No, no, wait, this is actually a perfect metaphor.
Take the building below.
This used to be a Pizza Hut. No one argues that.
But it's not trying to be a Pizza Hut anymore, and the moment it decided it wasn't a Pizza Hut, it wasn't.
It is now, exactly what it's trying to be.
No matter how much you scream that "THAT USED TO BE A PIZZA HUT," its role in society is a tax agency.
You interact with it like a tax agency.
If you try to order a pizza, you look absurd.
If you scream to the people inside "YOU'RE NOT REAL ACCOUNTANTS," you look even sillier.
Most of all, if you argue that other people are claiming it was never a Pizza Hut, you're not being honest with anyone, least of all yourself.
From the moment it was built, it had the framework to be a PIzza Hut.
At some point, being a Pizza Hut didn't work out. So it stopped.
Sometimes these are long-standing locations that were able to maintain the appearance and function of a Pizza Hut for a long time.
Sometimes they barely made it a few years before they knew it wasn't working out.
But they changed their purpose, and the rest of us acclimated.
The thing is this: it's not societally acceptable to decide a business is inherently bad at its business, simply because it's located in a former Pizza Hut.
The building never mattered. It was a source of comfort and familiarity, but it didn't materially affect your dinner.
If you decide a business isn't really valid because it's in a former Pizza Hut, what you're telling everyone is that no building is allowed to repurpose to whatever it needs to be.
You're saying if no one can make that building function as a Pizza Hut, then it needs torn down.
There's no basis for that argument, except that the sight of former Pizza Huts makes you uncomfortable, and you'd rather they be torn down than find a good purpose in their existence.
You have decided that what's most important is not someone's building, but your icky feelings.
Lastly, what you recognize of this building is far less structurally essential than you think it is.
People generally change what they want to change, not to accommodate your icky feelings at seeing a former Pizza Hut, but just their needs for the building.
It's not about you.
It's not about your need to not see a building and recognize it as a former Pizza Hut, or to call it out to others, or to feel smug for noticing something that was beneath notice.
No one else cares unless they haven't gotten over their icky feelings at seeing former Pizza Huts.
It never was about what the building used to be.
It's about the way you've chosen to treat others because you can't get over that.
That you think said knowledge grants permission to abuse and harm.
No one cares about the Pizza Hut.
They just see you yelling at accountants. //
Amusing addendum: Under this metaphor, here's the GC bathroom argument:
"Pizza Huts must never be repurposed for other businesses; they must be closed or torn down, because another unrelated Pizza Hut just could claim to be an accountant's office and they'd mess up your taxes!"
No tax fraudster in history has even considered thinking "you know what would make this really convincing? Running this scam out of my Pizza Hut!"
It has the opposite effect of what is being claimed, and it takes two seconds to realize it's just about the worst possible option.
Addendum the second: Anti-trans activist are already trying to figure out how they can abuse the metaphor so it doesn't make their position look absurd.
So let me be explicit:
Structure and purpose are separate things.
Things can be both restructured and repurposed.
There is no amount of restructuring, even approaching magical levels of complete do-over, that will appease these people who are claiming structure is fundamental and inescapable.
What they're actually protesting is the repurposing.
They seek to deny granting others purpose.
Some think the purpose of Others is to serve beneath them as they see fit, and can't have people choose not to.
Some feel trapped in their purpose and can't bear the thought of others repurposing themselves, because it begs the question why they've never chosen to do the same.
It ultimately doesn't matter; just know that their argument is disingenuous on its surface. They will bounce around from structural complaint to structural complaint, but it's fundamentally a distraction and they will never be appeased.
They seek to deny choosing your purpose.//
For the sake of posterity and because people keep asking: this was the image the now-deleted OP used.
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