Cont: [ED] Discussion: Trans Women are not Women (Part 5)

[Meadmaker]

And I've also suffered a temporary loss of physical gender because of a kidney stone. So I have a vague idea of where trans people's concerns are coming from.

?

I've had a kidney stone once. I don't think I lost my physical gender during it, although I might have been happy to do so at that time, but I don't think it gave me any insight into being transgender.

I think you are using terms in a, let's say, unconventional manner.

 

[theprestige]

You're right. TBH it's a bias from my own life experience.

As to sports, I've always been bad at sports, so I guess I'm a bit of a sour grapes.

Is this the civility you learned from your grandmother? That when someone asks you a serious and civil question, you dismiss it out of hand due to personal bias?

What part of philosophy privileges personal bias over dispassionate rational examination?

 

[theprestige]

It's a wikipedia reference. When there is a claim that might be disputed and it is not directly drawn from a clear source, there will be a note that "citation needed". It's used here s a shorthand for, "You've said something here that I really don't believe. Do you have any evidence it is actually true?"

Another common pattern is to have a one word reply:




Depending on who does it and how, it can be a very appropriate question, or it can be an obnoxious way of ignoring what a poster says.

Evidence?

 

[theprestige]

So you weren't just being difficult. You were actually deliberately manipulating me. Why should I trust anything you've said anymore?

You made a claim. I said I'd stipulate that your claim was correct. It never crossed my mind that this could manipulate you into anything.

Did you seriously think that I was saying I had support for your claim?

Do you seriously believe I tricked you into drawing conclusions from a claim you made but couldn't support?

You know what? Hold off on reading the rest of the thread. I don't think we're ready for that yet.

---

Honestly the whole point of the stipulation was to make things easier for you, not more difficult.

 

[Sherkeu]

Because in the case of gender, the evidence shows that surgery usually helps but mental therapy usually doesn't.

We have discussed the parallels with BIID. Same scenario. For BIID sufferers "Pretending" to be disabled is a way to cope but surgery (usually amputation) seems to be the best way to alleviate the condition. Patients can be at high risk for self-harm.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3326051/

Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) is a rare, infrequently studied and highly secretive condition in which there is a mismatch between the mental body image and the physical body. Subjects suffering from BIID have an intense desire to amputate a major limb or severe the spinal cord in order to become paralyzed.

For affected individuals, BIID desires are essential to life and not the result of major somatic or psychiatric morbidity. Further research is warranted to reveal the aetiology of this condition. Physicians need to be aware of BIID when meeting someone with a wish for unusual body modifications. Careful discussions of this desire are essential. Next to surgery there is no effective management strategy at present but the sheer acknowledgment of and respect for the desires of BIID individuals may decrease the huge burden of BIID on their lives.

It is ethically controversial however to actually give these patients the thing that seems to work...amputation of a healthy limb. Instead, researchers focus on finding the cause and a way to treat it so these patients can feel whole without becoming permanently disabled.

In the case of BIID the strategy is to work to find effective treatments and avoid a medical "transition".

The strategy in dealing with gender dysphoria- even among very young patients- seems to be going in a different direction of affirming and offering transitions. Finding a cause and effective treatment for them to remain comfortable with their birth sex in tact could be considered 'transphobic' (and likely compared to gay conversion).

You can search the thread where we have had discussions about this.

 

[d4m10n]

We're discussing whether people should be legally barred from certain spaces and categories.

I'm skeptical whether we agree about the scope of the topic here. Plenty of discussion upthread as to what sex- and/or gender-related policies ought to be adopted by leagues, gyms, pools, restaurants, etc. even in the absence of legal guidance or compulsion.

 

[Emily's Cat]

1. I'm not an activist.
2. I have no way of knowing whether this is a common occurrence.
3. I think sports are vastly overrated, so I don't much care.

Allow me to express my skepticism. You suggest here that you don't have any opinions and you've been incredibly resistant to expressing your personal views... and yet you don't seem to have any trouble deriding those of us who do have well-thought out positions and considerations on this topic.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I was referring to her as an example of a viewpoint. I don't take her seriously. I just think she gets the big picture, in a comedic sort of way.

What big picture is that?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Could you please provide Aber with citations?

Are you Aber? If not, then either ask for yourself or stop speaking for others, please.

 

[Emily's Cat]

If that's the case, then where does the claim that trans women should be on women's teams come from?

It comes from transwomen and transgirls and their allies who WANT to be on women's teams.

Seriously, this isn't rocket science. This is some day-one stuff in this topic.

Honest question, since you're new here: Do you actually want to discuss this topic? Or are you trying to troll and get people's goat here?

 

[theprestige]

It comes from transwomen and transgirls and their allies who WANT to be on women's teams.

Seriously, this isn't rocket science. This is some day-one stuff in this topic.

Honest question, since you're new here: Do you actually want to discuss this topic? Or are you trying to troll and get people's goat here?

Literally the very first post in in the thread, the one that kicked the whole thing off, says one of the places it comes from.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I said "Because in the case of gender, the evidence shows that surgery usually helps but mental therapy usually doesn't."

Aber said "citation needed".

I don't have citations. You said I was correct, so I assume you have citations. You offered to provide citations for anything I dispute. I do not dispute when you said "Thanks. I'm happy to stipulate for now that the best medical evidence really does show this." Why should I try to duplicate information that you already have? You're the one that tried to trick me into contradicting myself.

theprestige stipulated that your claim was correct - he accepted it provisionally in the course of discussion without challenge.

If you don't have any sources or information to back up your claim... why are you making it? What makes you believe that it's true? You reference evidence, so the rest of us assume that you have actually, at some point, seen and reviewed something that you consider to be evidence.

Provide that information, please.

A link to a real source would be nice, but at this point, I'd settle for a run-down of your reasoning and rationale. That would be an enormous step-up from where you're at right now.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I accept that it's not important to you, and perhaps there are cultures where it is not important to most people.

Can you think of anything that should be socially segregated by gender? I think the example from upthread was women's clothiers as opposed to men's.

IIRC, it was more that it makes sense to separate men's and women's clothing. But it's also worth noting that they aren't legally separated.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Is the term used outside of ISF? I got the feeling it started as a Jabba thing. Maybe it's older than that.

This thread is the first time I've seen it used, but the meaning was pretty clear from context.

 

[Emily's Cat]

My argument is that their concerns could be taken seriously if they were presented with civility. You say I'm just like every other TRK. Well, I got my concept of civility from my grandmother who was a philosopher in Lithuania. Is there anyone else on this thread who can make that claim?

You came into this thread with some rather uncivil comments... and now you're insinuating that the arguments put forth by others aren't civil enough for you?

Your "claim" is rather irrelevant. I don't happen to have a Lithuanian philosopher as a grandmother... but I've got a family full of people who understand common courtesy, human decency, and logic. Does that count?

Oh, ethics is also a standard element of my career, and is part of my continuing education on a regular basis. So there's that too

 

[d4m10n]

IIRC, it was more that it makes sense to separate men's and women's clothing. But it's also worth noting that they aren't legally separated.

Please see my response at #1880 as to whether it's okay to discuss social norms and policies other than those enforced by law.

 

[Emily's Cat]

As to gender, I've never felt essentialist about being "masculine". And I've also suffered a temporary loss of physical gender because of a kidney stone. So I have a vague idea of where trans people's concerns are coming from.

This is clearly a personal question, and if you prefer not to answer, that's fine.

What does the highlighted mean? In what way did a kidney stone cause a temporary loss of gender? What does gender mean in this context?

 

[Emily's Cat]

?

I've had a kidney stone once. I don't think I lost my physical gender during it, although I might have been happy to do so at that time, but I don't think it gave me any insight into being transgender.

I think you are using terms in a, let's say, unconventional manner.

I'm wondering if he experienced erectile dysfunction as a result of a kidney stone, which seem quite plausible. But I don't think any of us here would think that is at all similar to losing "gender".

It would be akin to me claiming that I'd temporarily lost my gender when I was on hormone suppressants prior to a uterine surgery.

 

[Emily's Cat]

So you weren't just being difficult. You were actually deliberately manipulating me. Why should I trust anything you've said anymore?

No, he wasn't. theprestige provisionally accepted your claim without challenge, because that specific claim wasn't central to the line of discussion he was interested in - that of your personal views on the topic.

As a parallel, I have provisionally accepted your claim to have a Lithuanian philosopher for a grandma. I honestly have no idea if it's true or not, but it neither adds nor subtracts from the discussion... so I don't see any rational reason to challenge that claim. It's not central to the discussion in any way.

 

[Meadmaker]

I'm wondering if he experienced erectile dysfunction as a result of a kidney stone, which seem quite plausible. But I don't think any of us here would think that is at all similar to losing "gender".

It would be akin to me claiming that I'd temporarily lost my gender when I was on hormone suppressants prior to a uterine surgery.

I wondered if that's what he meant. Maybe even as a side effect of medication?

Thinking about the one time I had a kidney stone, I could not tell you one way or another whether I had erectile dysfunction, because it was not even a thing that was on my mind.