[ED] Discussion: Trans Women Are not Women (Part 6)

[Collin237]

Actually... quite a number of the world's actual leading experts in this field have been viciously harassed and persecuted for their view on this topic, by people who are NOT experts, and aren't even working in the mental health field.

The mental health field can only deal with conditions involving belief. When doctors in other fields show them evidence that being transgender is not a belief, they cry "I'm being harassed".

 

[Collin237]

Regarding the blue: No. This is false. Females are under-represtend in legislative bodies, and are becoming further underrepresented as their positions are taken by males who identify as women.

That's the kind of comment that gives you a reputation of being irrational. There is no significant cohort of transgender people in governments.

There are many people who make similar claims about Jews. Don't act surprised when you're considered to be in the same ilk.

 

[Collin237]

5 - Gender is a social construct, largely a spectrum, and has some degree of correlation to sex but is not circumscribed by sex... and there should be segregation based on the type of genitalia you have, and I don't give a rat's backside how you dress or whether you wear makeup. - Rational human being who understand that females got the short end of things

Rational people know that being transgender has nothing to do with clothes or makeup. It's a condition, FFS! Do you also think there's a style of clothing that indicates autism?

 

[Collin237]

All of these categories may have a lifestyle that includes full or part-time female gender expression. They do not need dysphoria, medical transition, or even to identify as a woman to be accommodated in female spaces under these new trans rights policies. A heterosexual man who cross-dresses for sexual excitement is covered (as long as he breaks no other law of course- but that goes for all of them).

The "umbrella" is an attempt to erase transgender people, and deny them respectful medical care, by drowning them in a sea of imitators.

 

[d4m10n]

I've asked multiple times how exactly we know the psychiatrists are obviously 100% correct now but obviously 100% wrong back when all of this was lumped under "mental disorder" and have gotten nothing resembling an answer.

I'm still not clear on why psychiatrists should matter if we're discussing gender identity in the absence of clinically significant distress.

No one needs to experience dysphoria in order to (validly) identify as another gender, right?

 

[Collin237]

SO: Explain like I’m 5 how a male can validly identify as a female when the biological difference between male and female is much more significant than between white and black.

The brain is the most important component of sexuality, but also the organ in which the difference is least significant. Having a brain with a gender opposite the rest of the body is considered by society as an affront to Western Civilization's obsession with putting every topic into one or the other side of a "war" between science and religion.

A male should be able to identify as having a brain that seems to be female, and the rest of the body that is male. But Western-influenced society insists they make further claims -- and then punishes them for it.

 

[Collin237]

I'm still not clear on why psychiatrists should matter if we're discussing gender identity in the absence of clinically significant distress.

No one needs to experience dysphoria in order to (validly) identify as another gender, right?

Perhaps not actual dysphoria, but yes they need to experience something unusual about their gender. But society doesn't give them a respectful way of proving it. Society just says "we believe you, sign here", and then accuses them of making it up.

 

[caveman1917]

Exactly. And you can't simultaneously want gender to be very important, special and meaningful AND be whatever you feel like at a given moment.

You can if you're convinced that whatever feelings you have at any given moment must be super important, special and meaningful to others.

 

[LondonJohn]

Probably because it's an absurd strawman argument.

This is truly the thread that keeps on giving, isn't it?

Fortunately, you and I are, with regard to this issue, a) on the right side of morality and decency, and b) destined to be on the right side of history. No matter the increasingly-desperate rationalisations and negations of anyone else.

The mental health, sociology and (relevant) medical communities already know and understand this, of course. Governments and legislators in "western" liberal democracies are increasingly coming to understand this and are acting accordingly (while, obviously, keeping a very careful eye on any unintended negative outcomes).

It's probably time for me - like you - pretty much to leave this thread for the reactionaries and naysayers to continue chasing their tails on the subject. There seems little point in continuing to bang one's proverbial head against a brick wall. The past page or so of posts are merely the latest illustration of the problem: negations of expert-body judgements when it suits, harbinger-of-doom Reefer-Madness-style predictions, manipulation and false amplification of facts, hand-waving away of transgender identity as a valid human condition..... It's clear to me that no real progress will be - or can be - made within this thread. On a sceptics' forum AHAHAHAHA!

 

[Collin237]

This is truly the thread that keeps on giving, isn't it?

Fortunately, you and I are, with regard to this issue, a) on the right side of morality and decency, and b) destined to be on the right side of history. No matter the increasingly-desperate rationalisations and negations of anyone else.

The mental health, sociology and (relevant) medical communities already know and understand this, of course. Governments and legislators in "western" liberal democracies are increasingly coming to understand this and are acting accordingly (while, obviously, keeping a very careful eye on any unintended negative outcomes).

It's probably time for me - like you - pretty much to leave this thread for the reactionaries and naysayers to continue chasing their tails on the subject. There seems little point in continuing to bang one's proverbial head against a brick wall. The past page or so of posts are merely the latest illustration of the problem: negations of expert-body judgements when it suits, harbinger-of-doom Reefer-Madness-style predictions, manipulation and false amplification of facts, hand-waving away of transgender identity as a valid human condition..... It's clear to me that no real progress will be - or can be - made within this thread. On a sceptics' forum AHAHAHAHA!

Wow! Who do you think you are? Jesus?

 

[caveman1917]

You keep appealing to the decisions of government bodies, as proxies for the authoritative recommendations of the scientists.

What people keep asking you to do, and which you so far have not done, is cite the actual authoritative recommendations of the scientists themselves. Your go-to source is always the UK Office for National Statistics. Never the actual science their guidance is based on.

Why do you put so much faith in government, that they're getting the science right and the policy right? So much faith that you don't even bother to look it up and cite it yourself, you just trust the government to have it all figured out?

Well it's typical woo argumentation for starters, claim that your assertions are backed by science and then spend page after page refusing to provide scientific sources, but instead throw out whatever you can find that isn't an actual scientific source (from government bodies to opinion pieces in pop-sci magazines etc).

One of the central tenets of postmodern ideology is also that scientific findings must be subservient to what postmodernists believe to be a progressive political agenda, see Sokal's and Bricmont's writings on the subject for a good exposition. One can see this reflected in LondonJohn's grandiose claims of his own purportedly progressiveness and the denunciations of his critics as reactionaries - such denunciations in lieu of arguments also being a cornerstone of postmodern argumentation.

It mostly just shows how pomos, not having the slightest clue how science works (or indeed how logic or even basic reasoning skills work, in the case of LondonJohn), believe science should be. When asked for a scientific source to back up their assertions, they don't hear "Please provided a peer-reviewed paper in a high-impact journal containing the evidence for this assertion" but they just hear "Please show me an Authority who asserts this." As far as they see it, science is (or rather should be) nothing more than Authorities making bare assertions. Well, "progressive" Authorities at least, not the "reactionary" ones.

Again, Sokal, Bricmont, and several others have written extensively about this. It was cute the first time around but now it's just annoying. Something about history repeating first as a tragedy and then as a farce, I suppose.

 

[Collin237]

Well it's typical woo argumentation for starters, claim that your assertions are backed by science and then spend page after page refusing to provide scientific sources, but instead throw out whatever you can find that isn't an actual scientific source (from government bodies to opinion pieces in pop-sci magazines etc).

One of the central tenets of postmodern ideology is also that scientific findings must be subservient to what postmodernists believe to be a progressive political agenda, see Sokal's and Bricmont's writings on the subject for a good exposition. One can see this reflected in LondonJohn's grandiose claims of his own purportedly progressiveness and the denunciations of his critics as reactionaries - such denunciations in lieu of arguments also being a cornerstone of postmodern argumentation.

It mostly just shows how pomos, not having the slightest clue how science works (or indeed how logic or even basic reasoning skills work, in the case of LondonJohn), believe science should be. When asked for a scientific source to back up their assertions, they don't hear "Please provided a peer-reviewed paper in a high-impact journal containing the evidence for this assertion" but they just hear "Please show me an Authority who asserts this." As far as they see it, science is (or rather should be) nothing more than Authorities making bare assertions. Well, "progressive" Authorities at least, not the "reactionary" ones.

Again, Sokal, Bricmont, and several others have written extensively about this. It was cute the first time around but now it's just annoying. Something about history repeating first as a tragedy and then as a farce, I suppose.

It's even weirder with LondonJohn, because he has blind trust in Western governments, whereas postmodernists are supposed to consider them evil incarnate.

Maybe LondonJohn is a member of Unesco? ETA

 

[TurkeysGhost]

HB 1570 was just passed through both chambers in the Arkansas legislature, banning trans youth from accessing health care and health insurance coverage that we deserve and need.

Our rights and lives are under attack.

Governor Hutchinson must veto this bill.

https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1376649059096788999

ACLU indicates they will sue the state should the governor sign this anti-trans bill into law. Surely the first of many bigoted anti-trans bills to pass in red states as trans people become the punching bag for conservative culture warriors.

Gay bashing is so last decade, trans bashing is the new hotness.

 

[Elaedith]

Cantor, (an actual expert on gender dysphoria and transgender identity) had a tweet regarding 'being on the right side of history'.

 

[d4m10n]

Society just says "we believe you, sign here", and then accuses them of making it up.

What's wrong with making it up? If someone doesn't want the hassle of being subjected to either masculine or feminine social norms, why not just declare themselves non-binary? What more ought we expect, given that non-binary identity isn't contingent on psychiatric diagnosis?

 

[sarge]

Actually, my position is a bit more nuanced than that, even though you never seem able to follow it.

People with penises (genitally intact males and transwomen post-op) should use the same rooms as penis-havers use. People with vulvas (genitally intact females and transwomen post-op) should use the vulva-havers rooms.

It seems to be a cause of confusion to you. I don't have animosity toward transpeople, and I don't (generally) have any issue with their identity*. I have an issue with allowing a completely unverifiable internal identity to override the realities of biological sex. I object to the mixing of genitalia, where one set of genitals can make the other set pregnant against their will.

Look - I can explain my reasoning, and the reasoning of a great many females, as to why we wish to retain sex-segregation.

Why is it important for transpeople to override that sex-segregation? What is accomplished by allowing people to override sex-segregation based on their unsubstantiated claim to a gender identity? What is gained? On the other hand, what is the problem with allowing sex-segregation to remain? What is the problem that it presents to transgender people?

I’ve tried to explain my position on privacy space assignment several times. I thought I was saying essentially this consistently.

I do not believe that assigning sex-based spaces on the basis of sex is transphobic. I do not believe that a persons sex is changed by a persons self-described gender identity. This belief does not make me transphobic. I do not believe that a trans woman’s desire to use the women’s bathroom or changing room is as important as women’s desire not to share space with unwanted penis’s. This also does not make me transphobic.

 

[Collin237]

https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1376649059096788999

Shouldn't that be "their" health and rights, not "our"?

 

[Collin237]

What's wrong with making it up? If someone doesn't want the hassle of being subjected to either masculine or feminine social norms, why not just declare themselves non-binary? What more ought we expect, given that non-binary identity isn't contingent on psychiatric diagnosis?

In a liberal democracy, nobody is supposed to be subjected to social norms. If they are, why not just assert their human rights? Why make up a new category, which implies agreement with some wannabe-tyrant's assumption that being human isn't enough?

 

[Elaedith]

What's wrong with making it up? If someone doesn't want the hassle of being subjected to either masculine or feminine social norms, why not just declare themselves non-binary? What more ought we expect, given that non-binary identity isn't contingent on psychiatric diagnosis?

I'm not sure this does remove the 'hassle of being subjected to either masculine or feminine social norms'.

I perceive myself as androgynous (not in terms of biological sex, obviously, or in appearance, but psychologically I regard myself as having about an even mix of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits or being midpoint on such traits).

Changing one's appearance (and name, pronoun) to the extent that it is difficult for people to work out what sex one is might make it impossible for people to impose social norms, but seems rather drastic. Declaring oneself to be another gender and making one's pronoun match one's 'identity' without changing presentation won't really affect the fact that people tend to react differently based on the perceived sex of an individual. To the extent that it is claimed to do so, it is implying that one somehow it is ok to assume conformity to norms, but based on self-declared gender rather than sex.

 

[Belz...]

Sure, they could, but it would be a significantly different type of thing, for the reasons I gave above.

But you have no reason to think those reasons are actually true. Some people have body dysphoria in a way that they believe that one of their limbs shouldn't be there. If they amputate it, the dysphoria vanishes.

How does this squard with your understanding? I'm not cerain that there is a limit to the possible types of body dysphoria, and especially IF we're to accept the "it's whatever your feel like right now" argument, that we have a leg to stand on to handwave some types of dysphoria away while accepting others.