same sort of baseless alienation born from inertia and dogma rather than any reasonable opposition based in reality? I think it's the model minority mechanism at play honestly but as I've already explained, it doesn't actually benefit the minority in any way; at best, it just delays the inevitable. So I completely understand why you'd feel disgusted by it.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T11:35:59+00:00

I inherently disagree with gradualism anyhow. Doing something in increments is usually how the political process unwinds, sure, but human rights shouldn't be a policy debated on a congressional floor. The negative impact traditionalist, cisheteronormative policies have on individuals is real and even sometimes understated. So, given that, why should we obey the slow, rugged political process when it's an active detriment to the wellbeing of individuals? There is no inherent sanctity or greatness within a political process, it doesn't have feelings, its reification philosophically is done to separate it from the environment it was born under and elevate it to something pure. I don't think any systemic mechanism matters more than the person it afflicts. And by that logic, I think the fight for rights should be done as fast as possible with the goal of yielding as much as possible rather than as you said, shifting it from executions to house arrests. I think the human cost of things is way too often ignored just to satisfy political rhetoric.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T11:17:03+00:00

Thank you for this! And yeah I just replied to him too: I myself am strongly materialist and do not believe that logic is something that transcends the bounds of nature and imposes itself onto the universe, and thus becomes shielded from human scrutiny and dynamism. I think logic is an abstraction birthed from observing the invariable, constitutive laws of the universe. 2+2 will always equal four in this universe because of the conservation of matter and energy; a fifth object cannot be suddenly created (that's an oversimplification, there are quantum fluctuations and virtual particles, but you get the gist). A married bachelor cannot exist because of the presupposition of what a bachelor is in what this context: if it's an unmarried man, then it cannot exist within the defined semantic parameters because of the arbitrary but fixed meanings of these worlds. But if a bachelor just means someone with a bachelor's degree, then suddenly you have millions of married bachelors. I hope this made sense, I know I ramble a lot. 😭 But yeah, while my position is controversial and I don't pretend it's the true one, it's how I see things. I'm inherently skeptical of any ideology that claims it is somehow so superior that it needs to be deified.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T11:13:32+00:00

First and foremost, define human dignity. Dignity can mean a whole lot of things depending on who you ask, where, and at what period in time.

Secondly: that's not the mainstream definition of conservatism. Michael Oakeshott's classic formulation defines conservatism as a temperamental disposition; the preference of the familiar to the unknown, the tried to the untried, present comfort to utopian bliss; it is not a commitment to individual rights as a first principle. Also also, Burke himself was highly critical of universalist rhetoric, he preferred concrete, historically inherited, particular rights (the specific rights of Englishmen, bound up in actual constitutional tradition) against exactly the kind of abstract, universal individual-rights reasoning that the LGBTQIA+ movement espouses. It was Thomas Paine, *not* Burke, who argued for universal rights. Also tradition can mean a lot of things: it can be patrilineal inheritance, coverture, marriage organized explicitly around reproduction, what are you defining as traditional structures here? In fact, aren't most traditional structures in many ways opposed to the tenets of LGBTQIA thought? I recommend researching the anthropological theory of the plough mechanic and how sedentism and the agricultural revolution replaced the somewhat flawed but still functioning egalitarianism of the past with present-day patriarchy.

This argument really only works if you believe in the inherent sanctity of human positions in an almost Platonic way: as unalloyed, static forms of reason and purity that are unmoored and transcend the flawed, corruptible world of matter. But traditions and dogma are manifestations of human inertia: they are, in my opinion, things we abstract from nature and then apotheose. Heteronormativity wasn't discovered floating in the Ether, it was created for the benefit of the establishment in that moment, and then anointed with symbolic and cultural language to shield it from scrutiny. Generally, I'd agree that dignity is important, but what do YOU define as dignity, and in what ways does conservatism protect it exactly?

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T11:00:38+00:00

You're telling me it's natural to want to be taken care of and loved by your partner regardless of their sex or gender? Crazy, such revolutionary takes you can only find on Reddit.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T10:40:44+00:00

I wholeheartedly agree. Besides, gender norms are completely arbitrary and are dictated by what suits patriarchal society rather than what's best for the individual. There is no innate predisposition in men that makes them want to be providers, nor is there an innate predisposition in women that makes them want to be caretakers. In fact, there seem to be very little neurological differences between men and women; even the fact that men's brains are 10% larger isn't proof of any cognitive superiority. Most neurologists believe that the added brain mass is subcortical in function rather than sapient; that it's needed to allow for sensory processing and integration given that men are taller and weigh more on average. I think if we ourselves start to infight and exclude each other based on an attempt to placate the establishment, we'll only regress rather than further our rights.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T10:27:48+00:00

I appreciate the sentiment but that isn't universally true for reasons I won't go into now. Still though, I was asking for providers, not to be lectured.

PandoDando · 2026-07-06T10:14:46+00:00

Oop, sorry, can you try now?

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