Quote from: Jamie-o on May 23, 2010, 05:08:29 AM
How would elitism have prevented Baby Bush? He went to Yale because his daddy was an alumni, was a Bonesman, and rode his dad's coat-tails into the presidency. It seems to me elitism worked pretty much in his favor. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just trying to understand your logic, or how you see elitism as having broken down in this case.
That's why I said "certain types of elitism." The presidency should go to the person best qualified for the job--or one of the people who are best suited. When financial elitism wins out over an elitism based on intelligence, knowledge, common sense, and relevant experience, then you've got a problem.
I see trans elitism, in various forms, all over the place, and it's almost always simple bigotry based on closed-mindedness, sour grapes, self-loathing prompted by fear of societal reprobation (as Cynthialee observes), or (wait for it) financial elitism. With the last one, people who can afford surgery look down on those who can't. No wonder so many of us don't survive; we're even shunned by those who are most similar to us in the way that marks us as most different from society at large.
The same social glue that holds a tribe together also impels people to evict others from the tribe. It's not pretty. It's downright ugly. But it's very, very human.