: So, that little bit of intersectionalism up there? "Heterophobia is
: nigh-nonexistent because heterosexuals and cisgenders are not
: oppressed" is wrong.

Really? Where have they been oppressed? One example is enough, but two would be great.

: Bigotry is bigotry, and is morally wrong no
: matter what side of the oppression equation you stand on.

Yes, you're right, and I wish more people would remember that, including people opposing each other in this very thread.

: This kind of dovetails with something else you said a few months ago. You
: said something about how even extreme tactics will call attention to real
: problems and push people to solve those problems, thus doing more right
: than wrong. Paraphrasing, you can't do wrong if you're morally in the
: right. But there are plenty of activists who, instead of fighting hatred,
: simply spread more hatred.

That's a good point, one I've wanted to see someone make before or point out myself.
That said, when people see opposition and hatred all the time (whether it's really like that or not), can you blame them? I mean, of course you can blame them, but it's understandable to want to hate right back and respond with hate.

: Take K. Tempest Bradford's article challenging readers to not read books
: written by straight white cis-male authors for a year. I could have
: understood if she talked about minority authors who were overlooked
: because of their race/sex/identification, but she is telling readers to
: discriminate against authors by the color of their skin and the
: orientation of their gender*. Just replacing "White" with
: "Jewish" in that article is enough to give me the
: heebie-jeebies.

Interesting, changing that word makes you feel that way, which implies as it stands it doesn't. That doesn't make it right, but I think it illustrates a point, possibly a point the article writer wanted to make about multiple standards (probably not the point they wanted to make, but maybe a point that was intended).

: And I've heard people like Scalzi and Hines say that white people won't read
: something written by minorities, but I haven't met a single person who
: flips to the About the Author page before buying a book.

: [skipping ahead]

: What made me facedesk was when she said that Paizo had to make the move
: because women look at a paucity of females in a position and assume that
: it's not available to them. Women are dainty things that won't fight for
: what they want, they have to be given it.

: Alright, I might have added the word "Dainty". But the sentiment
: was still there.

The reasoning for the case you bring up seems dumb, but your interpretation of it seems off.
I keep seeing this, and with all due respect, I don't know why people don't seem to get to get, and I also don't get why no one ever seems to explain it. As far as I can tell, the reasoning behind trying to lift up women or black people or Latinos or gay people or whatever group like this (at least for the large majority of the people behind it) isn't that this or that group needs help or defending because they can't do things on their own, it's that they need help because they're under attack or being oppressed, and the help makes the numbers closer to being fair. It's arguable how true that is nowadays in a lot of the world for various groups. It definitely still happens, and it definitely doesn't happen as much as it used to, so I don't think either side (extra help vs. no extra help) can be safely ignored.

That part and the previous part really get to the heart of it.
What we're getting to here is agreement that racism, sexism, discrimination by religion, nationality, who you love, what your genitals are like, etc. are still around and will be for some time, and a disagreement over what to do about this problem. The really frustrating thing to me is when it comes to things like your post and the one you're responding to, where there's apparently agreement that it shouldn't be ignored and something should be done, but still a disagreement over what to do.
Hate is bad, and panic is bad, and prejudice over silly stuff is bad, they're the enemies of reason and they're major obstacles to getting anything constructive done-- but at the same time trying to correct for them can be overdone, and trying to get people to calm down and go with the flow can be overdone. It's really striking to me how much people seem to be concerned that we as a society are overdoing the help for groups that are at a disadvantage, or were at a disadvantage-- not saying it's motivated by something bad necessarily, just it surprises me. I wish I had something deeper to say or a stance to take, but I honestly don't know what to do, which kind of makes me distrust both sides of the argument.

: [skipping ahead]

: This is just stuff I've noticed because it's wandered across my path. And
: then there were the Gamergate

a pause while I straighten my eyeballs and strengthen my nerves, because I was over that like one day into it... OK, continuing

: And then there were the Gamergate tweets that would have been
: truly alarming if you replaced any combination
: of "Straight white gamer" with "Jew".

Seriously? People do say the very same things about Jews, and Muslims, and black people, and literally every other group. Some things are less intuitive in certain combinations so you don't see them as much, but you can rest assured every racial, religious, sexual, etc. insult you can think of has been applied to every group with more than a couple thousand people in it. If you didn't know that, you've lived a sheltered life, especially as far as the Internet is concerned.

: I didn't know about Gamergate until it had mostly blown
: over. I wasn't involved. I saw men threatening women, but I also saw
: ugliness coming from the other side. I heard of minority developers being
: dismissed as sock puppets and I saw vast swaths of gaming culture
: hatefully demonized with tired stereotypes from the nineties.

: I don't know who was right.

Almost no one was right, that's why it was so dumb. All generalizations are dumb. Yes, including that one, because a few generalizations are actually warranted and useful, and not as dumb as the rest.

: I don't know who was wrong. It was a vast roaring
: FoF-radar-wrecking shitstorm that I didn't have the patience or energy to
: wade into. But I have friends whom I have known for a long time and whose
: opinion I respect. They (and I) have been yearning for integrity to be
: brought into gaming journalism, and they felt that Gamergate was that
: opportunity. They celebrated when one of the websites (The Escapist?)
: updated its ethics policy, though I forget the exact details.

I hope you quickly gave up on that. Once you're associated with the kind of people, the kind of image, that was being projected as the anti-women one, you have to either start a major image reformation project or just wait until your next chance. I would hope reasonable people trying to defend women gave up on it quickly for the same reason, the "feminazi" image projected by the other side. At some point you can't fight a stereotype head-on and you have to wear it down or let it fade. In the US, for black people, that took decades or centuries, and for gay people it's taking decades if not longer, and in Ireland, India, west Africa, the Middle East, and a host of other areas, that process has been going on for religions for centuries or millennia and it's still not done. This is a smaller fight so you shouldn't have to grin and bear it for that long.

: On the flip side of the coin, Sarkeesian lost all points with me when she
: pulled that stunt at Utah University. There was no credible threat against
: her, the FBI and the local law enforcement agencies confirmed that there
: was no credible death threat against her, and she still canceled her
: speaking engagement because the university wouldn't ban guns and search
: everyone going into the auditorium.

¯\°_°/¯ Not everyone's brave when it comes to their physical safety, even if they're fine with every manner of verbal attacks and their name becoming a punchline. (That was a shrug BTW.)

: In short, summary, whatever, no side is as pure as the driven snow. If you
: think your side is morally right and can do no wrong... you need to pay
: better attention. I've got assholes who are nominally on my side, like
: Theodore Beale, Tom Kratman, and Micheal Z. Williamson. If you're not
: willing to cop to that and call out the crazies on your side of the
: debate, whatever debate that may be, you're letting the crazies poison the
: conversation.

I commend you for that. It's so rare to find people that understand that even though it's very often not fair, if you want to really reach people opposed to you, you have address their misgivings about the people and things they associate you with, whether it's by making it clear they're wrong about those things or by burning some bridges.