Transgenderism and identity
Is transgenderism simply just an identity issue? Should we sacrifice the way things are to accommodate the needs of men who believe they're women and vice versa? Where do we draw the line? What if I wanted to undergo plastic surgery so that I would resemble a dolphin? Had my limbs removed and fins added? Then I decided I wanted to join the Olympic swimming team. Should I be accommodated?
Comments (265)
I have reservations about transsexuality. I have what I suppose is a reasonably well grounded understanding of the mind/body conflict that transsexuals experience. I understand that many transsexuals are much happier after "becoming" the gender they think they really are, even if their original genital (or even hormone levels) are left as is.
That the complete sexual transformation does not work for everyone (that is, some are NOT happier after hormone treatment and surgery) makes me wonder whether either the counseling and therapy preceding and/or following surgery were not adequate, or perhaps that the benefits of the process were oversold.
A lot of people (maybe... 30%? 40%? 80%?) are troubled by their "self identity". They didn't become the individuals that they think they could have or should have become. It isn't that they feel they are in the wrong body; it's that they are in the wrong life. I feel that way sometimes.
But that IS life: When we are too young we don't know enough about life. By the time we know enough about life we are too old.
Let's say Montfort that you are 45 years old and you want to be the person you have always imagined yourself to be, but sadly, were not. You spend a pile of money to have your body remodeled along the lines you would like: basically, you have your body "re-upholstered". You can now successfully wear the kinds of clothes you wanted to wear; you now look like the person you always wanted to be. With the addition of a pile of cash, you could graft a new lifestyle onto your old one.
You haven't changed gender; the same equipment and hormones are there, as always. But you look different, and you feel like you are different. Because you feel very confident about your new self, other people tend to accept you as your "new self". So, question: Are you really a different person? Or have "the Make-up and Costume Departments" so to speak, made you into something that you can change out of and wash off?
Your appearance and the outward appearances have changed. Are you the same real you, or are you a different real you?
Those that had good structure and features already, pour like 100k into it, and train, train, train succeed. Those that were not as naturally gifted to begin with, regardless of money and work will often never succeed. This used to be, in itself, a criterion for the gate-keepers back in the classic transsexual days. It had to pretty much be obvious that you'd pass before they'd sign off on much.
Draw your own line wherever you like, just don't tell me where to draw mine. If you're a plastic surgeon, you have to consider your ethics, but otherwise get your nose out of other peoples privates.
Sure, this is a slippery slope argument, but you're explicitely arguing for no lines at all.
Happy to slide on down. It's between him and his surgeon; How the Olympic committee resolves their issues is of no interest to me either. He'd probably have to use the disabled toilet, but again its a matter of convenience; I don't mind aquatic mammals using the urinal.
Many people seem to have a more fluid identity; it's variable, depending on the situation. For better or worse, I don't think my identity is fluid. It's plastic, but only very slowly changing.
Quoting MonfortS26
There is nothing at all wrong in taking pride in being a white man. And it is also right to take pride in your accomplishments and ethics. You are a whole person, after all, a unity of "body and soul".
Quoting MonfortS26
Could be. When I was in graduate school, I heard that abnormal people (their word) tended to not be effective counselors and therapists. The person's history of physical/psychological deficiencies prevents normal psychological development. At the time I was shocked and appalled by this view. Over many years (that was... almost 50 years ago) I've come to grudgingly accept some of the truth in their view.
I grew up being nearly blind and totally gay. Being a fish twice out of water did skew my personal development--impeding it. Parental and social attitudes had something to do with this too, of course.
I can see how someone whose conflict is over which gender they are (and gender being an extremely pervasive factor in life) would similarly find their adaptation to life skewed. If I could redesign my life and live it over, I would opt for 20/20 vision, but leave gayness in place. Deficient vision was a real problem (still is). Being gay wasn't an advantage when I was growing up (as if it is now) but there was no frustrating, confusing ambivalence about it.
I very much understand why transsexuals want to bring their physical appearance into accord with the way they feel about themselves. This ambivalence can trip up and confuse one's efforts to achieve and to be ethically satisfied (not that they are 'unethical').
What concerns me about young people who think they are transsexual is that they may be too young to be certain about their identity, and I don't think they or everyone else is well served by saying they should be allowed to use whichever toilet or shower room they feel the need to use, with others with the same gender identity. This 'integration' is being pushed too fast, and most children and adolescents are not going to benefit from being the star of this sort of political show.
Do you really think that?
Apparently there are male and female minds, and like auto engines, they can be left idling while parked.
Got a source for that?
I googled the expression "gender self-determination" and did get many hits, from what seemed to be critical sites, but I'd never heard that before. Which activists are saying that?
I know one vaguely, and read a couple of books. I also hung around a few trans forums for a few years. The overwhelming vast majority take it as a matter of fact, that they have been systematically wronged for. That they're right about something that is right, and true, and not about just being able to do whatever they want regardless, as long as it isn't hurting anyone.
I don't even find that suggestion of radial self-determining freedom offensive, and I think that it's more encapsulating and unifying rather than attempt to identify particular features of the world. I think that the danger is that subsets will be marginalized if they can't pass the test.
Point being though, I really don't think that that is something that trans people tend to think, or trans activists tend to argue. So I was hoping to find out who was.
Then how do we make sense of the notion of a woman who has the wrong body?
What do you mean? That the existentialism of the above is mutually exclusive with the essentialism of the below?
For better or worse, 'transgender' or 'transsexual' is grouped with gay and bi. One prominent issue in the discussion of sexuality within the GBT population is whether sexual orientation and gender is "constructed" or "essential". The "construction" is engineered by society, but individuals can take a hand at shaping their behavior, their preferences, their identity. The opposite of this view, essentialism, assumes that sexual orientation and gender is at least largely determined by biology.
Which is right? Well, in my opinion it's biology over society for the most part. Biology doesn't specify that women wear skirts and men pants, or that women should be teachers and nurses and men should be executives and engineers. That's all society's doing.
People who are gay or transgender generally sense they are different (and in what way, more or less) before society has a chance to define all this for them. That's biology at work.
No, many radical feminists definitely do that, and radical feminists hate trans people. Mainly because they see gender as a construct, and not biological, and therefore trans people are men, trying to gain access into women's spaces.
I don't think I'd be interested in reading those, I prefer horses mouths, rather than asses.
Feminists also want to get shut (southern US expression) of socially defined roles that they feel are restrictive.
Are feminists crazy for wanting to be free of biological and social limitations on the way they want to live their lives? Some feminists are decidedly crazy, and unpleasant spoiled brats besides, but sure--be whatever you want to be. If you want equality, fine--just don't shirk ditch digging, street cleaning, and foot soldiering during the next war.
There's a lot of trans people who don't see why they ought to be. These privileged princesses look down from Barbie's dream house, and think that the LGBT is about sexuality, and they're straight and normal as fuck.
As for the truth, I think that there is definitely a biological hormonal element to it, there is a lot of evidence of it in my view. The scientific case is far from in the opposition's favor.
I think that plenty about gender is probably constructed, and strikes me as inessential, and insubstantial.
I'm a feminist, I think, and I'm for equal opportunity, social standing, and treatment under the law. I just think that the radical becoming, and denial of essentialism puts them at odds with much of the trans community.
If being a woman is a social condition, then how can a woman be caught in a man's body?
The implication would be that it was either nurtured or crazied into them.
Sensible people avoid offering solutions to psychic problems they've never faced.
What could that mean?
In some places a woman might think it's dangerous to feel that. Joan of Arc was actually sentenced to death for the crime of wearing mens' clothing.
But now women have a lot more freedom than men do. Men are still boxed in... to some extent.
Just as well the Social Psychology Quarterly is on the case!
I know that you think that it's ridiculous... I probably shouldn't have commented.
Not that the quote is serious, but there are a number of species with more than two genders, some up to five (one of the reason that prenatal hormones is usually the favored, especially since they can consistently produce gender confusion in rats if they mess with their balances early in development), and there are also gay animals to.
So, keep them out of zones? Say they're the poor crazy ones? Or maybe the truth? There are different types of families.
What drugs bring on the states-of-mind that enable people to write such crap as this?
Quoting Wosret
Would you care to explain what the 5 genders are?
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The question though, is whether it is the horse-face that makes the knight or the moves he makes. Players don't like pieces that don't make the moves assigned to their form; it confuses their strategies. More confusion to the players, I say, I don't want to be played by their game anyway.
I'm not sure I understand the idea you have in mind with "sacrifice the way things are."
At any rate, I think that people should be allowed to consensually do anything they'd like to do with their bodies, including being made into dolphins or whatever. It seems ridiculous to me that other people should be allowed to tell people that they can't do whatever they'd like with their bodies.
And if a swimming organization, team, whatever wants to have that person in their organization, on their team, what's the problem with that?
If one doesn't buy type realism or logical identity through time this really isn't much of an issue no matter what you do.
Facebook has 58 gender options now. Other than male and female, they have:
Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cisgender
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-Binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans*
Trans Female
Trans* Female
Trans Male
Trans* Male
Trans Man
Trans* Man
Trans Person
Trans* Person
Trans Woman
Trans* Woman
Transfeminine
Transgender
Transgender Female
Transgender Male
Transgender Man
Transgender Person
Transgender Woman
Transmasculine
Transsexual
Transsexual Female
Transsexual Male
Transsexual Man
Transsexual Person
Transsexual Woman
Two-Spirit
I saw a site with an explanation of each, but I'd have to search for that again .
I am unanimous in the opinion that nobody should be allowed to be made into a dolphin. I mean, do we really want to insult dolphins that much?
The page I linked to was a sarcastic comment on a serious article published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Gee I'm glad I'm not a database programmer at the dept of births deaths and marriages. Although if I were, I would be awfully inclined to collapse the list to M/F/Other.
Surgery is available.
Not until they can stir enough public awareness of their plight to incite the public to pressure politicians and lawmakers to mandate both fresh and salt water swimming access to all public buildings...
A bit of the issue causing controversy with this question seems to me really just a classic dichotomy with some new packaging; the sacrifice of freedom or adoption of burdens in exchange for things like safety and equality that we make in our never ending political endeavors. How much individual freedom ought to be preserved or sacrificed, and what kinds, is in some cases too complex a question to give good answers. So let's partially side step that issue by answering this question as if we ourselves have a child determined to transition, so that then we're more likely to give answers concerned with what is best for them rather than what is best for a society closer to our own ideals.
Of course then we should allow people to transition. If they are already transitioning, and stopping them from doing so causes them more unhappiness and harm than whatever kind of harm we think they are doing to themselves by transitioning in the first place, then how could we morally interfere? If I could afford it, I guess I would probably try and help my hypothetical trans son/daughter to transition if I was convinced this was actually a healthy decision for them. In society and politics we already do monetarily support various kinds of needs that not everyone has because we more or less want everyone to have a shot at happiness; wheelchair access for the wheelchair users is one sturdy example of this.
But when it comes to "accommodating" transsexuals, there aren't very many ways in which we actually have the opportunity to do so. In a way transsexuals accommodate the world around them in every way possible by putting in ineffable degrees of effort to achieve a state of "pass" (which means people either cannot tell they are trans or are perceived as the gender they present as). Once they achieve a state of pass, we lose the ability to police them because they blend in too well, and so the discussion becomes moot in that regard (transsexuals have been getting away with public bathroom-use ever since public bathroom-use became formal). The further a given transsexual is away from a state of "pass", the more uncomfortable we seem to be with "accommodating" them by not disallowing them use of a preexisting bathroom (not coincidentally, the less likely they they are therefore to attempt to do so). Whether or not a person is genuinely transgendered and not just a sexual predator in a wig is the source of this discomfort, but it is simply not reasonable to suggest gendered bathrooms are any real deterrent to serious threats of sexual assault in the first place. Wig or no wig, "women only" sign or none, predators can still waltz right in, and same-sex sexual assault (I think that's a new one) can still occur. If you are afraid that you or your child will be sexually assaulted in public bathrooms by sexual predators disguised as transsexuals, you might also want to consider one of the many other irrationally persistent and overly specific fears we commonly refer to as "phobias". There is still no name for the irrational fear that classmate(s) of one's children will commit social suicide by playing a long con of pretending to be transsexual in order to get into their pants. What should we call it?
A soon to be even more controversial issue than the fairly vanilla topic of bathrooms is the topic of "pronouns". For transsexuals who pass, obviously it's not a problem, but what if a transsexual who very distinctly does not "pass" demands to be referred to exclusively as their chosen pronoun? Society already handles this almost entirely on it's own. "Confusion" from whatever source leads to perceived misuses of pronouns, and then formal/informal requests are made by one party to alter the use of specific pronouns when dealing with that party. Whether or not that request is accepted or rejected in all situations comes with the possibility of social sanctions, both good and bad, being applied based on whether or not that request is accepted or rejected in that specific circumstance. Individuals who will not make small gestures of courtesy when asked look like douches, and businesses (and government) who likewise refuse common courtesy by always referring to someone as the opposite of the gender they identify with see plummeting popularity levels just as well. Consider this: I am a cisgendered male (meaning not-transsexual). If you were to call me a girl, that would be kind of like calling me a boy if I was actually an MTF transsexual. To make it illegal to refer to a transsexual as the opposite of the gender they desire would also be to make it illegal to refer to me as a girl in a pejorative or name-calling sense. Do we honestly want to outlaw name-calling? I really hope not; only a pussy would want that.
Quoting internet
It's a valid question, and there's some startling answers out there. Being denied access to the medical requirements for an overall healthy transition (hormone therapy and counseling mostly?) can actually be seriously debilitating (depression leading to suicide is common), and so any approving parent of a transsexual teenager is going to for certain want such things included in their medical coverage. Full blown sexual reassignment surgery, if indeed is a healthy part or major step in the process of transitioning for some transsexuals, then yes, should be covered at a premium in the plan of any would be parents not willing to risk the health of their children or future financial insecurity. Whether or not you want private or state funded medical coverage that includes it is a much larger conversation. Individuals and households who can afford to do so on their own already do, whether or not we can afford to include it in a state medical program is a question of relative wealth. If the state is wealthy, then yes.
Transsexuals who pay for their transition out of pocket, and do it successfully, currently require no accommodation from society whatsoever, and have likely made contributions to society it in the form of hours worked to earn the money required to pay for their transition, the taxes paid on those earnings, and the business given to one of many sectors of the medical industry. These are the sneaky bitches and bastards that will be violating our sacred bathroom laws for centuries to come, and getting away with it with us none the wiser, at least until we install DNA scanning tranny-alarms in the distant dystopian future of The Great Inter-Stellar Mormon Empire.
In summation, what people do to their own bodies, and what is in their own best interest, is pretty much not for unconcerned laymen to dictate. Some things people get away with, like watching a drive in movie screen from a nearby hill or using the bathroom of the gender that everyone thinks or considers you to be when they are wrong from a chromosomal standpoint, should not be either worried about or legislated against. Transsexuals who fail to "pass" are no more likely to commit sexual assault in a bathroom than anyone else, so why bar them? Use private bathrooms instead of public ones? But hey if you see Bill Cosby in a wig walk into a women's bathroom, maybe play it safe and hold it in... If a really manly looking woman demands you refer to her as such, first and foremost consider whether or not they are manly enough to beat you up, but after that ask yourself how far out of your intuitive way you need to go in order to placate/appease/respect them in the given situation. If you don't like them and want to be offensive or have a point to make, go ahead and speak what you wish, but also consider the social ramifications resulting from how other people will interpret and judge what you say and how you say it. If someone demands that you refer to them as some pronoun they just invented like "ze/zim/zir/zey/zem", then you can in most situations get away with explaining to them that they can be satisfied with "he/she/they" like every other person and thing in existence or fuck off back to their preferred orifice of origin to continue gestating for a few months while they come to realize that the world cannot cognitively and syntactically revolve around their own eccentric obscurantism. Tell them that when people begin to use those terms regularly enough that you will just naturally and subconsciously adopt them into your patterns of speech.
When there are enough fully transitioned dolphin-kin out there swimming the the deep blue of the pacific, I'm sure that out of respect and admiration we will all use trans-dolphin culture specific pronouns where possible. So you see, while this issue is very deep, dark, and complicated, through echo-location like observational skills we can scan our environments for the porpoise and goal of successfully navigating what seem like unchartable waters.
“Mtf” wasn’t used above.
But you can’t go from male to female, or vice versa, unless we radically redefine “male” and “female”. I think there’s a lot of resistance to that, and for good reason. Strikes me as insane.
Intersex and those without gametes are exceedingly rare. People can be born with six fingers too — but I don’t think it’s bigoted or discriminatory to say human beings have five fingers on their hands.
In any case, I’m moving this response to this thread so as not to derail the “motte-bailey” thread.
By the end pf the century I expect there will be a complete change of our species and we will extend beyond anything we can currently imagine. CRISPR and cybernetics will ‘evolve’ us down several roads. Things inevitably change. Sadly I think there will be far more significant prejudices and social problems to come that will make the whole politicising of transgender people a mere speck in the distance.
We generally understand what MTF and FTM mean in the context of transgenderism so this seems like a pointless argument.
Have you ever considered contacting something like the youtube phone-in show below and asking them about the issue of gender and physically changing sex, since these folks actually live it?
“We” do? So male and female have also been redefined in some way? That’s fine— but wasn’t at all mentioned in the above conversation. What was mentioned was “trans women aren’t women.”
Seems to me like terms are being re-defined to the point of absurdity, quite frankly. I think it’s an enormous mistake.
I’d love to have a conversation, sure. If there’s something I’m missing, I’m happy to be corrected. But I have yet to see that.
If it’s about gender identity, and loosely using “woman” to include this, I understand. If we’re expecting people to believe you can change your biological sex, I think that’s a mistake. Biological males cannot get pregnant, for example. That’s pretty basic. To ask the public to go along with believing they can is absurd, and gives bigots even more material to use to justify themselves.
The main two 'stances' I have heard from on-line trans folks and their supporters on the issue of gender and the biological reality of a persons sex are:
1. Gender is a social construct and therefore is not a biological condition.
2. The scientific facts related to biological sex are irrelevant to trans issues.
Quoting Mikie
Again, only from my own very limited experience of listening to on-line commentary from trans folks, it seems to me that they are more concerned with being allowed to exist, without fear of violence against them or being marginalised to the point of having almost 0 life opportunity, much more, than they are concerned with what individuals 'believe' about them. BUT, call-in shows like the one I posted are amongst their attempts to open reasoned dialogue with the masses of dissenters they face.
I do. I assume you do to.
This is an ambiguous question. In the context of the phrase "male-to-female", it means a transgender woman born with male genitalia/genetics/etc. In other contexts, e.g. when discussing biology, "female" typically means a human both with XX chromosomes, ovaries, a womb, etc.
The English language isn't some formal system where each symbol has just one meaning that applies in all contexts.
No one has claimed that.
Quoting Michael
I’m trying to figure out what else it means. Why choose male-to-female when one could simply using “man-to-woman.” Again, I think it’s a mistake to push language this far and then retreat by saying “well we don’t mean it in a biological sense.” In this semantic world, is there ANY word for biological sex?
Quoting universeness
I fully recognize (1). If (2) is true, as I believe is true too, then the trans community needs better PR.
According to the SEP article on Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues:
I assume, hence the call-in shows and their increasing on-line presence, in debate/dialogue mode.
Yeah, SEX! Your sex is biologically male or female (unless you are a hermaphrodite.)
From Wiki:
A hermaphrodite is a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes.
So, I think that's a human that can produce eggs AND sperm.
Quoting Pantagruel
Such as?
No human study of the same would ever see the light of day but, for reference. Leanrned helplessness along with Stockholm syndrome prove a rational mind can be made to believe irrational things (or anything) under the right conditions.
Otherwise "parental issues" or childhood trauma simply would not exist. 90% of a child's brain develops by age 5 and has been proven to have lifelong effects. If you're told you're worthless from birth or abused your entire childhood, you will harbor that identity - at least to some degree - until you die.
None of this means anything automatically as far as the gender identity theory model goes. But, the science to back the counterargument is certainly there.
Which is why I hate jackasses and wholeheartedly believe, in the best interest of civilized society, Constitutional rights can and should be suspended in certain scenarios under the right pretext and conditions.
Fair enough.
I guess I’m just pissed off that bigoted assholes like Matt Walsh get to appear “sane” to the general public because of (what I see as) miscommunication. I felt similar feelings about “defund the police,” even though I was on their side. If it confuses me, I assume it confuses a lot of others who are not at all “anti-trans”, and that’s a shame.
I still think it’s a PR mistake, but I leave those decisions to the trans community ultimately.
What’s the problem? Maybe my legal name is Michael but I prefer to go by a different name. Asking you to call me by this other name isn’t asking for special treatment, and is hardly a burden on you.
Quoting Pantagruel
Nothing needs to be redesigned.
Quoting Pantagruel
In what way? Children have been “exposed” to the difference between cis men and cis women for all of human history, what does it matter if trans men and trans women are also recognised?
Exactly. Ask me to do it and I will. Don't enforce a society-wide mandate of pronomial designation.Quoting Michael
I beg to differ. The city of Toronto is in the process of refurbing bathrooms in its public libraries for this reason. Some people complained because there were urinals available in trans-designated washrooms. Others complained after they took them out.Quoting Michael
There's recognition and there's education. Undoubtedly children could be educated on the virtues of Hasidic Judaism, or veganism, or any number of other things also. But is it necessary?
Yes, when the goal is to reduce/prevent/remove the development of misinformed, irrational hatred of a minority group, particularly a mostly non-violent, non-threatening minority group, such as trans folks.
Because I think that's the part that people interpret as threatening, aggressive, etc.
In addition to things like attempting to control speech. I would consider that deeply objectionable.
I'm sure (ergo, I hope) these things aren't indicative of the 'trans minority' as a whole, but these are the things people are confronted by in the news,
A portion of the trans minority seems to have gone off the deep end, and that portion remains very loud. A PR problem perhaps, as people have mentioned earlier.
That's drag queens, not transgenderism.
And I'm not sure what you mean by normal. It's certainly not common, as drag queens are a minority.
Fair enough.
I don't think most people will be able to make that distinction and consider them at the very least closely related.
Quoting Michael
Do you think letting hypersexualized cross-dressing men/women 'educate' children under the age of 10 is normal?
I will give you my opinion in more detail tomorrow, as I am away to enjoy my Saturday night but I would first ask you, do you have a list of characters that a person might dress up as, that you would find acceptable or 'normal' for reading stories to children and ones that you would find unacceptable or 'abnormal?'
What criteria would you use to include a character on or off such a list?
I still don't know what you mean by "normal". Do you mean "appropriate"?
Probably not. But then I also don't think it's appropriate for someone dressed liked this to teach children under the age of 10.
Of course it's then a reach to then be opposed to topless firemen in general.
The list - obviously- wouldn't include hypersexualized characters like 's hunky fireman.
I think that the people who hate trans folks are also the people who hate a whole lot of other folks too. And I think that group is also a minority, just an really obnoxious minority. Which is kind of what I find trans is becoming, also no doubt due to just a relatively few loud voices. Nevertheless, this is what comes of letting a minority speak for a majority, whether a minority of "squeaky wheels" within a small group, or the small group for the large. The principle is the same.
Five years ago, I was positively disposed to the issue, but the way it has been weaponized, anything to do with trans now has a really negative aura from me. Previously, had the opportunity arisen, I would have strongly defended any trans person I saw or knew was subject to prejudice (as I have defended vulnerable people in the past). I no longer feel like that. My goodwill has been alienated.
Absolutely. Although transgenderism is more of a symptom of the direction in which society is evolving, in that any and all groups will aspire to a special social status. In essence, if you don't belong to a recognized and approved subculture, you will be at a disadvantage, as you lack that voice of advocacy.
I think it's important to recognise that transgender as an identity is more comparable to the disabled, women, children, the mentally ill and others, whose needs require societal change. Calling for toilets that accommodate trans people might be comparable to calling for ramps to increase accessibility for people in wheelchairs. It's not that people in wheelchairs are demanding special consideration because they feel entitled to it, but that as a practical consideration, they need ramps. Identities that don't "need" anything, so, there's no special entitlement for them to ask for.
That doesn't mean that everything people are asking for trans people to have is justified, or that everything labelled "transphobia" is reasonable, in fact, I have a lot of issues as well. However, it's not reasonable to construe changes accommodating trans people as a result of a special privilege, compared to other identities. Those other identities don't have any needs that aren't being met, it's completely different. It's a unique circumstance, with unique issues.
It's not about treating groups identically, but the exact opposite, some groups need more assistance than others. Groups who don't have any special needs can work with just tolerance because they are largely self-sufficient and don't require special treatment. Also, trans people are disadvantaged in many ways, and rather than construing their special treatment as advantaging them, the aim could be better thought of as just increasing inclusivity and equality by allowing trans people to have their needs met. As compared to other groups, who are already having their needs met, because they don't have any special requirements.
This has nothing to do with the "statistical reality" because I am not advocating for any position on public toilets*. I am simply addressing your comparison between identities, and your construing of trans people having more needs as some kind of perverse entitlement for better treatment. If your position was to acknowledge that trans people aren't like other groups because they have special needs, but to say that despite this, meeting their needs can sometimes be impractical, that's fine, you could be right. As I said, I don't agree with many of the measures being taken to accommodate trans people either.
That’s right. Trans identity is interesting because though it demands the recognition and protection and rights of its own identity, it begets the blurring and obfuscation of others, to the point where men are now celebrated in spaces dedicated entirely to women. It’s the natural progression of identity politics.
So either we all are trans or we are bigots.
Identities are not mutually exclusive, and someone who is trans doesn't necessarily have "being trans" as an "overarching social identity" and may perceive their other identities as equally important. Trans does have to be an identity, yes, even if trans people themselves didn't want it to be. Consider situations like dating or sports, where being upfront about being trans mightn't be done out of self-interest, but out of consideration for others.
Quoting Pantagruel
The "direction" society is evolving in is recognising that tolerance and treating people equally isn't sufficient. Some groups have special needs, and refusing to meet these needs has negative consequences for that group. Just as tolerating people in wheelchairs doesn't make them not need ramps.
The reality is that trans people are far from a privileged group, and any group which envies the position of trans people must be in a really sorry state. Are they some super social class that everyone else needs to bow down and accommodate? No, that's not even close to the truth. Yes, some groups that need as much help as trans people don't get as much attention, but the solution is for that group to receive the help they need, not for trans people to be as deprived of help as these neglected groups are.
I would rephrase this as 'failing to recognize that tolerance and treating people equally is sufficient.'
You can't do better than universal equality. And the means thereto need to reflect the goal.
No one "assigns" a newborn's sex at birth -- they "recognize" sex at birth. The use of the verb "assign" is in support of the contention that sex (like gender) is ambiguous, fluid, changeable, etc.
]Trans ideologues' distortion of language results in screwy messages like this -- instructions for patients at the U of M surgery center:
I do agree with the "no bladder emptying in the lobby" part. Another example is instructions that apply to "pregnant persons". It just isn't the case that any odd "person" will happen to be pregnant. It will always be a female.
According to the UCLA Williams Institute of Law, 1.3% of the population is trnasgender (depending on how the data is sliced and diced). What is strange is that terms like "women" are dropped to accommodate the very small portion of the population who were born with a penis and testicles (and don't have a uterus) but who now classify themselves as women.
Quoting Pantagruel
I think so. You do get taught about religions for the purposes of normalising them and the people who practice other ones. You get taught about other cultures for that reason too. Same with sexuality. Reducing prejudice in the populace is a noble goal for education, right? So making similar space for transgender people in education makes sense for the same reasons.
Quoting Pantagruel
The "have" I bolded there is interesting in your post. Lots of possible meanings, right?
1 ) Ethically "have", ought we treat being trans as a separate identity to being cis?
2 ) Socially "have", are we obliged to treat being trans as a separate identity to being cis?
3 ) Factually "have", is it in reality necessary to treat trans people differently than cis?
There are probably more. There also may be a distinction between treating identities separately and treating people separately? Like it may make sense to distinguish cis identities from trans identities, but that doesn't immediately propagate to treating cis people differently from trans people in every respect. There'll also be a social construction of identity vs individuation+psychogenesis angle which could be pursued there.
1 ) - the above argument about moral education makes some headway there. But there are good and bad reasons/means to treat trans people differently than cis people of course [hide=*](I am avoiding the quantifier police with that remark)[/hide]. There are some circumstances where it's right, some circumstances where it's wrong.
I think it'd be epistemically virtuous to treat trans people as separate from cis people - since they face different social issues, there's some evidence their bodies/brains are different (without there being a "male brain" and a "female brain", for clarity), and eg ftm transexuals can get pregnant if they keep the wombs. For reasons of producing knowledge, it's a good idea to keep the distinction.
2 ) - On the one hand, cynically, yes we are obliged. The norms in place compel us. Especially in terms of prejudice. There are social norms which equate natal sex with gender, and gender performance with gendered stereotypes. Anyone who falls through those gaps will be treated differently, and that implies a systemic compulsion to treat them differently.
3 ) - I think this is an ontological question. So who knows. I think the phenomenology associated with trans subjects is different than cis ones. Cis and trans bodies have some functional differences, too. I suppose there's a discussion you could have here about whether even asking this as an ontological question presupposes an objectifying/essentializing/naturalising frame of reference that social constructions+identities can be evaluated in. You could bring in point 2) here.
I remember watching a youtube video from Philosophy Tube which made the point that anti trans prejudice is rooted in some kind of "metaphysical skepticism". That trans people don't "really" exist in some sense. Because the notions of gender identity we're brought up with make them fall through the cracks. Food for thought.
The means do not need to "reflect" the goal, they need to accomplish the goal.
Since you're unconvinced by what I've already said, I daresay it's pointless for me to argue any further.
Quoting BC
Yes. It’s ridiculous, and it’s detrimental to the trans movement/community.
Makes me feel like I’m living in the Twilight Zone when otherwise rational, intelligent people either subscribe to the former (meaning they believe sex is as ambiguous as gender) or else deliberately obfuscate so as not to concede any ground to potential bigotry — an example being that some people are born with both genitalia, etc.
Almost anything associated with gender I’m in favor of viewing much more broadly. Clothing, behavior, jobs, marriage roles, and so forth. But when it comes to things like pregnancy, must we all go along with the insanity in order to not be deemed transphobic? Again, I really resent having to sound similar to a right-wing bigot.
It’s also frustrating to even be discussing it— but that’s my own fault.
That is a frightening thing to contemplate.
Speaking as someone who has moved from roughly the position of @Mikie and @Pantagruel to a much less trans-sceptical position, I can attest to this.
I wouldn’t describe myself that way really. Unless we’re talking about transcending biology, which it seems at least many trans people aren’t claiming. It’s a matter of terminology. If we want to re-define our words, fine— but I honestly think it’s a mistake.
I could be wrong, in the same way as I’m sure there were people in the homosexual community that were against taking over the word “gay.” Turns out that was a good political move. In the meantime, I find myself largely agreeing with the “right,” and it’s irritating.
Or maybe it's just indicative of the fact that society supports a spectrum of rationalities, and there are different ways of respecting one another. Self and identity are all well and good, but the concept of the Other as mirror and limit of the self is also essential. The way we treat others is an important feature of who we are, perhaps the most important.
Yes, in the context of comparative religion or comparative cultural instruction. Those are fairly advanced subjects. I agree with instruction at this level. More effective for younger learners would be to learn about hate speech in general, without demonizing anyone or thing if that is possible.
No. This is about normalising the idea that people can change sex, can be born in the wrong body that there are 100's of valid gender identities.
This is normalising sterilisation of children via puberty blockers and genital mutilation. This is making vulnerable and persuadable children question their own identity and be set on an unnecessary medical pathway. It should absolutely be out of schools.
If trans is taught in schools then so should detrans and the increasing cases of people who regret identifying as the opposite sex and chopped off body parts and did irreversible damage to their body. The increasing number of gay men who due to internalised homophobia chopped their penises off and now regret it.
What exactly are you attempting to normalise? Rejecting biology? Gender religion?
Also you need to explain to young girls why hormonal school boys should be given access to their changing rooms.
We've had this discussion before, and it proved impossible to have it in good faith. So I shall leave it. This may come off as patronising, but I promise you the intention is genuine. The last time you had this discussion, it also seemed profoundly distressing for you, are you sure it's a good idea to engage in it?
How young do you think it should start?
I remember starting it at 6 for other cultures and religions (we had India and Islam at that time). Seems about right to me. Like children's stories with two dads or two mums. It seems there's a fair few trans friendly children's books!
What do you mean?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
:roll:
Case in point.
Personally I think anyone supporting gender ideology is now participating a crime against humanity. You can try and censor people but gender critical people have their own spaces and spheres of influence now.
I cannot tolerate people lying to my face about reality. I believe in the truth and gender ideology has no truth value. The mass mutilation and sterilisation of vulnerable people via this ideology is a historical significant atrocity.
You can try and live in a "post-truth" reality if you want but I never will.
The tide is turning and people are waking up and fighting back. You cannot put the lid back on the dissent. It is actually a frightening because this is the biggest denial of truth and reality I think has ever happened. It is not a small act to call a man "she" it is a major lie and misogynistic gaslighting that compromises actual woman, their rights, healthcare and boundaries.
This is on of the things I am most passionate about for various reasons but the main one is people lying to my face and trying to make me lie. The lying on Wikipedia. The propaganda and lies from the medical industries.
I disagree with religions but no one is forcing me to partake in their religious rituals like this or endorse their religious beliefs etc
So many people who think they know what is best. And some of them might even be right. But they can't all be right.
My point, I was initially friendly and supportive of this movement, and in a real world situation, I would have even have stuck my neck out to advocate for or defend someone I saw being discriminated against. Now, not so much. So the the way this gone has had the opposite effect intended for me. And that is a real social consequence, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been alienated.
I know the feeling. Nowadays I have what I call the "Internal Twitter". It's a kind of intrusive bad faith interpretation. If anything could be construed as prejudiced, even by someone who's concern trolling, the Internal Twitter will flag that for me.
My Internal Twitter informs me that:
My internal Academic Left Youtube Reel responds:
I am willing to bet the Internal Twitter is a widespread phenomenon. And it is a problem. Because it's exhausting:
Quoting Pantagruel
And the wise, like Pantagruel, either tune out or see it for what, most of the time, it is. Outrage pornography and avoidant fear. A moral panic.
Can't they? In a pit of lava, the next stepping stone is as valuable as the last, be it sunk or not.
A larger portion seems to consist of:
1. people who carry trauma from childhood in which their individuality was not accepted (feminine men, masculine women, homosexuals, lesbians, etc.)
2. children/young adults who had no idea what they were doing
3. sexual deviants
4. parties with ulterior motives, like pharmaceutical companies and surgery clinics (hence the movement's superb marketing)
I'll probably be called bigotted for pointing this out, but this is genuinely what I see, and my stomach churns at the implications.
Quoting Tzeentch
This dramatised example of a cis male, dressed as a female, playing agony aunt and giving advice to children, I assume would make your 'acceptable' list, if 'The Mrs Doubtfire show' was a real show on TV today:
There is always the interesting ideas of:
1. How would you react to finding out that one of your close female friends was born a man or vice versa and they were always too terrified to tell you?
2. How would you react to finding out that someone you really were attracted to, did not have the genitalia you were expecting. As a cis person, would you feel automated in your compulsion to now hate them?
3. How would you deal with your father/mother/son/daughter declaring themselves trans?
I think we often have to bring the situation a lot closer to our personal selves, in any way we can, to see if there really be personal monsters there.
Many many so called god believers soon act like their god often has a second name, 'zilla.'
They quickly go from a god of peace and love to a god zilla of anti-difference.
Is it so difficult, to start with the premise of 'vive la difference.'
Surely solutions to the the toilet, sports and protected female spaces issues can be found, that satisfies as many of the stakeholders as possible.
Surely extreme comments such as:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
exemplifies the 'irrational' path we must all avoid when considering trans issues.
Larger by what metric? I'm not going call you bigoted but I am going to call you out on a rather, at first glance, baseless characterization of the whole movement. Did you get this from a peer reviewed study? A survey? Some purely emotional concern from years of watching your favorite forms of media?
Perhaps you should rephrase it in a different context as indicating that these kinds of people could be in the movement and leave out the guesstimation as to its size unless you do have something substantial in your back pocket. Just a note here.
Trans issues are not going to 'go away' because you and/or others have switched from having a more benevolent stance towards 'them.' The issues of all minority groups, remain, as long as they have existent members. I personally find the support that many Islamists have for child marriage and when it is acceptable to consummate such, far far more personally horrifying than any trans issue I am aware of.
Sure. I see nothing wrong with that.
So where would your criteria draw the line in telling stories to children, from the following:
Which of these images should we make sure children are most afraid of?
I'm unsure what that sentence means, but obviously the man dressed as a female prostitute is inappropriate for children.
Tim Curry has read many a children's story.
So it's just certain forms of clothing the children should be made to fear because you associate the image of Frank-en-furter with female prostitution rather than what the writer of the rocky horror show intended, a transexual from Transylvania who (in the story) was actually an alien visitor in disguise.
Can you not see that you brought your own interpretation to that image in particular?
Does the lead singer of twisted sister not also look like a hooker?
Why do you assume the clown or 'tootsie' is not trans?
No. It's simply that (hyper)sexuality has no place in a children's classroom.
Quoting universeness
Somewhat. I'd say sexualized rockstars are inappropriate for children too.
Quoting universeness
I didn't. Clowns just aren't inappropriate for children so I didn't see anything objectionable.
Quoting universeness
I honestly think what we're witnessing here are your interpretations of my views.
You think I have a problem with transgenders, which I do not.
No, you are misunderstanding my purpose here. You asked if it was 'normal' for a transvestite to read a story to children. I am trying to suggest to you that your concern is based on irrational fear, based on your own interpretation of what are conservative notions of social 'norms.'
I think most children are a lot more socially intelligent than many 'conservative' adults.
What dangers do you think children are being placed in when they are being read a story by a man dressed as a woman or a female character?
It's hard to interpret this as anything other than a deliberate misrepresentation of my views.
Can you not try harder? Have you ossified when it comes to your notions of conservative norms?
Let me remind you of an exchange we had not too long ago.
Quoting universeness
Quoting Tzeentch
Why don't you try a little harder yourself?
Quoting universeness
Ah, I called it:
Quoting Tzeentch
No point in continuing this conversation.
It seems that if a trans person dresses like Mrs Doubtfire, Tootsie, a clown, a David Bowie androgenous character etc then they make your approved list for reading stories to children. BUT a man dressed as frankenfurter or like the lead singer of twisted sister is to you, abnormal!!! and the children are in some kind of danger you have yet to explain. Are you worried about the imagery or message in this video? Should we protect children from it?
And more important, since that is a question of protection of the vulnerable.
I wonder if the whole trans issue isn't just another rider on the entitlement bus. Everyone's got problems, doesn't make them social causes. The more I have to waste my time thinking about it the more I'm moving from being a passive to an active opponent.
It has now been revealed that a teenager in Europe died after having a vaginoplasty on his penis that was irreversibly shrunk by puberty blockers which makes the already harmful surgery much more complicated and caused him to due from his injuries and infections.
Puberty blockers chemically castrate children and as Marci Bowers trans identified surgeon has admitted leaves children Anorgasmic and unable to reach sexual fulfillment as adults.
There are no protected female or lesbian spaces. Homosexuality has been redefined as a genital preference. Autistic people are over represented in the trans population. I have met two trans people through my local autism services and two other trans people I knew displayed autistic traits which I now recognise after my own diagnosis.
Welcome to life as a human being. Picking a side on an issue is what folks do. I prefer you to choose your side, instead of fence sitting, at least you are voting as you see fit. I simply stand in opposition to your position. The debate will hopefully continue or else the different sides can war towards M.A.D. What do YOU want to do?
There are many w on YouTube now who talk about the regret and pain of being w and having their x removed due to internalised y and being caught up in z ideology and misled.
You can fill in the variables as fits your current views. You could for example use:
w = christian(s)
x = scepticism
y = fear
z = woo woo
Just cause you say it with GUSTO Andrew, does not make you seem any less irrational on this issue imo.
Right. So you are not invalidating Andrew's claim, merely asserting that there are in fact many cases of people misconstruing their own wants and needs. Emphasizing the general truth of his underlying point (of which there is certainly some element of truth, unless you do want to attack the legitimacy of the purported youtube videos).
Now you seem to be mocking the reality of irreversible genital mutilation of gay, austic and gender confused young people. Or severely down playing it.
I have not seen a proliferation of other groups talking about similar regrets.
And this is called gender affirming health care ( a billion pound industry)
Woman face is black face. Transgender is the same principle as transracialism and trans ablism. Appropriating someone else's protected characteristics. No man should be given access to women's spaces and awards due distress with their birth sex. That is misogyny and gaslighting women. Other peoples identity and privacy should not be given away due to someone else's mental health. That does not happen in any other area of life.
I cannot invalidate the youtube examples Andrew cites, they in fact exist, but they are outliers, and do not significantly challenge trans issues.
Has the number of deconstructing christians destroyed christianity?
If there are enough of them one day, then perhaps the number of christians will reduce to zero, at some point in the distant future (I certainly hope so!).
I am more suggesting that Andrew should not get 'over-excited' about the small number of outliers he has came across in comparison with the number of trans folks who have no regrets at all, including all those trans folks on-line currently offering dialogue with all those who wish to engage in such.
Including you. Why not contact them and put your views to them.
They make ludicrous exaggerated claims about things that we can actually be very certain of to imply an unjustified level of skepticism that is inappropriately applied. Which has made ripe ground for denial of biological reality.
Is it not significant though? Granted, for the general population, the number of cases would have to be very large to be statistically significant. But how big is the trans population really? I'm talking about the true population, not just supporters. Like, if you are 'two-spirit' because you like to sleep with both men and women...ok, you are bi. Basically, you sleep with your own sex, the opposite sex, both sexes, or neither. Those are the choices. So if you are living your daily life dressed as the opposite sex, or you have had or are in the process of having a sex-change then, yes, you are part of the demographic in question. In the U.S, that's about 0.4 percent of the population. But 25% of those are 'gender non-conforming', so maybe those are 'outliers' who are just piggy-backing on the trans-identity. So say 0.25% of the population. Maybe for two out of every thousand people we owe awareness, but maybe not so much accommodation. Lots and lots of minority groups with much higher representation that that might by able to raise strong claims for accommodations, given a sympathetic public forum.
The harm of being wrong is irreversible damage to yourself. It is not the equivalent of regretting having a tattoo (which can cause some distress)
People say speak to trans people. Well I have spoken to four and am gay and on the autism spectrum which are both relevant to this and grew up in a religious cult like environment which makes me aware of the cult like aspects to this movement.
People would not be opposing this if it was really harmless. J K Rowling is a left wing humanitarian. She didn't just turn into a Nazi overnight she is protecting women's identity, integrity and spaces and has received copious death threats, rape threats and general twitter hate.
I don't accept your 'irreversible genital mutilation' categorisation, unless you are referring to such as the circumcision of children without their consent or forced female genital mutilation, as practised by some fanatical groups. Trans operations are by consent, but yes, some people have expressed regret at some point afterwards, in the same way some people have expressed regret in getting a boob job or an irreversible face lift.
Trans folks would explain to you about all of the checks and processes involved in becoming trans. It is a very slow, very careful process and 'reversible' is maintained for as long as is medically and psychologically possible.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Yeah, almost every atheist now debating theists on-line, are ex-theists.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I could respond to you sentence by sentence Andrew but I honestly suggest you communicate with real online trans folks, or at least watch some of their call-in shows. People call in all the time, who hold your opinions and some who dissent even more so that you do. The on-line trans folks are far better positioned to answer your points compared to a het, cis male such as me.
I have watched about 5 episodes of the transatlantic call-in show, over the past year or so.
I think there is a much bigger, underlying issue that trans issue's feed into.
Is it your business what consenting adults choose to engage in sexually?
Should your sexual preferences affect you legal rights?
Should your sexual biology affect your legal rights?
I was personally harmed by religion and I do oppose it to some extent and especially childhood indoctrination.
Unless you join Isis or a religious cult or had religion forced on you like me I am not sure what irreversible harm, especially bodily harm could come from joining a religion temporarily. I went to a few other churches a few times after leaving my family church before fully desisting from Christianity and had not unpleasant experiences there.
However the two situations are different and the harm of religion in no way justifies the harm of gender ideology.
It is not. Which is why it is equally not society's business to address such issues.
No your sexual preferences should not relate to your legal rights, which are universal human rights and general by nature, not specific.
No. Your sexual biology should affect your medical treatment. Which is why clarity around actual sexual biology is so important.
I am sure you would agree that psychological harm is every bit as malevolent as physical harm.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I would not suggest one harm justifies another. Religion is an old friend of 'conservative norms' and religious dogma is constantly used to point to what many today consider deviant malalignment with what they consider the sanctum of binary sexuality. In some religious regimes today, you would be murdered due to being homosexual and I would be murdered as an apostate. Also under such regimes, neither of us would be given any kind of equal legal status, compared to those who comply with the strictly religious and strictly binary sexual model. It seems to me that trans folks are fighting for the same legal rights that gay folks have won for themselves in many countries today.
Women have not all consented to having biological men in their spaces, winning their awards and in their domestic violence shelters. They are having this imposed on them from above.
Parents have not consented to have their children indoctrinated in schools under the guise of teaching tolerance.
A woman in British hospital heard a male voice in the bed next to her and she was told there were no men on the ward. This is gaslighting. Now it has come out that ther have been 6500 sexual assaults reported by women in British hospitals including a stroke victim who died after being raped. No one should needlessly compromise other peoples safety because someone else's desired personal identity.
These are not the concerns of a moral panic or phobia. In one sense we could just let it run it full course til the number of victims becomes undeniable to prove our point but already detransitioners are spontaneously amassing with tragic stories.
Government must still legislate on the issue and people vote for government so there IS social responsibility in that sense.
Quoting Pantagruel
:up:
Quoting Pantagruel
It might affect the type of medical treatment but are you saying that your biological sex should affect your legal right to a particular medical treatment you want. Are you anti-abortion for example?
Also religion is faith based it is not allowed to demand we all change our beliefs, behaviours and attitudes.(in most of the west). And I am quite happy to oppose it all.
Trans people are protected by the same laws and have the same human rights as everyone else. It is not gay rights part 2. It is undermining the rights and same sex protections of women and gay people. As a gay man I have to accept women who identify as gay men in my dating pool after escaping a religious cult and where people encouraged me to become heterosexual and engage in relationships with women. Gay people fought against conversion therapy are now being told they have a prejudicial genital preference and are sexual racists.
Your outlier examples are getting more and more extreme Andrew.
I support full bodily autonomy but that does not mean I would accept that you can therefore offer yourself as food, especially as cannibalism causes the equivalent of mad cow disease in humans.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I agree that this is a very difficult and complicated area. I personally think that a fully transitioned trans woman poses no threat to women in what we would consider traditional female spaces.
If you still have male genitalia then perhaps you would not be allowed in women only spaces. I know that some on-line trans folks don't share that opinion and hold a more nuanced view.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I think all of these crimes are committed by deviant men who will role play any character to achieve their goal. I think this has nothing to do with trans issues at all.
If someone dresses as a doctor and claims to have the skills of a doctor and ends up killing someone whilst acting as a fake doctor, is that the fault of doctors?
People have a right to maximum say in what affects them personally. It is where people start claiming the right to know what is best for someone else that is the problem. I pointedly said that your sexual biology should not affect your legal rights, but it is a very important factor in treatment. I work in the medical industry and doctors have related this concern to me.
I agree, it's not gay rights part 2, It's trans rights.
What do you mean by 'accept women who identify as gay men?' Is the imposition placed on you more than a person of the female sex, requesting you to refer to them with the pronoun he?
I have a good friend who's daughter has recently made such a request.
Is there further extremely difficult burdens being placed on you by such 'women,' that you have not made clear to me so far?
What have the pressures others have put on you, related to you becoming hetero got to do with a women who want to be referred to using a male pronoun? Are you saying these women are pressuring you to have sex with them, based on you being a gay man?
I am sure I am misunderstanding what you mean in your quote above, please clarify.
But lesbian apps have been inundated by transbians and lesbians are having to meet up in secret.
But the issue is redefining what being gay means.
By allowing men to call themselves lesbians and women call themselves gay men you are undermining the nature of sexual identity and the meaning and lived experience of being gay.
Is that not exactly what you are doing in the case of trans folk?
Quoting Pantagruel
Quoting Pantagruel
Are the quotes above not based on YOUR claims about those who are currently involved in fighting for an improved legal status for trans folks. In Scotland, the government tried to make it much easier to change your legal sex status. Overturned by the so called 'British' government.
I am not familiar with the main sticking points but no-doubt there was something about a case where a person not fully transitioned, having the legal right to enter a female toilet or a criminal posing as trans, getting into a female prison rather that a male one. I don't know the word for word detail of the proposed Scottish law but most trans folks seemed to be happy with it.
So are these hetero men trying to have sex with lesbians or trans men trying to have sex with lesbians or a bit of both? How would you ever know for sure?
Do such attempts at manipulation of the situation support you negating all efforts made by genuine trans folks to gain the legal right to change their sex status IF they have fully transitioned or are pretty close to doing so.
You stated earlier that you had 'existential' concerns here, that warrant you making comments such as:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
What is this existential threat that YOU personally face, when a person who was born a man, transitions into a woman and becomes legally recognised as such?
Why should gender dysphoria entitle you to someone elses identity? An identity already occupied by the reality of biological females. A vulnerable easily identifiable definable group whose wombs we all grew in.
The solution to dysphoria is apparently life long medication access to other peoples spaces coercing people to use your preferred pronouns and to pretend they don't know your birth sex (a charade). And the only medical health care that is performed based on the patients self diagnosis and threats of suicide. And on top of this trying to get it redefined as not a mental illness and the equivalent to being born gay. (Being gay which does not require any medication, genital surgeries cross sex hormones or coercing peoples language or attitudes or access to the opposite sexes private spaces).
It is all very unfortunate, distressing and dysfunctional and unsustainable.
So was this a typo? Did you just miss out the word 'not' between 'should' and 'affect?'
Quoting Pantagruel
I don't see how you can separate legal rights and 'medical treatments,' the latter is surely governed by the former.
What is your biological reality or legal status imperative for such folks as hermaphrodites who internally produce male and female gametes (eggs and sperm)?
Calling women cervix havers and pregnant people and black birthing bodies. Calling same sex attraction a genital preference. All of which have been done.
What classifies as affecting me personally? The Rwandan genocide didn't affect me personally, nor the war in Yemen, HIV, famine or rape. That is not the only basis for ethical concern but there are many threats from gender, to my use of language, my future employment, to my neices and nephews bodily integrity, the abusive use of the medical service in malpractice that has lead to the Gender affirming Tavistock Cliniv being closed down and being sued by up to a 1000 families. My identity as gay person is being tied to the tqia++ in a move I did not consent to and tying me to the indoctrination, sexually inappropriate conduct and ethics and medical malpractice as if I personally endorse.
It is not Straight+TQIA++ it is gay people and any dubious harmful political, ideological fetishistic movement that is free to attach itself to our biological sexual preference.
I know a trans man who was trans for a good decade before all the hype. She's a prominent surgeon, and surgeons are huge money makers for hospitals, so she has the leeway to do what she likes. Everyone gave her space to be what she wanted to be. It wasn't a problem.
The drama about acceptance of trans and non-binary is partly an internet phenomenon I think.
You mean YOUR truth and what YOU claim is honest use of language.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
How many biological parts must a man transitioning to a woman remove/replace before you will accept them as a woman. I assume that you know why men have nipples. We all start off female in the womb!
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I have heard there may be a solution to this based on testosterone reduction treatments but I don't know the details
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Who is using these terms that so offend you? Trans folks? Being trans does not prevent you from being a plonker at times.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
YOU decide!
Quoting Andrew4Handel
These did and do affect me personally as they affect me mentally.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Yes, there are threats involved, so its important to tread with care. What if one of your nieces or nephew's want's to transition their sex? Would that change your stance?
Medical treatments are determined by medical need, not legal rights. How you manage to draw this inference is a complete mystery to me.
Quoting universeness
Or is it the trans movement now seeking to impose standards on everyone else? I am just calling attention to the most fundamental underlying principle. Then it becomes a question of numbers. And the numbers just don't warrant the accommodations. Most of the world is okay with the functional constraints imposed by gender-duality. So maybe there needs to be at least one single-occupancy locking bathroom at every public facility. Whatever. There are 100 times as many smokers as trans folk, yet we don't provide special smoking rooms for them anymore, despite the fact that many of them "need" nicotine at regular intervals. Different people prioritize different aspects of their personal identity differently.
Based on the fact that, for any group, it is usually a radical-vocal minority that ends up speaking for the group, in this case if there are complaints, they are come from a minority of a very small minority. Which is to say they should be heard, evaluated, and treated in that exact context.
Ultimately, populations thrive in a society based upon their presence, not their publicity. If a group can be dispersed and maintain its identity, obviously it has strong foundations. If a group only represents one in a thousand people, then maybe there are lots of children who might never be aware of trans-identities. In fact, I suspect that a lot of trans people don't want to stand out, but rather to fit in, and not be noticed. So maybe we don't need to call extra attention to it. But of course, we do need to ensure that no other groups are preaching or practicing hate. That is the where public efforts should lie.
A quick google search produced, From Wiki:
[b]True hermaphroditism represents 5% of all sex disorder differentiations.
The exact number of confirmed cases is uncertain, but by 1991 approximately 500 cases had been confirmed.
It has also been estimated that more than 525 have been documented.[/b]
If you have better sources, you should cite them, but confirming the scientific rigour involved can always be problematic for us amateurs. My field of speciality is Computing Science, not human biology and human gametes.
Only legal operations/medical processes are allowed. Only legal medications can be used.
Quoting Pantagruel
Or every future public toilet can be built as a series of individual lockable units, with a WC and a small sink and mirror. No more gender specific toilets. Would that not solve the problem?
Quoting Pantagruel
I am a socialist/secular humanist, so accommodating the needs and wishes of as many people in a community as possible, remains the main goal.
There’s 46,XX/46,XY chimerism.
What are you concerned about? Transgender women just wanting to use women’s bathrooms, or men pretending to be women as an excuse to use women’s bathrooms and sexually assault them?
Or are you suggesting that transgender women just are men pretending to be women as an excuse to use women’s bathrooms and sexually assault them?
And regarding “trusting our senses”, would you consider this person a man or a woman? Which bathroom should they use?
They are not a justification for saying men can become women and vice versa. These people have a legitimate claim to resolve an identity issue based on biological reality. And most of them are identifiable as male and female and are males and females with disorders of development.
This is all a distraction from the issue of gay men having their testicles removed and penises mutilated then regretting it which really has happened and is happening. The increasing number of people regretting irreversible bodily damage due to identifying in as trans. These people are easy to find on You Tube prominent among them is Shapeshifter and Ritchie Herrin. Both gay men who experienced internalized homophobia and have no detransitionted. There are several more you can find including Chloe Cole child transitioner.
There is the closure of the closure of the Tavistock clinic in London that I mentioned. I have referred to a lot of stuff in other threads and could spend hours sharing links and discussing cases. The death of a teen who had been on puberty blockers in 2016 that has only just come to light and their are some terrible photos of what happened on line including other botched gender care surgeries. This has lead to a lot of European countries putting a halt on most gender treatments for minors.
I have mentioned elsewhere what happened to Jazz Jennings based on Jazzes documentary series (The most famous trans child). Jazzes penis was underdeveloped due to puberty blockers and Jazz had to have Jazzes scrotum expanded with water to create enough skin for a pseudo vagina. That was painful enough but then Jazz required at least 3 further surgeries to make the pseudo vagina. Jazz also developed severe depression coinciding with starting puberty blockers. This was all because Jazz liked wearing girls clothes as a 3 year old. He was identified as a candidate for lifelong medical interventions and castration which I find mind blowingly terrible.
Jazz's own trans identified surgeon Marci Bowers said that the surgery was problematic and that children who had these would be anorgasmic permanently. And most trans identified people did not transition as adults and won't experience this but advocate for this type of intervention.
Most intersex people I have heard advocate against "corrective" surgeries on their genitalia unless they choose them as adults.
In the interest of understanding, the specific moderation guideline you violated here is referring to gender reassignment surgery as "genital mutilation", which is a common transphobic canard.
As an example, talking about an uptick in people identifying as trans in recent years, as well as the ethics of administering gender reassignment surgery in the current way (or changes in the legislation), is still an allowable topic of discussion. Just do so with appropriate decorum. Something this sensitive must be discussed with sufficient sensitivity, calling gender affirmation therapy "genital mutilation" in blanket terms is not that.
Failure to comply may lead to a ban. You've now been warned twice.
What does being transgender have to do with gay men?
https://www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/
You think the 0.4% of trans people who detransition because they made a mistake is sufficient grounds to oppose transition in the first place?
Transgender women are men. Caitlyn Jenner produced six children with "his" sperm and acknowledges being their father Anyone claiming to be living as the opposite sex is simply impersonating them. It is categorically impossible to change sex.
Being male or female is not a choice and womens spaces and sports were not intended for people's mental self perception but biological sex.
Yes women have been attacked in such situations so do your own research. All you are doing is defending lying and creating a society based on lies not on objective reality.
Is this not still a claim made by anti-gay individuals, who suggest gay men have a genetic disorder of development? I would assume you would find such a claim offensive, yes?
I would strongly defend your right to express this view even though I basically disagree with it.
It would be incredibly cowardly of me to try to silence you, as if trans people need censorship in order to thrive.
What do you mean by this? Are you just saying that it's impossible to change one's DNA? Nobody is saying otherwise. You're attacking a strawman.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Women get attacked in all sorts of situations. But you're sidestepping the question. Are you trying to say that transgender women just want to use women's bathrooms because they want to sexually assault women?
You also haven't answered my question about the person in the photo. Simply by "trusting your senses", what bathroom should that person use?
I just explained it to you. In many ways. You are not listening and now you are spreading motivated propaganda.
Jack Turban is financially invested in trans ideology and their are no adequate detransition studies. Your sources all have an investment in promoting gender identity and no investment in critiquing their own standpoint. Detransition Reddit now has 47 thousand members and many recitals of the real reasons people transition and detransition none to do with family pressure.
Most studies promoting the success of gender have had to post retractions.
I as a vulnerable gay man from a homophobic religious cult and autistic could have sterilised myself and have had my genitals severed like Ritchie Herrin and ShapeShifter gay male detransitioners. Whilst you helped convince me I was a woman trapped in a man's body. It is ludicrous and frightening and you are clearly not listening.
You are not helping anyone even if you think you are. Telling people that they can live as the opposite sex as offering them false hope.
A lot of states have patient advocates for minors. I would leave the question with them and psychologists. Like with abortion, there may be cases where a person has to travel to get a surgical intervention.
What are you referring to? Intersex conditions are disorders of sexual development that affect people's development, reproductive systems among other things. They are not gender identities.
If there are no adequate detransition studies then how can you claim that detransitioning is a significant problem?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
So a subreddit membership count is the best evidence you have? That's more reliable than the actual studies that have been done?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
The fact that growing up in a homophobic, religious cult could have left you unable to recognize the difference between being a gay man and being a transgender woman isn't evidence that it is wrong to be accepting of transgenderism and medical transitioning.
This just shows that the problem is with homophobic, religious cults.
I think what conservatives fear is some kind of cultural shift that becomes self-fulfilling in that it leads rather than follows science. I don't think that fear is completely irrational though in some cases expressed concern for children might be just a cover for bigotry.
Quoting Tzeentch
It’s interesting how such standards have shifted over the years. I dont think too many parents would have a problem with a hip-wiggling Elvis impersonator performing for young children today, or even a lipstick-wearing Bowie-type glam rocker. Male swimwear that once concealed the navel now exposes the ‘adonis belt’. I suspect that the awareness of gender that makes it possible for a 5 year old child to identify as trans implies a level of sophistication concerning sexuality that was unavailable to an earlier generation. This perhaps also makes it possible to distinguish between a sexual image in general and a harmful sexual image.
That goes without saying. But legality is not the basis of medical legitimacy. Medical legitimacy implies legality. Certainly as a general principle. I don't see the point of this reasoning at all, to be honest.
Quoting universeness
It would, although you would sacrifice benefits of scale for larger venues where multi-stall common facilities can service much higher-volumes of people (and who are reflective of the demographic that legitimates both the need and the response to the need). I'd say keep the gender-dual installations where needed, and ensure there is a locking bathroom for those needing family bathrooms, and others with special needs.
Quoting universeness
The greatest unity is the one which supports the greatest diversity is my credo. And we are all asked to make personal sacrifices in deference to the public good at certain times or in certain respects. And what one person considers a sacrifice someone else may not. So even having the best of motivations doesn't simplify things.
Not to mention the amusing impotency of such injunctions since, considering the ubiquity of the internet, most kids have probably seen porn before they hit their teens. But no! Not a public talk by a Tranny! The horror!
That's an amazing insight. You're saying conservatives aren't just being assholes, but they have a legitimate concern.
But when it comes to minors, I think we're all stumped about irreversible interventions. I think we'd all like minors to wait until they're older. The concern that's been raised is that we know they become suicidal and they do commit suicide. If it means saving a person's life to allow gender reassignment? I'd say the answer is obvious.
What would a conservative say?
This is a step too far for me to comment on this issue any further to you Andrew.
You need to discuss such with those better qualified than I.
Ok, to steel man this, I think a conservative would say that opening up more space for what anyone can be can't be separated from enforcing what some people will be.
(Active social engineering dressed up as passive social accommodation.)
Excuse multiple posts.
Affirming your right to be a Muslim is tantamount to forcing people to be Muslims? :chin:
Maybe it would help to know that Native Americans had transexuals, although they obviously didn't have hormone therapy or surgery. But apparently members of either sex could transition to the social role of the opposing sex. As for the surgery and hormones, what would be wrong with allowing that to work it's way out naturally? If it's really something good for people, that will become apparent. If it's a danger to them or society, that also will be revealed?
Quoting Baden
If anything, the woke outrage is a sideshow. For the most part, trans people do have rights. Large corporations in the US spray diversity education upon their employees to make sure they have fashion forward images. It's good for the bottom line, which means the ship has already sailed. All that's left is to worry over what children in Florida are taught about pronouns and the sensitive, but fairly rare problem of minors.
Quoting Baden
I guess that's why I favor state patient advocates and psychologists. Let them figure it out.
A more accurate analogy might be that for the U.S. establishment to publically espouse the virtues of Islam, including in media, schools, and society generally would virtually guarantee more converts to Islam. Someone who wants less Muslims in society might justifiably be accused of Islamophobia but someone who resists the ethical injunction to want more is of a different category. To not want diversity for the sake of diversity or change for the sake of change is just part of the conservative mindset. Liberals sometimes neglect to recognize their own ideological commitments here in order to paint opposition to them as bigotry.
Quoting frank
Yes... but let's recognize they don't operate in an ideological vacuum. (Let me emphasise again, I'm being devil's advocate here to a degree.)
But that would be a violation of the first amendment. I don't think any government agencies are actually advising people to become trans, are they? Protecting their rights might make them come out of the closet, but I don't think it inspires people to make that kind of change. Is that what the conservative is arguing?
Quoting Baden
Well, the first amendment protects everybody. If a conservative is disturbed by trans people, it's their right to speak up and let that be known. If liberals want to cry "bigot" they can do that as well.
Quoting Baden
I understand that. I don't know of an ideal solution to the problems of young people who want to transition. I wish I did.
No, but I think that conservatives think that the line between protecting trans rights and promoting trans lifestyles is blurred. Of course their unofficial spokespeople rarely manage to say anything about the subject without sounding like a-holes.
:up:
My friends daughter is 14 and she now wants to be referred to as he and his chosen male name.
My friend and his wife are now going through a separation. I don't know if this issue has caused/aggravated the troubles between them. They have a second daughter.
They are now at the stage of discussing hormonal treatments, as a first stage.
He told me some of the details involved. It is a very slow paced process with many professionals involved.
Getting the required appointments/referrals within the current NHS crisis in the UK is greatly adding to the stresses involved. A very complicated situation for any family to deal with.
I know my friend is very quick to anger/fury at the moment when 'outsiders' offer him their general opinions on trans issues. A powder keg of emotions!
I'm what you would call 'ignorant' of the true science behind transgenderism. So are the scientists who study it. It's new. No one knows anything yet. This is what you would call an average, rational mindset or "take" on the subject. And as such, I happen to know sometimes certain males - either physically, mentally or both - can be described as 'feminine' more so than others. Just as certain females can be described as 'mannish' more so than others.
If my male child happens to be watching public television, sees an all-female ballerina performance, is mesmerized, and wants to put on a pink tutu and spin around, That's fine. If my female child sees a war movie and likes "killing the bad guys"/justice and wants to start dressing like G.I. Joe or otherwise becomes a tomboy. That's fine as well.
The disconnect is, and this is not meant to be extreme, but in either case I don't want the State or someone representative of the State to start running at them with a bottle of pills in one hand and a scalpel in the other telling a small child "there's something wrong with them" and as their parent I'm either morally, or if some have their way, perhaps even legally, abusive if I stand in the way of such. This is basically the most prominent argument or attitude a conservative individual would hold.
A significant majority of females become tomboys due to ostracization/alienation from the "popular girls". We are social creatures. Numerous studies from reputable and well-respected scientific institutions show, lack of "fitting in" can lead to severe distress, confusion, and quite often death. If you're not one of the popular girls or boys you're somehow less of a girl or boy. This is an observable psychological phenomenon. Where insults such as "coward", "loser", or "freak" come from.
If you don't fit in or are shunned from what you intrinsically and biologically are inclined to want to be part of, it makes you - especially if you have a young, developing mind - think you might be "something else".
I'm not saying transgenderism is not a real thing. I'm saying due to the infancy of the field of study and research gathered, along with the myriad of other physiological possibilities and conditions that very well could be transient or otherwise unrelated to true gender dysphoria, one should not be so "gung-ho" about assessing if the gender of a male or female under the age of 18 is, wrong basically. So as to avoid a misdiagnosis and as a result unnecessary series of life-changing medical procedures that only worsen or perhaps even create a condition that could otherwise be remedied or very well never existed in the first place.
I don't think that's an unreasonable or inconsiderate position to hold. Do you?
Also: This doesn't happen (too) often, but in some divorces sometimes one parent acts with malice toward the other to the point of psychologically damaging the child, typically indirectly. Sometimes directly. See Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), Malicious Parent Syndrome (MPS). That's more than enough to fuel the fire of confusion of worth and esteem and as a result identity. Just saying.
It's a newish area of study, but it isn't new. See transgender history.
Your calm input is always welcome in such a stormy issue. It's just a pity that so many humans are still so obsessed with fiercely conserving traditional binary sexual identity or are obsessed with fiercely declaring the 'boundaries' of their own sexual identity, as a kind of 'this far AND NO FURTHER' dictate. My personal het cis identity is NOT threatened/compromised/challenged/offended/abused etc by the non-binary sexual identity of a minority group of folks who are just trying to be who and what they are.
This exists regardless of personal sexual identity, in fact most 'bully' situations I witnessed or heard about during my time as a child or during my career as a teacher, had nothing to do with sexual identity, some did, but very few, by comparison.
Quoting Outlander
That is such an overblown emotive set of images that do nothing but add fuel to the flames, especially when you are in fact offering nothing more than exaggerated piffle, in the above quote.
Quoting Outlander
Last night I watched the recent episode of the transatlantic call-in show, I cited earlier in this thread.
The trans man called 'doctor Ben,' who hosted this episode. Recently completed his PHD and changed his on-line name from 'student doctor Ben' to 'Doctor Ben.'
He talked about just 'completing' his 'top surgery,' and how he could not currently lift his arms above his head or take a bath etc and he is going through a myriad of emotions, including regretting getting the surgery done, especially due to the pain he was currently going through due to the 'drains' that were still in him. His co-host 'Arden Hart,' a trans woman said that she felt the exact same way, when she had 'drains' but she felt wonderful after the drains were removed and she had taken another important step towards who and what she wanted to become. As far as I could tell from their exchange, neither of them have had 'bottom surgery.' They both went on to explain that such surgery is frightening and soooooo expensive and sooooooo painful and soooooo disruptive to your life that many trans folks just decide that on balance, they would rather live with the anatomy they have, than go through what they would have to go through to fully transition. They also talked about those trans folks they knew who have fully transitioned and the doubts, regrets, trauma's they went through along the way, but that they are now so much happier. Arden (who is the current partner of the well known atheist debater Matt Dillahunty) went on to explain that she makes her main living in the porn industry and that is the 'pragmatic' reason why she has not had 'bottom surgery.'
It seemed to me that these folks were explaining very clearly that choosing to sexually transition your body via surgery was very traumatic indeed. They were certainly not enthusiastically recommending bottles of pills and surgery knives as a 'simple solution' to any minor who was having a sexual identity crisis. In that show, during calls, they further explained some details about what age you had to be and what consents were required for a minor to undergo any treatment which is deemed 'irreversible.'
So again the imagery you are pushing is irresponsible, exaggerated and untrue.
The concept of gender fluidity is very clear to me. The only aspect of trans that isn’t clear for me has to do with what I call the difference between the biological and the social body. It seems to me there are two ways of justifying the desire to undergo surgery. The first has to do with ‘signaling’. I want to make it easier for that social community I identify with based on my gender to recognize my own gender, so I signal my gender identity through various means, including name change, clothing and hairstyle modifications. If i choose to also undergo surgery, it is not because I believe that I was born in the wrong biological body but that my social environment isn’t ready to recognize my gender without the help of obvious signaling from me that simplifies the issue for them.
The second way of justifying surgery depends on my belief that, independent of the feedback of my social
community, I was born in the wrong body.
This belief, from the vantage of embodied approaches in psychology, is a bit incoherent, because it assumes the ability to separate physical body from psychological gender. Embodied thinking argues that the physical, the psychological and the social are intertwined so completely that any attempt to locate something like a purely physical aspect of sexuality is nonsensical. Whatever our psychological gender happens to be, this gender defines, shapes , animates and performs our biological sex through how we walk , talk, gesture , perceive and sense our body. The body only exists as what it is in the way it is used , animated , performed. We can never be in the
wrong body because we are not in a body like a thing in a container, we enact a body.
Im not sure if which of these two ways of thinking about one’s sexed body we choose has much relevance to political advocacy surrounding trans. I do suspect, however, that if the first approach is right, then eventually trans surgery will fade away as the social structure becomes more aware and accepting of gender fluidity, and one no longer has to feel one is born into the wrong social body.
Well, as a het cis male, I don't really feel qualified to comment on the ruminations of trans folks when it comes to the reasons why a particular trans person may choose surgery.
I have now watched 6 episodes of the transatlantic call in show, so any personal interpretation I offer here would be mostly based on what I have heard stated on that show in the past.
I think the reasons that an individual trans person will 'settle on' when asked to explain why they chose the surgery route, are myriad and certainly number much more than two, even in the broadest sense.
'Born in the wrong body,' 'body dysmorphia,' is certainly involved but it seems to me there are many nuances. Doctor Ben, for example has talked about some tran men decide to keep their lower female anatomy so that they might still have children. He said he would not choose to do so but he understands those that do. There are many purely practical reasons like that, including Arden's reason related to her current role/character/job in the porn industry.
Quoting Joshs
I am sure actual trans folks could answer this much better that anything I could offer but I can offer this.
The first caller last night asked the hosts to explain the difference between biological sex and gender.
They have had this question many times. Ben talked about the physical aspects of biological sex that can be altered and those that cant. I remember he mentioned chromosomal sex, hormonal sex, anatomical sex, gametes. Chromosomal sex and gametes were the only two (I think) he said could not be currently 'transitioned,' via surgery or medication.
Quoting Joshs
I think transgender and transexual are two quite different goals.
I think there are many trans folk that feel they have to do the physical transitions that they can do, in order to become 'happy' or 'true' or perhaps even 'real.'
I never said they did. I said trauma and being ostracized leads to pain, confusion, and wanting "to be different" or being forced to believe you are. Why does someone 'bully' someone? Because they can. Meaning, they're either larger or otherwise have something to hold over the victim the victim does not. Hence, makes one think they're less than themself. Or if you do not go along with my will and desire for you, you're a "scared little girl". Illusory truth effect or bias by repetition. Get it?
Quoting universeness
I literally started with 'the disconnect is' and ended with 'this is the mindset a conservative individual would hold' in the context of the 'pills and scalpel' statement. There is no reasonable reason to assume I sympathize with those who do or are pushing anything other than, once again, no person not a legal and mental adult should be suggested they have gender dysphoria.
I appreciate your defense of the vulnerable. But there's no need to attack the messenger.
Furthermore, please do not accuse me of being 'irresponsible' and 'pushing [intolerant] imagery' again when I have in fact taken great pains to avoid doing so and know I have avoided such perfectly.
From the perspective of this elderly gay guy, it would be a good idea if the whole alt-gender movement cooled off.
I grew up in a time and place where homosexuality wasn't discussed (except as a very negative reference) and where sexuality was strictly procreative (and better be within the bonds of marriage). It's a different world today. While once what could not speak it's own name, or in the case of transgenders, didn't have a name, is now publicly discussed a lot, and (a small number of) children are making decisions about which gender they want to be.
At the same time, there is a high rate of attempted and successful suicide among young people dealing with these sexuality issues. It is possible that adolescent's psychological distress is, paradoxically, exaggerated by wide open public openness. A lot of public discourse just isn't very helpful.
Pre-Stonewall, many young people (and adults for that matter) (to use the term of those times) who were sexual deviants could hide in a closet (so to speak). Hiding one's sexuality wasn't healthy, but it gave persons time to slowly (and privately) prepare themselves to go public. In addition, there were sort of secret places one could be sexual. When a gay person did decide to go public, they tended to be older adolescents or adults, and had more personal resources to deal with negative public reaction.
Many children are dealing with their various sexual issues openly, and I think they are often doing so without the psychological development to deal with all the issues that they encounter. Social attitudes make life even more difficult. The result is perhaps enough stress that too many seek relief by killing themselves.
The 10 year old who wants to 'be' the opposite sex might be better off if they waited until they are older and have more personal resources available. Will a delay be frustrating? Sure, but it's a question of balancing risk. The risk of too much too soon and death, or delay and better success. There is a huge difference between the experience a 40 year old will have in deciding to publicly transition (even if it is a bumpy ride), and the stress a 14 year old deciding to publicly transition will experience.
Do you have examples of trans folks expressing that they want to be different? I have heard them on-line and in call in shows, say they want to be who they are.
Quoting Outlander
This thread is about trans folks yes? and their identity, Not bullies and their rationale.
Quoting Outlander
My attack is on the message, not the messenger.
Quoting Outlander
No, your attempts to avoid what you claim you wanted to avoid fell far short of 'perfectly,' imo.
I do not understand why people cannot grasp this. This conflict did not seem to exist when only a tiny amount of men identified as women so there was very little chance of a woman having a trans identified man in her weman only space or competing against her.
But I think it was a drastic mistake that I and others went along without thinking that lots of men would start identifying as women.
But to me this now ethically indefensible and cruel. Women are a biologically real and the people who create life and not a feeling in someones head. They are distinct from men in many ways and need protecting in various ways and recognising for themselves as a biological entity.
People are now fallaciously claiming they cannot define what a women is despite the fact we all grew in a woman's womb. This is gross misogyny and we don't give away other groups identities like this. It is wrong to impersonate a black person particularly because of the history racism and slavery and oppression and women have a similar history. And we are flagrantly giving away their rights, security and awards.
And this is one of the things that makes me very angry about this as well as the impact this is having on the gay community and autistic people, vulnerable children and the denial that gender affirming care is harmful.
I'm sympathetic to preserving safe spaces for women, but what do you mean by "fatal"? What horrible thing do you think will eventually happen if biological trans men are accepted as women?
You're not a spokesperson for women on trans rights though, nor is anyone as unsurprisingly their opinions on this and other things vary. Which makes all of that rather patronising, no?
"A transgender inmate has been transferred out of the only women’s prison in New Jersey after impregnating two female inmates."
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/nj-trans-prisoner-impregnated-2-inmates-transferred-mens-facility-rcna38947
A woman was raped in a women's shelter by a trans identified man.
https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/hunter-trans-woman-sexually-assaulted-shelter-resident-cops
These are women only spaces if you define women as a feeling in someones head and not a biological reality.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Quoting Andrew4Handel
It’s clear that you’re angry. The rhetoric is a sign that you can’t think clearly about this issue. If you’re so angry about it, this is not really the place for you to talk about it.
Otherwise you’re not really arguing for all of these melodramatic phrases. Mostly it’s obvious straw men.
Why would you want to do this anyway?
People are really giving away women's rights, identity and security and this is why I consider this movement has now become a crime in progress.
Women and men are biologically real not feelings or gender identity. Nothing can change this and lying about this is living in a post truth society where we can no longer say we base things on truth value truth or reality.
It is major philosophical issue that I am now addressing in my latest thread. I don't believe you can base society and security around lies indefinitely or preserve coherence.
This is why I am going out of my way outside of this forum to campaign on this issue til I die.
People are giving away women's rights and denying their in some kind or orwellian Stalinesque dystopia.
I don't think your outrage has or is going to convince anyone here, do you?
1. A clownfish has two sexes: male and female. They change from one sex to another every month or so.
Clownfish are hermaphrodites (having both male and female reproductive organs) and undergo sexual changes at around five months old. The sex change usually happens after the fish reaches three years old.
2. Hawkfish are fish that live in the ocean and have two sets of genitalia. They are known for being able to change their sex from male to female or vice versa
3. Green sea turtles are known to be the largest living species of turtle. They live in tropical waters around the world. Their lifespan is usually between 50 and 100 years.
Some scientists believe that these turtles are born male and later become female. This theory was supported by the observation that some females had testes during their lifetime.
4. Copperhead snakes are hermaphrodites, meaning they possess both male and female reproductive organs. They can change from one sex to another depending on environmental conditions.
There are 15 more such creatures here
Does this not suggest that biological sex is very mutable in a universe of natural selection and not something we need be so 'ossified' about?
People are misrepresenting other people's concerns on this so it is pointless having a discussion based on false premises.
But there is a lot of anger on both sides of this debate. J K Rowling and others have recieved copious rape and death threats and cancellation attempts.
And I do believe in the concept and value of righteous anger. The question then is which side is right to be angry and why? And it is a case of who is angry and determined and persuasive enough to get the most attention and influence.
Might work on Twitter. Will fail here.
Then this is the wrong place for it, because TPF is explicitly not the place for campaigning. It’s in the guidelines.
It really appears to me that you're misreading him. He's saying that there are angry people on both sides. He has a very personal stake in the issue, and has complained that his interlocutors are refusing to listen to his concerns. I don't see the problem with listening to him.
Don't worry about it. There are plenty of people in the world who are able to listen to you without bias. If you can't find that here, just say "fuck them" and move on.
Because people are making other statements impugning the reasons for this is a debate.
No, don't say fuck us, just come up with some reasonable arguments instead of ranting. You've done that bit already.
Quoting universeness
Transgender is the umbrella term that includes transsexuals, so not all transgenders support the aims of transsexuals, such as advocating for the idea that one can be born into the wrong body, defined purely biologically outside of all social contexts. I agree entirely that the surgery can lead to greater happiness, regardless of whether one believes in a biologistic or social explanation transgender, or some combination of the two. I think Judith Butler has a similar view.
I guess. It's just that after you've been assured you're about to be banned, you might be more inclined to say fuck you.
Except that didn't happen.
Yea, fdrake said that.
That was a warning not an assurance it was about to happen. The warning if heeded assures it won't happen. But leaving that aside, your passive aggressive "contributions" aren't helpful or welcome.
OK. Although it wasn't at all passive aggressive. It was all entirely genuine.
That doesn't make sense to me, but I don't really know the accepted terminology or its preferred hierarchical order. 'Transitional' or 'trans' would seem the most appropriate umbrella term to me as the group as a whole is often referred to as 'trans people.'
Quoting Joshs
I think that 'general support' is what will matter most to a person going down the physical surgery route.
I’ll say. I wouldn’t have the balls for it, if you’ll pardon the expression.
A trans man will get new prosthetic ones, if they go down the physical surgery route.
Quoting universeness
Got it from here:
https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/difference-between-transgender-and-transsexual
Yeah but Healthline Media, Inc. is an American website and provider of health information headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1999, relaunched in 2006, and established as a standalone entity in January 2016.
Not the best source for understanding the terms used by the actual trans community.
Better to use something like the transatlantic call in show for such. They may fully confirm you are correct, especially doctor Ben who is med qualified and trans.
Likewise, it doesn't matter to me if some geese mate in homosexual pairs. Yes, it's fascinating that gay male geese may go so far as stealing an egg from another nest so they have something to hatch, but so what?
Are you qualified to judge what can be said about trans people or women, outside of your role in TPF?
Neither I nor anyone else would require any qualification to make the rather prosaic observation in the quote.
If you believed woman's rights and integrity was under threat and vulnerable non conforming gay men and autistic people what would you do about it and what would you do to defend these people?
What does this have to do with trans people using their preferred bathrooms? Trans men want to use men's toilets, trans women want to use women's toilets. How does any of this affect the rights and identities of cis men and women? Other people using a toilet has nothing to do with you.
I really don't get this obsession with bathrooms. There's a nightclub I sometimes go to where all the toilets are unisex. It's really no issue. It's a just a room with private cubicles and shared sinks to wash hands.
I suspect that more trans women are harassed in men's bathrooms by cis men and more trans men are harassed in women's bathrooms by cis women than cis women are harassed in women's bathrooms by trans women. If you're concerned with people being harassed in bathrooms then it's better to just let trans people use their preferred bathrooms.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt-survey-idUSKBN13X0BK
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/transgender-teens-restricted-bathroom-access-sexual-assault/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8022685/
Yeah, I don't get it either. Where I am, most of the bathrooms are unisex. Nobody cares or thinks it's a big deal as far as I can tell.
Yes, they're well-lit public places usually with frequent visitors. Obviously not ideal territory for sexual predators. But suppose there was no one else around, and there was an opportunity, why would it have to be a trans person going in to the bathroom to do it? Why couldn't e. g. a cis man just follow his victim in? The fear is kind of bonkers and is actually likely to lead to anti-trans violence of the type highlighted, making it not just irrational, but dangerous.
The scientific method involves gathering evidence to support a posit. Using example biological sex systems, present in other species, who exist via evolution via natural selection, IS I think, a valid path to take.
The hermaphrodite exemplars present within other species in the natural world, simply provides evidence that the strictly male OR female binary model of biological sexual identity/reality is not some natural law imperative. It is merely a natural selection.
The evidence of hermaphrodite examples. within the human race, is some further evidence that a single biological sex is NOT some 'natural law,' that we are forced to ossify on.
The human race has demonstrated ability to replace natural selection (or at least compete with it) and impose our own design, at a genetic level, like we have already done with domesticated animals and plants and with our continuous proliferation of technological inventions. We are not completely restricted to the dictates of natural selection, so we are also not completely restricted to the dictates of any notion of a natural law of biological human sexuality.
It is in that space that to me, trans folks have the right to BE!
:clap: All trains and planes etc have unisex toilets, as do many small businesses etc. There is no suggestion that this causes increasing sexual assaults on women, by deviant men dressed up as fake trans folks.
Such deviant men/women will exist regardless of trans issues.
How many folks here find the following sign unacceptable:
I would never sexually or physically assault a woman so should I be allowed to use the womens toilets?There is footage on line of men dressed as women mastrubating in public in women's toilets and I posted a story earlier about a woman being raped in a woman's refuge.
But the main thing is the principle of the legal and biological fiction that men become women flying in the face of thousands of years of woman's struggles and now when they fight back for their own spaces and again they are could Nazi Terfs and bigots.
We are literally giving away other peoples spaces and identities to be kind and as I repeatedly mentioned earlier confused gay men with internalised homophobia have removed their penis and testicles because of this ideology and now live with deep regret. How many gay and autistic people doing this is enough?
I don't think welcoming and giving full equal treatment to trans folks, within all aspects of human society, will have a destructive cost, similar to the cost of utterly defeating the rise of global fascism, that culminated in WW2. BUT there will be damage and fallout, before it all settles to a new norm.
I don't think anybody's really being gaslighted. We live in a diverse society. There are going to be people who can't accept trans and non-binary people, but for the most part, the American society has made room for them (except cases where they don't know where to pee.)
Quoting Andrew4Handel
This is something that would have to be worked out at the local level. There are places where women really aren't going to care. Believe it or not, women, especially the ones who have given birth, don't really have a lot of body-shame.
If we don't let trans people go to the bathroom I'm guessing a few cases of peeing on the floor or explosive diarrhea on the sidewalk should bring the locals around. :razz:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
That's something they'll have to work out with a psychologist. Society in general can't be held responsible for the terrible challenges certain individuals face.
For the life of me, I can't discern your point.
In a society that doesn't allow people with XY chromosomes to use the women's toilet, yes, he'd have to pee somewhere else. :up:
He has XX chromosomes. He's a trans man, i.e. born with female genitalia and transitioned to a man by taking testosterone and surgery (at least top, I don't know about bottom).
Should he use women's toilets because he's biologically female?
Then in a society that requires people who have XX chromosomes to use the women's toilet, yes he can use the women's toilet.
Why are chromosomes relevant? How would we even know what someone's chromosomes are? We don't DNA test people before letting them use the toilet.
And what about people who are neither XX nor XY? Or someone with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome [NSFW], who although has XY chromosomes has external female genitalia?
You have two choices:
1. You can accept that this is a question that will have to be answered at local levels.
2. You can work to establish that a trans person's rights are being violated if they can't use the toilet of their choice. Now you have a crime that's being committed and you can protest it, and work to get it changed.
I don't think much is accomplished by just asking why chromosomes are relevant. Do you?
Quoting Michael
Ahhhh! You got me!!!
If you're a trans person who goes to work in Saudi Arabia, you will be very careful about using facilities in such a way that it doesn't bother anyone. For instance, you'll stay in the American compound. If the Saudi authorities find out you used the wrong restroom, they'll fucking kill you.
Local sentiment wins. Yay!!!!!
Or 3) let people use the toilets they're most comfortable using.
With your magic wand. Awesome.
In one of the episodes of the transatlantic call-in shows I watched, one of the hosts showed pictures of folks like the trans man that Michael showed, but in a 'dignity spared' way, in various biological sex rule driven poses, in the toilet setting they were being forced to use.
They did seem absolutely ridiculous to me.
This is Arden Hart a transwoman with a penis. The person below is Katie Montgomerie another transwoman who also still has a penis (I think).
Don't you think they would look ridiculous standing in front of a male urinal, pulling up their skirt and having a pee.
Do you think women would be alarmed to see the person in Michaels picture, walk into a female toilet in the hot summertime with his top off, because he has a vagina, they don't know about?
Oh I forgot, just to complete the main hosts of the call in show, This is doctor ben (who has a vagina, shhhhhhhhhhh.)
I couldn't care less.
My identity is under threat because I am expected to concede my own eyes, conscience, and language in order to play along with a state of affairs I know not to be true. Where I live I am subject to investigation by a human rights council should I refuse to use the language they prefer, or if I refuse to treat them as the gender they are trying to express. I am forced to lie.
I entirely agree that trans people have the right to BE.
Quoting universeness
Yes, there are exceptions illustrated by some species, but a rare deviation from the norm doesn't invalidate the norm. Sex (xx, xy) is nature's most effective way of maximizing evolutionary possibilities in multicellular organisms. If some species have developed other schemes, that doesn't apply to the scheme that most species exist within.
XX and XY is the law (norm) from which a very small number of mammal offspring will deviate. Deviating from the norm is no kind of offense at all -- but it also isn't "normal". From my perspective, it's OK to be "not normal". Lots of people are born with various "not normal" features. Some of the "not normal' features are in varying degrees problematic, and others are not problematic. I was born with defective eyeballs. Normal? No, Problematic? Yes. I was born gay, and belong to the 2% of men who are exclusively gay. Normal? No. Problematic? No. (Other than that if 10% of men are gay, who is getting my share?).
I don't count transgenderism as normal, but also don't count it as problematic. Again, there is such a thing a normal, but bring abnormal isn't automatically problematic. Being born with a very deficient brain is abnormal and problematic. Being born with a very effective really smart brain is also abnormal, but not problematic.
I think you are just being asked to consider what freedoms/restrictions you wish to support when it comes to trans folks. You seen to have already chosen, so the question becomes, are you fully cooked or could the reasoned arguments presented by the trans community make your position more flexible.
Your 'I know to be true,' are probably the most problematic words for me.
Quoting NOS4A2
That seems ridiculous to me. I would need full details to be sure whether or not I would support your position on the situation you face, as YOU have described it.
What actual penalties do you face for which 'refusal?'
If you are not inciting violence, then you should be able to use the language you wish, but others can certainly socially object or return any verbal disrespect you throw at them. You can't use whatever language you please here on TPF. Neither can you textually 'treat' people as you see fit here on TPF, but the only ultimate penalty you face here, is getting banned by a mighty mod. Such is hardly an existential threat.
As Richard Feynman (nuclear physicist) said, "Nothing is mere". Natural selection has been at work from the getgo, about 3.7 billion years. You think we're ready to take over? I don't.
Quoting universeness
How successful our fiddling with the genetic level of our own species will be remains to be seen. It is waaaay too soon to assume success. Global warming and global pollution is one of the consequences of technological proliferation.
:up:
Quoting BC
Are you implying here that natural selection demonstrates objective norms or emotive preferences?
Quoting BC
Sure, that's true for 'multicellular organisms' sex is useful but asexual creatures reproduce pretty well and do planets, stars or galaxies have sex? There are many more stars in the milkyway than people on the Earth. There are many more planets in the universe than there are lifeforms on Earth.
Sex as a system does not a universe make! I don't see how your point here diminishes the case FOR trans folks to have the exact same status, as all other folks.
Quoting BC
Ok, but it does demonstrate that 'oranges are not the only fruit,' so I don't see why you cant accommodate trans folks in your biological world view and ensure they get equal status with anyone else, especially since you must agree that homosexuality can be accommodated, without any kind of significant threat to human reproduction rates.
If everyone was gay then the survival of our species may well be compromised but no such circumstance is likely, now or ever, yes?
Quoting BC
'Normal' is a very very mutable state. If a majority decide to give all trans folks the exact same status as that same 'majority,' then that will become 'normal.' This is what we are ultimately debating here imo. Normalising trans folks as full members of the human race and not a different species.
I support their freedoms. I just don't support the demand that I must conform to their beliefs and act as if it they were true.
My mind is quite closed on the topic of gender and sex. The supposed fluidity of it, I think, recognizes the ease to which people can choose costumes or defy expectations in society; but the surgery aspect proves just how solid and binary it all really is. On top of that I just cannot believe that one can alter his sex with surgery and medication or by wearing clothing and applying makeup. I think it has to be admitted that, on the whole, changing gender can only go so far as engaging in acts of deception and mimicry. I think it needs to be admitted that it is all an act, of sorts.
I think natural selection is not just a post-abiogenesis system, I think it has existed since the inflation/expansion began. I would of course never dispute anything scientific stated by Richard Feynman but I would have suggested 13.8 billion years. The term 'mere' has more validity and usefulness to me than the placeholder term 'nothing,' in any of their contextual uses.
Quoting BC
My point was not an invitation to measure the success or failure of human 'fiddling' with genetics or in our tech developments. My point is that we can do so and can therefore 'create' and 'design' and even 'usurp' aspects of natural selection. There is serious power and influence in that ability, for good or bad.
Well, firstly I think you should be debated and reasoned with as much as possible and 'demanding' you comply, should only be employed, if you are an existential threat to those you are targeting.
Your first position in the quote above seems to, in broad terms, conflict with the second, somethings gotta give in that situation or else discontent will burden your steps for a long time to come.
Quoting NOS4A2
They can't currently change their chromosomal sexuality or the gametes they produce but they can change their socially constructed gender, their psychological gender, their hormonal sex and their anatomical sex. 4 out of 6 aint bad for now. Certainly enough for a trans person to live a contented life. Why would you deny them that? What threat are they to YOU personally?
Quoting NOS4A2
Oh come on? Do you really think trans folks would go through the absolute trauma of surgery based transition as an 'act ........ of sorts?' :roll:
For all three people, they will tell you that they always knew since early childhood that somehow they were different - and that it wasn't until they were teenagers that they became aware of the trans movement and they all realized that this was who they are.
I would also add that my wife worked for years in a pre-K center (that's ages 3-5) and they had several kids who were clearly trans even at that young age.
My point here is that this is not some sort of performance/act - this is genuine.
Quoting BC
Phenotypic expression can’t be reduced to genotype, and even the understanding of genotype is much more complex than treating it in isolation as a chemical code. As a result, we have to appreciate that the ‘norms’ of biological sex , as is tru of all norms, is a post-hoc abstraction derived from a population of unique singularities. No two gendered persons are alike in the expression of their gender , and since psychological gender animates and co-determines the performance of biological sex, the same is true of the latter.
I am not talking about peoples bathroom preferences and I don't know why you think I am. I am a male I do not get a choice of which which bathroom to use I am legally obliged to use the male or disabled bathrooms.
We are talking about legal lies here and giving men access to women's identities is a legal and existential lie being forced on us
Women should not have to accomodate men in their spaces and awards because these men have chosen to feminise themselves.
As a boy at school I was beaten up by other boys in the toilets and changing rooms which means traumatic memories for life. I never thought I should be able to use the girls facilities were girls are undressing. I hated showering after sports and being naked around other boys but we were forced to and then people would jump on me and another boy and beat us up.
Girls are going through puberty and experiencing their periods and the toilet is privacy and refuge. As a vulnerable child constantly experiencing male violence I never thought my vulnerability entitled me to womens things and I envied girls at times.
But no one can pull the vulnerability card with me I am gay male who grew up in a religious cult being told my sexuality was evil, also autistic and bullied and ostracised by people throughout child.
Exactly how many of the moderators here are gay, female, autistic and so on?
But the principle and philosophic point is that you can't call somethings a woman's right, space or identity if you include provably biological men in its category. Unless you can show that is possible.
To be fair, if Judith Butler is right—and I think she broadly is—the gender expression of trans people indeed is an act of sorts. But then, so is the gender expression of cisgender people.
Never heard of Judith Butler but did a quick google search and read from wiki:
Judith Pamela Butler[3] (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender studies writer whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism,[4] queer theory,[5] and literary theory.[6] In 1993, Butler began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where they have served, beginning in 1998, as the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory. They are also the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School (EGS).
If what you are saying can be boiled down to 'we are all actors,' then perhaps Shakespeare will suffice:
So trans folks can stand on the universal stage, with the rest of us, as fellow actors of equal status and value.
Well put!
It's probably important to try to bracket off personal experiences and trauma from an understanding of a broader social issue. While lived experience can sometimes be a helpful frame, it can also colour and distort a person's views.
In my work life, I have only ever used unisex bathrooms. In over 30 years it has never been an issue.
For my money it is important in life not to be too concrete about human behaviour. I see trans women (and some men) at work. Have done for many years. They quite properly use women's services and bathrooms without incident or problems. Functionally it works. Humans have the capacity to be inclusive and accommodating.
Sure, anyone can dig out some horror stories - as you can about any human behavior. But a deliberate focus only on examples where things might have gone wrong does a disservice to any social issue.
:up:
For what it's worth Andrew, the experiences you describe in your youth are horrific.
I wish they had not happened to you.
They won't be normal, they will be as equal as the majority make it, within the legal framework. Complete equality, within the legal system or not, generally doesn't prevail. ("All are equal before the law" is good rhetoric, but all sorts of barriers arise that prevent "perfect equality".)
Quoting universeness
I haven't heard anybody (anywhere) deny their humanity or describe them as a different species.
Does it make a difference if a clerk, an administrator, a lawyer, a professor, etc. is trans? I don't think it matters. does it make a difference if a M to F trans athlete brings a male body's advantage to compete with women? Many women think that circumstance is unfair.
Gender dysphoria is no act. I have no doubt it is painful and debilitating, and that those who deal with it deserve respect and compassion.
The act is in the expression, not the dysphoria. My problem is their biology betrays their claims and their desires. The fact that their gender expression is incongruous with their sex means quite simply that their feelings and expressions don't conform to the fact of their sex—or it represents some other, hidden biological fact, like neuroanatomy.
In short, the dysphoria is the problem, not the sex. All medications, surgeries, and therapy ought to be used to rectify the one and not to permanently damage the other. It's a humanitarian issue, too. Should we arrive at a cure, who are we going to blame for convincing a vulnerable people to take such drastic, and physically altering measures, from which there is no return?
The nativist view posits that individuals are born either biological women or men, with the expectation that their gender expressions naturally align with their biological sexes. While some nativists acknowledge that gender dysphoria may be innate, they often label it as an anomaly.
On the other hand, the social constructivist perspective suggests that gender expressions merely reflect societal norms relating to sex. Some even argue that biological sexes, not just gender expressions, are socially constructed.
However, I believe that both views are rooted in shared assumptions that generate a false dichotomy.
Indeed, the modes of gender expression available within a society or social group are socially constituted, representing prevailing norms. The arbitrariness or justification of these norms can be as varied as those of other societal norms, such as laws, ethical principles, customs, and etiquette.
Judith Butler's performative view, as I understand it, is not necessarily a radical social constructivist stance. Rather, it can be reconciled with the idea that innate biological tendencies guide individuals towards certain gender expressions during their "normal" development. However, this does not imply that the specific modes of these expressions are innate or biologically predetermined. The modes themselves still are provided and shaped by the individual's culture and society.
When an individual's subjectivity or spontaneous gender expression conflicts with societal norms, labeling this as an anomaly can be seen as a form of naturalistic fallacy. The fact that a majority of individuals in a society naturally align with or enact a particular social norm does not, on its own, provide broad justification for that norm. This majority alignment, however, does underscore that maintaining the status quo or conformity can often be more convenient and less disruptive. Yet this is a limited form of justification, one that frequently neglects the needs or rights of individuals and minority groups.
Such broad justifications can easily veer into oppressive territory, particularly when they are justified through appeals to biological essentialism, another manifestation of the naturalistic fallacy.
There is some evidence of this. See Brain Sex Differences Related to Gender Identity Development: Genes or Hormones?
Although as the study says, this shouldn't be misconstrued as saying that there's such a thing as a male and female brain.
Quoting NOS4A2
Surgery often is the "cure" (or at least a beneficial treatment). See Association Between Gender-Affirming Surgeries and Mental Health Outcomes:
And I suspect that if society were more accepting of transgender people then improvements in mental health after surgery would be even greater.
That makes sense. The use of certain words such as "he", "she", "man", and "woman", as well as the types of clothes that people wear, have nothing to do with biology (except for the obvious case of bras being used to support breasts) and everything to do with social custom (even if such social customs are guided by biology).
Was slavery normal until a majority decided to make it abnormal and then did 'no slavery' become normal? Legal enforcement is about enforcing that which is NOW considered normal.
Quoting BC
I have heard many people directly say to me that gays, trans folks etc are to them, like a different species. I have heard many het cis men friends say women are like a different species to them.
I have even heard Glasgow Celtic supporters call Glasgow Rangers supporters a different species.
'Different species,' is used as a colloquial insult all the time, in my experience.
Quoting BC
I agree, that situation sounds unfair to me as well. I don't really care about competitive sports however, so I am unable to get 'angry' about that aspect. I do think a solution does have to be found, to redress that imbalance. I remember reading about a proposed testosterone reduction course of treatments, that could redress that balance, but I cant remember any details and I cant find the original on-line article I read. I am sure it was a New Scientist Magazine article, but I have unsuccessfully searched for it online, twice.
It would be good if we had the technology to allow you, me, or anyone who wants to, to do a Vulcan, spock style mindmeld with a trans man, woman or child, or perhaps all three. Perhaps we would all gain an understanding of why transitioning is the only cure for what ails them.
Hey, don't forget the essential testicular support that a well designed pair of comfy boxer shorts can offer a man about town! Running for example, can have painful consequences for a 'true' Scotsman in a kilt in his youth. I have personally experienced this!!! :groan:
I wish I was faster or smarter, blonder or darker, stronger or taller. I wish I was richer not poorer.
I would like to be funnier and prettier but most of all I want to to be sexier.
Everything strong or beautiful tear it down;
Anything inspirational or natural, uplifting to meaningful tear it down
Wise or honest, logical or reasonable tear it down, tear it down.
Everything weak or odd lift it up
Anything demoralising or corrupt, demeaning or meaningless lift it up
Superficial or deceitful, irrational or dim lift it up, lift it up.