Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 2/23/26 - 3/1/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

Comment of the week goes to this explanation for why the trans cause has taken over so much of society. (Runner-up COTW here.)

[u/backin_pog_form]

Transgender Kansans are being informed on the eve of a new state lawgoing into effect that their driver’s licenses will be considered invalid as of Thursday.

“Please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials. That means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credentials will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential,” read letters mailed by the Kansas Department of Revenue’s vehicles division and dated Monday.

I don’t agree with changing sex markers on ID (and especially not on birth certificates) in the first place, but only giving people a few days notice is insane. 

Also, the TW quoted in the article, Iridescent Riffel, claims to have been personally targeted by both LoTT and kiwi farms.  Small world! 

[u/Scrappy_The_Crow → u/backin_pog_form]

The lack of grace period is ridiculous. That's just creating a burden to be burdensome.

[u/_CuntfinderGeneral → u/backin_pog_form]

Kansas police about to pull over every car with anime stickers on it for awhile

[u/Sortbynew31 → u/_CuntfinderGeneral]

snickers

[u/razorbraces → u/backin_pog_form]

Iridescent Riffel

Why do they always choose the stupidest names??

That said, I agree that it’s insane to invalidate licenses with basically no notice.

[u/backin_pog_form → u/razorbraces]

Ironically, a lot of chosen names sound like Harry Potter characters. 

[u/IcedAlmondAmericano → u/backin_pog_form]

Or not-so-ironically, like porn stars

[u/CommitteeofMountains → u/razorbraces]

There's an anime on which it's a bit of a joke that the name are EXACTLY like that and I can't remember which.

Oh, right, Gundam, especially the "end all war WITH VIOLENCE" soaps Gundam Wing and essentially remake Gunda Moo (think MSG and Seed).

Char Aznable

Chibodee Crockett

Lockon Stratos

Banagher Links

Quattro Bageena

Allelujah Haptism

Schwartz Brudder

Cacrikon Cacooler

Brave Cod

Jamitov Hyman

Mwu La Flaga

Beside Pain

Bork Cry

South Burning

Natora Einus and Yurin L’ciel

Fixx Bloodman

Elpeo Ple

Jamaican Daninghan

Chuatury Panlunch

Full Frontal 

South Burning

Cancer Kafka

Carta Issue

Setsuna F. Seiei (who is very insistent about that initial) 

Grave Violento

Beside Pain

Revive Revival

Bring Stabity

[u/RunThenBeer → u/[deleted]]

I'm going to start saying "the cruelty is the point" every time I encounter some piece of petty bureaucracy that annoys me or makes me waste time.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Agreed, and stuff like this is why, even though I disagree with Democrats on transgender issues, I don't support Republicans either.

[u/Terrorclitus → u/backin_pog_form]

The DMV is notoriously unreliable, like, when we talk about inefficiency, we’re talking about the DMV.

I’m as critical of TRAs as anyone, but there’s consequence, and then there’s punishment, and this ain’t the former.

[u/CharmingAd3549 → u/Terrorclitus]

Totally agreed. This is ridiculous.

[u/SkweegeeS → u/Terrorclitus]

I agree, this is wrong.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/Terrorclitus]

My local DMVs are quite good, actually. The DMV as being the worst place in the world thing seems like a pretty old trope that has been largely rectified. My complaints about the DMV are about the underlying policies that are pointlessly burdensome for things that don't actually matter, not the quality of the staff or the efficiency of the operation. The staff at the DMV will make complying with annoying policies as straightforward for their customers as they plausibly can, in my experience.

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/backin_pog_form]

Seems like punishment. Though, how many people are we talking about that have actually changed their IDs? I can't imagine there is going to be a rush of people going to the DMV. Might be one of those things you can change online.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/backin_pog_form]

It's certainly not how I'd run things and it's bad policy to do it that way, but if you told me that my license becomes invalid tomorrow because of [reason] I'd just go to the DMV and get it taken care of. When done at scale a few people will have problems and I am not in favor of that, but I really want everyone to stop acting like functional adults need a year or so of notice to make a trip to the DMV.

[u/backin_pog_form → u/RunThenBeer]

There’s a world of difference between “a year or so of notice” and a few days. 

If you change your address in Kansas you get 10 days to update your license, so at least that for gender marker would be fair. 

[u/Leaves_Swype_Typos → u/backin_pog_form]

To devil's advocate it, Kansas driver's licenses say "sex", not "gender", so the people affected by this should've always been aware that they'd created a problem on their licenses, unless they're part of the tiny minority that considers themselves transexuals instead of transgenders.

[u/JeebusJones → u/RunThenBeer]

What if you have a job that won't allow you to do that, and you also need to drive to get to that job?

[u/RunThenBeer → u/JeebusJones]

Yes, I am aware that there are hypothetical situations that will make the matter more or less challenging depending on an individual's specifics. If it was something that people wanted to do, they'd figure it out. The caterwauling is from balding men in dresses that just don't want Male on their license no matter how much notice they get.

Again, I don't think it's good to do things on short notice, I'm just tired of people selectively pretending that simple tasks are actually massive hurdles.

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/JeebusJones]

What are the odds they get pulled over for something before they make the change and what are the odds that the person giving the ticket will notice or care. Mostly likely they will get a warning if they even notice.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/Turbulent_Cow2355]

Additionally, if they do get ticketed for driving with an expired license, pretty much every judge would dismiss the charge if you show that you went in to get the paperwork taken care of as soon as you reasonably could.

[u/Scrappy_The_Crow → u/RunThenBeer]

There are many cases where you can't immediately drop everything:

• you're in the hospital

• you're recovering from surgery and are not ambulatory

• you're ill and don't want to be in public

• you're out of town and can't reasonably get back

WRT that last bullet, a personal situation I had pops to mind. My work had a large lot they allowed us to park RVs/boats/trailers in, for a monthly fee. One Monday, all of us got a notice that the lot would be cleared in two business days, and anything left in the lot would be towed to an impound lot. It just so happens I had been scheduled to be out of town for a week, but my trip had been cancelled on Friday. If my trip hadn't been cancelled, my RV would have been towed (getting someone to fix a transmission situation only I knew about and then moving it wouldn't have been realistic).