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

[Earthborn]

If I sat here and thought about it, I can easily see that I tick off boxes in both male and female gender roles. (snip) Whatever the case, maybe I would have come to a conclusion that I am non-binary or a trans female that likes women?

Depends on how you felt about your body. That is far more relevant than how well you fit in with gender stereotypes. If you look around I think you'll find quite a few transwomen who seem more stereotypically male than you, but that doesn't make them less trans.

 

[Collin237]

I have scrolled through. Of course he said nothing of the sort. It's empty platitudes. Not relevant to this thread.

Empty platitudes are run-of-the-mill for politicians. What's relevant is that you're putting your own loaded questions into his mouth. If you thought so poorly of those questions that you had to blame them on Biden, why did you even post them?

 

[Meadmaker]

Allowing a child to express their gender in their own way, including taking on another gender role, is exactly what transitioning is.

It's another area of vocabulary that is often misunderstood and used inconsistently, and sometimes the inconsistency is just equivocation.

Some people use "transition" to refer only to medical treatments (hormones, puberty blockers, surgery, etc.) while others include "social transition", which is what you have described.

I'm not complaining about the way you are using the language, just lamenting that it gets hard to talk about sometimes because a person will say "transitioning" and it might not be possible to understand what is really meant by the term.

 

[Meadmaker]

It's another area of vocabulary that is often misunderstood and used inconsistently, and sometimes the inconsistency is just equivocation.

Some people use "transition" to refer only to medical treatments (hormones, puberty blockers, surgery, etc.) while others include "social transition", which is what you have described.

I'm not complaining about the way you are using the language, just lamenting that it gets hard to talk about sometimes because a person will say "transitioning" and it might not be possible to understand what is really meant by the term.

Moreover, sometimes it is used for equivocation, and it creates confusion, sometimes deliberately, in talking about policy.

The example I am specifically thinking of is that some people would compromise on the issue of male participation in female sports, if that person has transitioned.

That last word is deliberately ambiguous. The person compromising would probably mean medically transitioned, and another person would say that as long as they have socially transitioned, a male ought to be able to participate in the female division. It creates a lot of confusion.

 

[Elaedith]

It's another area of vocabulary that is often misunderstood and used inconsistently, and sometimes the inconsistency is just equivocation.

Some people use "transition" to refer only to medical treatments (hormones, puberty blockers, surgery, etc.) while others include "social transition", which is what you have described.

I'm not complaining about the way you are using the language, just lamenting that it gets hard to talk about sometimes because a person will say "transitioning" and it might not be possible to understand what is really meant by the term.

Socially transitioning usually refers to explicitly endorsing the child's belief that they are the other sex and affirming this with a new pronoun, name etc. I am not using 'transitioning' to refer only to medical treatment, nor to refer to allowing the child to express whatever gender behaviours (as in toy preferences, clothing etc) they want. Defining allowing a child to express gender non-conforming behaviours as transitioning is to explicitly enforce gender conformity.

Watchful waiting as it is defined in all sources I have seen (including the ones I cited) as delaying explicit affirmation and social transitioning (e.g. agreeing explicitly with the child's statements about being the other sex and using different pronouns etc), typically until puberty or the age of 12. The gender affirmation approach says that transitioning should not be delayed. This is based on politics and ideology rather than science, as Cantor explained in his analysis of the total misrepresentation of evidence in the AAP statement.

It has long been recognised that puberty is a pivotal point for divergence in children whose dysphoria will persist and who will want to transition and those who will desist.

 

[theprestige]

Empty platitudes are run-of-the-mill for politicians. What's relevant is that you're putting your own loaded questions into his mouth. If you thought so poorly of those questions that you had to blame them on Biden, why did you even post them?

I don't think poorly of the questions. I think they're the central questions of this thread. If Biden isn't posting his answers to those questions on Facebook, then why mention him at all in this context?

 

[xjx388]

Depends on how you felt about your body. That is far more relevant than how well you fit in with gender stereotypes. If you look around I think you'll find quite a few transwomen who seem more stereotypically male than you, but that doesn't make them less trans.

How one feels about their body isn't necessarily something that is deep in the psyche, as unalterable as sexual orientation. Body Dysmorphic Disorder comes to mind. A person with BDD percieves their body as severely flawed when there is no obvious flaw. A woman of normal weight might think she is grossly overweight, for example. BDD is treatable with therapy.

But you can't even bring up the idea of treating Gender Dysphoria with therapy. We are assured that it isn't a mental disorder. I'm not so sure about that. It's very difficult for me to understand why someone who has BDD or other kinds of perceptions that don't match reality can be said to have a mental disorder but not people whose perceptions of their gender don't match their biological sex.

I guess my larger point is that I don't think it's right to say that gender is some intrinsic part of our psyche that is unalterable. This is clearly not true. Gender itself is a social construct and the way we percieve our gender, our gender identites, is developed through interaction with society.

 

[Collin237]

I don't think poorly of the questions. I think they're the central questions of this thread. If Biden isn't posting his answers to those questions on Facebook, then why mention him at all in this context?

You mentioned him first. Why did you?

 

[theprestige]

You mentioned him first.

You're very confused.

 

[Earthborn]

Some people use "transition" to refer only to medical treatments (hormones, puberty blockers, surgery, etc.) while others include "social transition", which is what you have described.

I think the term "transition" should be clear enough that implies some movement from one state to another, with many small steps in between, and that there is no clear cut-off point between definitely not transitioning and definitely definitely transitioning. When we are talking about transitioning pre-pubescent children, I think it should be obvious we are talking about social transitioning.

 

[Meadmaker]

Socially transitioning usually refers to explicitly endorsing the child's belief that they are the other sex and affirming this with a new pronoun, name etc. I am not using 'transitioning' to refer only to medical treatment, nor to refer to allowing the child to express whatever gender behaviours (as in toy preferences, clothing etc) they want. Defining allowing a child to express gender non-conforming behaviours as transitioning is to explicitly enforce gender conformity.

Watchful waiting as it is defined in all sources I have seen (including the ones I cited) as delaying explicit affirmation and social transitioning (e.g. agreeing explicitly with the child's statements about being the other sex and using different pronouns etc), typically until puberty or the age of 12. The gender affirmation approach says that transitioning should not be delayed. This is based on politics and ideology rather than science, as Cantor explained in his analysis of the total misrepresentation of evidence in the AAP statement.

It has long been recognised that puberty is a pivotal point for divergence in children whose dysphoria will persist and who will want to transition and those who will desist.

Thanks for the clarification.

Interesting.

"Watchful waiting" sure seems to make sense. I apologize if I mess up the terms sometimes. It sometimes gets confusing.

 

[Collin237]

How one feels about their body isn't necessarily something that is deep in the psyche, as unalterable as sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation is how one feels about the relationship between one's genitalia and that of others. If that's "deep in the psyche", then so is the feeling of one's genitalia that it refers to.

 

[Collin237]

Thanks for the clarification.

Interesting.

"Watchful waiting" sure seems to make sense. I apologize if I mess up the terms sometimes. It sometimes gets confusing.

It makes sense to me too. Perhaps the biggest question is why can't the U.S. handle it? I think that's because it requires a kind of empathy that psychologists here aren't trained to have. (or are trained not to have!)

 

[Collin237]

You're very confused.

I stand corrected.

 

[Earthborn]

How one feels about their body isn't necessarily something that is deep in the psyche, as unalterable as sexual orientation.

In some people it is, and in some people sexual orientation can shift. Your experience of a fixed sexual orientation is not shared by everyone; some people consider themselves bisexual, and may sometimes have a preference for one sex, and sometimes another.

But you can't even bring up the idea of treating Gender Dysphoria with therapy.

You can bring it up, as long as you don't suggest trying to alter a person's identity.

 

[theprestige]

In some people it is, and in some people sexual orientation can shift. Your experience of a fixed sexual orientation is not shared by everyone; some people consider themselves bisexual, and may sometimes have a preference for one sex, and sometimes another.

Is it even possible to misdiagnose gender dysphoria in children?

 

[lomiller]

And so on. These people didn't choose to be transgender. It was something deep in their psyche which (somehow) did the choosing for them. It was, in a real sense, forced upon them. Many of them struggled to come to terms with it (= gender dysphoria). To consider it to be a matter of discretionary choice - which also implies that they could equally have chosen not to be transgender - is (IMO) incorrect,

If we define gender as being different than biological sex it then it isn't something hardcoded in biology. Since different cultures have different ideas on what makes up femininity It must be some sort of learned behavior probabaly based on cultural traditions surrounding division of labor.

In a modern post-industrial society these division of labor are outdated and unneeded and so are the notions of gender built on them so it's no surprise that some people would feel "they don't fit". The smart thing to do would be to ditch the traditional preconceptions of masculinity\femininity. Instead some people are [B[choosing[/B] to hold these preconceptions as sacrosanct and instead try to change their own physical bodies to better fit these obsolete standards.

 

[xjx388]

In some people it is, and in some people sexual orientation can shift. Your experience of a fixed sexual orientation is not shared by everyone; some people consider themselves bisexual, and may sometimes have a preference for one sex, and sometimes another.

I've heard bisexual people describe themselves as being attracted to people, not sexes. I don't think you can characterize this as a shift in orientation. But I'm open to the idea.

You can bring it up, as long as you don't suggest trying to alter a person's identity.

What is an "identity" in the first place? Identity is not some fixed, innate piece of our psychological make up. It's always being altered by experience and our inner-reflections on that experience. Therapy for any mental condition is always going to have some effect on one's identity.

 

[theprestige]

I think the term "transition" should be clear enough that implies some movement from one state to another, with many small steps in between, and that there is no clear cut-off point between definitely not transitioning and definitely definitely transitioning. When we are talking about transitioning pre-pubescent children, I think it should be obvious we are talking about social transitioning.

How could that possibly be obvious, when part of the conversation about transitioning pre-pubescent children is whether to prescribe puberty blockers?

Unless you, like the Arkansas legislature, are saying anything other that social transitioning should be entirely off the table to begin with. Is that what you're saying?

 

[caveman1917]

The selection process does not even need to be really good

It doesn't need to be good? Strong claim, given that erroneous application of puberty blockers could be considered conversion therapy[*] (changing a homosexual outcome into a heterosexual one). I noticed you haven't answered my request for evidence that this selection process is, in fact, anything better than random chance. Is this because no such evidence exists?

* I suppose it could be debated whether it constitutes conversion therapy since, strictly speaking, it doesn't change the person's sexual orientation - it merely changes the person's own sex so that the same sexual orientation (attraction to a specific sex) goes from "homosexual" to "heterosexual."