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

[Collin237]

Such as?

Such as the ones in the podcast.

https://podtail.com/no/podcast/atheistically-speaking/sio284-debunking-the-end-of-gender-part-1/

 

[theprestige]

So much for the productive discussion about trans rights that LJ and ST said we could have.

 

[Paul2]

People can have conditions where they can see an arm is there, but think that it shouldn't be (or that it doesn't belong to them). There is most likely a neurological explanation for this (it can occur with brain damage). It is still regarded as a delusion, but not associated with mental illness (often called a monothematic delusion).

Regarding gender dysphoria where there is dislike of one's genitals or other features associated with biological sex (which is not a requirement for diagnosis), I think there is still a very poor understanding of this. It could be a secondary consequence of the desire to be treated as the other sex in some cases, but it is also possible that there could be some additional factor that distinguishes it from dysphoria without bodily symptoms.

What I'm trying to get at is that gender dysphoria doesn't have to be a delusion, which is a proposition, strictly speaking, but, rather, a feeling of discomfort. that feeling doesn't have to involve some proposition or statement that X should be this, or X should be gone, or that I am an X, etc. All it need be is "I have a feeling of discomfort."

 

[Paul2]

How about they either believe that their arm is not actually theirs, that they should have been born without an arm, that they should have been born paraplegic.

This is no different from saying, “I should have been born in a female body. This penis shouldn’t be here.”

I’m a little confused as to whether or not Trans people think their identity makes them actually the sex they think they are. Boudicca seems to think that she has a female penis.

So if Sam thinks she has a female penis, would you say Sam is delusional?

See this post that I just made in reply to another poster.

 

[Matthew Best]

Such as the ones in the podcast.

https://podtail.com/no/podcast/atheistically-speaking/sio284-debunking-the-end-of-gender-part-1/

How about summarising them briefly?

 

[Paul2]

It's a skeptics forum, right. Aren't we supposed to speak plainly?

Abrasive is always speaking plainly, but speaking plainly is not necessarily abrasive.

It's pretty clear to me that much of the "centrist" hand wringing about trans rights is motivated by deep animus towards trans people, or just personal disgust with the bodies of trans people.

Impugning the motives of others is not an argument, nor can it contribute to logic or evidence. Someone with the worst motives can still be correct on the topic for which they have bad motives.

 

[Paul2]

I am highly in favour of controlled studies in medicine, but there are a few differences between your proposal and other controlled studies:
- Usually the test subjects are not children who cannot consent to be experimented upon.- Usually what is being tested is whether the medicine works, not whether the medicine is the appropriate treatment for individual patients. We already know that puberty blockers work.
- Usually the test does not require years of denial of treatment.
- Usually the test does not involve purposefully and knowingly letting a condition get worse just to prove that the patient might learn to live with it.
- Usually the test isn't done just because some people think the treatment for the condition is the cause of the condition.

I am not a doctor nor a researcher, but my online search quickly brought up a study at Harvard in which "The researchers designed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to test the effects of the preservative sodium benzoate and six artificial food colorings on hyperactivity in 153 preschoolers (who were 3 years old) and 144 elementary students (who were 8 or 9 years old). "

Is that type of study really unusual? I'm happy to stand corrected.

 

[Paul2]

Caveman, you ninja'ed me **three** times in one day. What did I ever do to you? ; )

 

[d4m10n]

Such as the ones in the podcast.

How about summarising them briefly?

Yes, please. Feel free to pick just one or two which would be worth discussing here.

 

[Meadmaker]

From my own perspective, I'd add a third reason: for those who have never experienced transgender identity (which is, after all, the vast majority of people), a disappointingly-large proportion seem to find it either impossible or improbable to believe that a female could ever genuinely, validly identify as a man (or vice versa, or other variations).

The view for these sorts of people seems to be along the lines: "I was born a male, I am male, I am a man - I know and understand all these things, and all these things are obvious and interconnected truths". I think that the people who think along such lines therefore seem to believe "transgender identity" to be nothing more than either a) people who really really believe they're a gender other than the one corresponding to their birth-assigned sex" or b) people who really really want to be a gender other than the one corresponding to their birth-assigned sex".

We've seen exactly this come up within these threads. And it comes up frequently - whether overtly or covertly - in public discourse. People who accept that "transgender identity" is a thing, but who believe it to be either nothing more than a "would like to be" desire, or a delusion of some sort.

There's another angle to this as well, and it's an angle which appears to be either overlooked or swept under the carpet by the sorts of people I was talking about in my previous post:

It's difficult to get a proper idea of the proportion of transgender people who've suffered gender dysphoria to some degree; but even if we go by the "official" stats, it still means that it's happened to a lot of transgender folk.

And I think perhaps that *certain* people ought perhaps to stop and think about that, and its ramifications & meaning, for a while.

After all, for many people who realise they're transgender, they put themselves through a struggle - sometimes a truly horrible struggle, and sometimes a struggle which ends in suicide - to try to come to terms with the fact that they identify as a gender which is a) different different from the gender which society would "expect" them to inhabit, and b) different from their own assumed gender presentation during their life up to that point.

For someone who's never gone through that process, I can't begin to imagine the levels of cognitive dissonance, fear, trepidation, anger, concern that one is losing one's own mind.... that might accompany a realisation of one's transgender identity. If nothing else, I think the very real presence of gender dysphoria, and its very real effect and outcomes, ought to give serious pause to anyone who doubts the validity of transgender identity.

But I dunno, perhaps I think (dream) too much......

I don't think you give the people in this conversation nearly enough credit. I think most of us get the gender identity thing. Some of the people who haven't followed the conversation or the underlying issue as closely are often confused by the vocabulary, and the general ideas are new to them in some cases, but for the most part, we get it.

But now, help us out here. We know that there are males who have a valid feminine gender identity. They have a deeply held view of themselves as girls or women, a feminine gender identity.

So, now let's apply that to policy, because that's where it all seems to break down.

Let's take track star Terry Miller. As a 14 year old running in the boys' track meets, Terry didn't feel right. Terry was in the boys' division, but Terry's strongly held internal view was that she was a girl. Her gender identity was feminine. So far, so good.

Since she's a girl, she wants to be in the girls' division. I can understand that, but there's a problem. She has a valid feminine gender identity, but she also has valid testicles, and that gives her a huge, indeed insurmountable, advantage over a lot of other people who also have perfectly valid feminine gender identities, but have ovaries instead of testicles.

So, what should we do?

It seems like a lot of people think that it is so incredibly important for us to affirm Terry's gender identity that no other consideration matters. Nothing is as important as Terry's gender identity. Meanwhile, other people think that Selina's gender identity is just as significant, and also her identity as a sprinter. Saying, "You are the third best girl sprinter" takes something away from her identity. Lest you question, I am 100% serious here. What we do, being the best, winning competitions, being lauded for our accomplishments, grades and performance evaluations and the admiration of our peers are all very important to us, and part of that is winning those trophies and ribbons, and qualifying for the next level of competitions, all of those things, all matter.

So walk me through why it is that none of those things are important as validating Terry's gender identity.

In fact, I will add one more thing. It's incredibly important, in my mind, to validate Terry's real identity, and that real identity includes her male body. We want to make sure it's understood that trans identity is valid, and part of having a trans identity is having a body that doesn't match your gender identity. If we pretend that body doesn't exist, we are denying an important element of the trans person's identity.

Once again, I want to assure you that I am 100% serious. In fact, what I'm saying ought to be obvious if you just give it some thought.

By pretending that Terry is just like the other girls, we are denying an important part of her identity.

In sports, the advantage that males have over females does not come from their deeply held internal sense of self. It comes from muscles, bones, lungs, and heart. (Note: heart as in anatomical feature, not emotional or character trait.) When we put an anatomical male into a girls' division, we are denying a part of her valid identity.

 

[Paul2]

. . . .
In fact, I will add one more thing. It's incredibly important, in my mind, to validate Terry's real identity, and that real identity includes her male body. We want to make sure it's understood that trans identity is valid, and part of having a trans identity is having a body that doesn't match your gender identity. If we pretend that body doesn't exist, we are denying an important element of the trans person's identity.

I can imagine a rejoinder is this: but what if a trans person wants to reject the anatomical aspect of their identity? And, in fact, the mis-match between the gender identity and the anatomical reality is exactly what leads the trans person to reject that anatomical reality as part of their identity. With gender dysphoria, it's the anatomical reality that is the source of discomfort and therefore is to be rejected, perhaps out of mere self-survival.

 

[theprestige]

Abrasive is always speaking plainly

Not so. A lot of LJ's speech in this thread has been abrasive, but also rife with elisions, obfuscations, and evasions. I think we have yet to see him speak plainly about the medical basis for transsexual rights. Every time he's pressed on the subject, he gets abrasive instead.

 

[Paul2]

Not so. A lot of LJ's speech in this thread has been abrasive, but also rife with elisions, obfuscations, and evasions. I think we have yet to see him speak plainly about the medical basis for transsexual rights. Every time he's pressed on the subject, he gets abrasive instead.

Point taken, but I was trying to be generous.

 

[Collin237]

Yes, please. Feel free to pick just one or two which would be worth discussing here.

These four points are listed when the book is mentioned:

1. There is no scientific evidence for a continuum of gender.
2. The "vast majority" of transgender people are either in denial about being gay, have a sexual fetish, or are mentally ill.
3. Explaining gender to school children will make them transgender.
4. There is a social stigma against everyone except transgender people.

My comments about these:
1. Since gender dysphoria is a syndrome with many diagnostic factors, there is necessarily such a thing as having more or less of it. This doesn't require making up words for the various degrees of the syndrome.
2. The weird things here are the phrase "vast majority" (the reviewer used those words), and the mention of only things more than dysphoria. Not anything less, such as rebellion against stereotypes, or mere identification.
3. This is obviously fearmongering.
4. This is the old reverse-prejudice canard.

To pick some of these, I'd say 1 and 3. If wishes were horses, I'd like to see a consensus developed about what a reasonable stream of support through life should be for people who might be transgender, preferably something like watchful waiting.

 

[d4m10n]

There is no scientific evidence for a continuum of gender.

Okay, let's start here. First, let me pull up the actual quote from the book, at the top of page 68:

There are two: female and male. There is zero scientific evidence to suggest that any other genders exist.

Sounds to me like she is talking about biological sexes here rather than socially constructed genders. This is (IMO) fairly sloppy of her, but there are indeed only two types of mammals who get the chance to play the ancient Darwinian game of sexual reproduction.

 

[d4m10n]

The "vast majority" of transgender people are either in denial about being gay, have a sexual fetish, or are mentally ill.

What page is this from?

 

[Collin237]

I don't think you give the people in this conversation nearly enough credit. I think most of us get the gender identity thing. Some of the people who haven't followed the conversation or the underlying issue as closely are often confused by the vocabulary, and the general ideas are new to them in some cases, but for the most part, we get it.

But now, help us out here. We know that there are males who have a valid feminine gender identity. They have a deeply held view of themselves as girls or women, a feminine gender identity.

So, now let's apply that to policy, because that's where it all seems to break down.

Let's take track star Terry Miller. As a 14 year old running in the boys' track meets, Terry didn't feel right. Terry was in the boys' division, but Terry's strongly held internal view was that she was a girl. Her gender identity was feminine. So far, so good.

Since she's a girl, she wants to be in the girls' division. I can understand that, but there's a problem. She has a valid feminine gender identity, but she also has valid testicles, and that gives her a huge, indeed insurmountable, advantage over a lot of other people who also have perfectly valid feminine gender identities, but have ovaries instead of testicles.

So, what should we do?

It seems like a lot of people think that it is so incredibly important for us to affirm Terry's gender identity that no other consideration matters. Nothing is as important as Terry's gender identity. Meanwhile, other people think that Selina's gender identity is just as significant, and also her identity as a sprinter. Saying, "You are the third best girl sprinter" takes something away from her identity. Lest you question, I am 100% serious here. What we do, being the best, winning competitions, being lauded for our accomplishments, grades and performance evaluations and the admiration of our peers are all very important to us, and part of that is winning those trophies and ribbons, and qualifying for the next level of competitions, all of those things, all matter.

So walk me through why it is that none of those things are important as validating Terry's gender identity.

In fact, I will add one more thing. It's incredibly important, in my mind, to validate Terry's real identity, and that real identity includes her male body. We want to make sure it's understood that trans identity is valid, and part of having a trans identity is having a body that doesn't match your gender identity. If we pretend that body doesn't exist, we are denying an important element of the trans person's identity.

Once again, I want to assure you that I am 100% serious. In fact, what I'm saying ought to be obvious if you just give it some thought.

By pretending that Terry is just like the other girls, we are denying an important part of her identity.

In sports, the advantage that males have over females does not come from their deeply held internal sense of self. It comes from muscles, bones, lungs, and heart. (Note: heart as in anatomical feature, not emotional or character trait.) When we put an anatomical male into a girls' division, we are denying a part of her valid identity.

One big thing is missing in all this. Why is it up to us adults with our own various political fixations, to arbitrate this? Where are the voices of the students who are actually living the drama?

The students, all of them collectively, should be able to discuss all these issues and more. That's supposed to be what democracy is, not the ****-storm that usually passes for it.

 

[d4m10n]

Explaining gender to school children will make them transgender.

What page is this from?

 

[Meadmaker]

I can imagine a rejoinder is this: but what if a trans person wants to reject the anatomical aspect of their identity? And, in fact, the mis-match between the gender identity and the anatomical reality is exactly what leads the trans person to reject that anatomical reality as part of their identity. With gender dysphoria, it's the anatomical reality that is the source of discomfort and therefore is to be rejected, perhaps out of mere self-survival.

Absolutely. So, they should be allowed to do eerything they are able to do to end that dysphoria by treatments to make their body match what they would prefer. In the process, if that takes away the advantage they have as a result of their sex, then I have no objection to them competing in the female division, even though they still aren't truly female. Their trans identify would still be validated. They are a trans person who, although of the male sex, has affirmed their gender identity by removing one of the traits that were the result of their sex.

having removed that trait, there is no longer a barrier to participation.

Actual implentation of that policy is left as an exercise for the legislature. There are an awful lot of fine points to decide, and exact circumstances. Things that seem simple tend to get a lot more complicated when you actually try to put them into the real world, but the principle is straightforward. Treat people as who they really are. A person who undergoes feminizing medical treatment remains genetically and reproductively male, but their body no longer has the masculine traits that confer an advantage on the track or field, so affirming that transformation by allowing them to compete in the female division seems reasonable.

 

[Collin237]

What page is this from?

I don't have the book. Just the podcast. The reviewer doesn't mention pages.

ETA: My beef is with the podcast, which I already criticized. I've stipulated that the podcast was a fair representation of the book, but if it isn't I wouldn't be a bit surprised.