Manger Douse
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That which can be asserted without evidence etc. etc
Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)
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That which can be asserted without evidence etc. etc
LondonJohn
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Well, I suppose if you're an evangelical Christian nutter, it's easy to infer that God (who, by the way, was - in his Abrahamic form - a hideous misogynist... or so the Bronze Age myths tell us at any rate) would want to smite down (with furious anger etc etc) a man calling herself a woman or vice-versa.
Anyhow, I hope that guy likes prison food. Maybe once he eventually gets released JK Rowling can invite him to her next weird boozy gathering to make up for his martyrdom.
LondonJohn
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Take it up with the APA. They'd be really interested to hear your critique of their scientific expertise and experience, I'm absolutely sure of it.
Manger Douse
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They have been critiqued - they've stonewalled (pun intended)
Well, this clearly wasn't just a case of refusing to use preferred pronouns. It was also a case of an employee refusing to follow work rules, which is much more serious.
It has to be punished severely, or else the next thing you know, cashiers will start refusing to ask every customer to buy the store's ripoff extended warranty or sign up for the store's ripoff credit card. And then the economy would collapse. (Faster.)
It has to be punished severely, or else the next thing you know, cashiers will start refusing to ask every customer to buy the store's ripoff extended warranty or sign up for the store's ripoff credit card. And then the economy would collapse. (Faster.)
Rolfe
Adult human female
He's a prominent member of Ireland's equivalent of that "God hates gays" nutter family in the USA, who's name I can't remember. He deliberately provoked more than one shouting match in wildly inappropropriate situations. He wants to be a martyr for the cause.
Manger Douse
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I don't claim to be particularly special or immune from any of this. If you are going to make any kind of judgement about what the consequences of actions or ideas are, you need to have some kind of theory. There's an old quote that I like - "I'm not against theory, I'm in favour of thinking".
I'm not sure that is quite what I think, but I won't quibble. Look, you have your theory that you follow just as much as I do, one can't help it. Feminism, even the older style you follow, is a call for the radical changing of society over a period of many decades. You can't do that, and not approach it with some set of assumptions about the world that make that seem like a plausible undertaking. You need, I think, to have some kind of enlightenment idea of the perfectibility of man and society in there. If you are going to focus on some programme of implementing policies that you think would work in an ideal world, you need to have some kind of idea that that is the road that leads you progressively closer to your goal. I'm not going to derail the whole thread, but there are a whole bunch of ideas like this that, with some variation, one needs to have to believe the project is practical.
Apologies. That is my fault. I honestly mostly think that the whole project is an exercise in sawing off the branch one is sitting on. I apply that much more broadly than feminism though.
Perhaps, but I also think that history is there to be learned from. Does it provide certainty? No... but it is about the only guide we have to what the long term consequences of our actions are. Is it not at least worth asking the question, is this war winnable? Will fighting it make the world better or worse? Why do some people think this war is a bad idea? What would the potential downsides be that would make the war a mistake? Maybe one fights the war anyway, but with an eye perhaps on these questions.
You misunderstand me. I am not joining a side in order to be on the winning side, if I am even on a side. You think I am disagreeing with the enlightenment and liberalism for some personal advantage? I'd be a feminist and have a corporate approved set of beliefs, and not have to waste half so much time coming to a counter-cultural set of conclusions, if that was my motive. I genuinely think the long run effects of these ideas are enormously destructive. I think, in the long run, feminism hurts women at least as much as it does men.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The APA hasn't said what you think they said. Gender dysphoria is still a mental disorder, as far as they're concerned.
And as for transgender identity without any mental distress, why should that concern us at all?
This is the same question we keep asking you, and for which you have no answer. Just the tired appeal to the analogy of race segregation, which as predicted has completely failed to change anyone's mind abou the issue. Try discussing the issue of trans rights on its own terms, if you can.
Paul2
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They didn't say anything, IIRC.
Paul2
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If the APA were to change its position, would you go right along with it?
That's actually a critique of the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) statement though, not APA.
Of course, one might think that a critical thinker would wonder how it could come about that the AAP would issue a policy statement on gender affirmation in which the citations given are either irrelevant to, or outright contradict the claims made.
A critical thinker might also wonder why the lead of the working group for the DSM-5 chapter on gender dysphoria would give evidence to a Canadian parliamentary committee that the briefings for their legislation on banning conversion therapy were completely devoid of any relevant science on gender dysphoria, and how that can be consistent with an assertations that government policies are based on science.
In fact, I had this strange idea that identifying pseudoscience and ideological interference in science was supposed to be at the heart of skepticism, not something to be sneered at.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
As far as I can tell, the beginning and the end of LJ's appeal to science is what he infers from the APA deciding that trans identity without mental distress is not a mental disorder.
From this he has imagined, whole cloth, a scientific finding that trans identity is a "valid lived condition", akin to race and sexuality, fully backed by the mainstream medical community with all kinds of data and other evidence to support it. All we have to do is look at the fact that the APA currently sees no scientific basis for concluding that trans identity without distress amounts to dysphoria, and everything else he asserts becomes self-evident. Or so he would have us believe.
Only problem is, we're not believing it.
From this he has imagined, whole cloth, a scientific finding that trans identity is a "valid lived condition", akin to race and sexuality, fully backed by the mainstream medical community with all kinds of data and other evidence to support it. All we have to do is look at the fact that the APA currently sees no scientific basis for concluding that trans identity without distress amounts to dysphoria, and everything else he asserts becomes self-evident. Or so he would have us believe.
Only problem is, we're not believing it.
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Which they did in 1987. Following the removal of homosexuality from the DSM, the requirement for clinical distress and/or dysfunction was added to lots of diagnoses including gender identity disorder and the paraphilias, to ensure that people were not diagnosed solely on the basis of societal prejudice against certain behaviours or traits. At that time the diagnostic criteria for GID were quite different, and focused much more on anatomical dysphoria (wanting to change sex characteristics) in any case.
In contrast, the criteria changed hardly at all between DSM-IV and DSM-5. However, one does indeed see gender identity ideology coming in to play in DSM-5. This has nothing to do with 'declassifying trans identity as a disorder', but reflects a shift from seeing dysphoria as being about 'identifying with a gender' rather than being unhappy with one's sex. This has nothing to do with any 'advances in science' however (just as the attacks on binary sex appearing in biology have nothing to do with any new discoveries). They reflect the influence of sex denialism and postmodern gender theory (as taught in gender studies, sociology and comparative literature schools) promoted by activists.
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He really appears to be saying TWAW follows from the fact that trans identity is not a disorder. I can't get over the ridiculousness of this argument. It is truly mind-boggling.
What about all the other deep inner feelings that are not disorders? For example, out-of-body experiences were once not understand, but it now appears that there is a neurological basis for them (I went to a very interesting seminar on this some time ago). They are not a sign of delusional illness, but just a natural human variation. For the person who experiences them, they are absolutely compelling.
Presumably this proves that some people literally have some kind of soul that can leave their body.
ETA: That is quite apart from the fact that agreeing TWAW involves re-defining 'woman' and likewise 'man', which is completely ideological and not something that APA or any similar organisation has the authority to do.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
It seems to me that trans identity without distress needs about as much accommodation in public policy as fursonas. Either that, or we need to start pathologizing furies. Which... I am reluctant to do.
Without the dysphoria, the issue boils down to this question:
If a man says he identifies as a woman, should that be reason enough to let him into the women's restroom?
Without the dysphoria, the issue boils down to this question:
If a man says he identifies as a woman, should that be reason enough to let him into the women's restroom?
Rolfe
Adult human female
Well, well. Every cloud, and all that.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3adva3/liz-truss-scotland-gender-identity
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3adva3/liz-truss-scotland-gender-identity
There was an interesting online article 'On sex and gender identity: perspectives from biology, neuroscience and philosophy' posted in another thread a while ago which included discussion of this issue about mental states.
It critiques four main claims underpinning gender identity ideology. The fourth claim is:
'Transgender people cannot be mistaken about their gender identity, even when they are observably of the opposite sex to that they believe themselves to be; i.e. gender identity is a special kind of mental state, the nature of which one cannot be wrong about.'
Clearly a special type of claim is being made about the nature of this 'inner feeling', because it is a basic and fundamental principle in psychology that people have limited access to internal mental states through introspection, and that our understanding of our mental states is fallible (hence false memories, confabulation and other cognitive biases). In fact, it can be said that psychology is about invalidating people's identities.
The authors go through a number of examples of false beliefs including Cotard's syndrome (the belief that one is dead or missing body parts) and mirrored-self misidentification syndrome, where people believe that their mirror reflection is somebody else. They also consider non-delusional mistaken mental states including false memories and inattentional blindness. They then ask how we can reconcile the clearly-supported observation that we lack reliable introspective access to our mental states, with the assumption that we have infallible access to our true gender identity, where this is defined solely as a mental state. They also suggest that people might internalize gender roles and stereotypes and mistake them for innate feelings.
This was something that struck me from the outset when I looked into this topic. It seems that all the basic principles of what we know about how the mind works are being abandoned, which is a clear warning sign. The last time clinical psychologists believed that their clients have infallible access to mental states and that they as therapists could validate these states on the basis of subjective judgement, we had repressed/recovered memories.
The main point though is that it is irrelevant whether the mental state in question is considered a delusion or product of a delusion. As quoted in the article: "it is irrelevant whether someone’s gender identity has some identifiable clinical aetiology. We are simply asking for some positive explanation of how being a man or woman (or some other combination) can be alchemized from strongly felt feelings so that intuitively absurd comparisons can be avoided: simply saying that feelings maketh the man, woman (or some other combination) is not illuminating without some positive explanation of how that alchemization is supposed to occur. We are not denying that no such explanation is available, but until one is given, the politically driven insistence that someone’s affective mental state overrides their objective biological makeup looks remarkably like culturally normalised medieval superstition."
It critiques four main claims underpinning gender identity ideology. The fourth claim is:
'Transgender people cannot be mistaken about their gender identity, even when they are observably of the opposite sex to that they believe themselves to be; i.e. gender identity is a special kind of mental state, the nature of which one cannot be wrong about.'
Clearly a special type of claim is being made about the nature of this 'inner feeling', because it is a basic and fundamental principle in psychology that people have limited access to internal mental states through introspection, and that our understanding of our mental states is fallible (hence false memories, confabulation and other cognitive biases). In fact, it can be said that psychology is about invalidating people's identities.
The authors go through a number of examples of false beliefs including Cotard's syndrome (the belief that one is dead or missing body parts) and mirrored-self misidentification syndrome, where people believe that their mirror reflection is somebody else. They also consider non-delusional mistaken mental states including false memories and inattentional blindness. They then ask how we can reconcile the clearly-supported observation that we lack reliable introspective access to our mental states, with the assumption that we have infallible access to our true gender identity, where this is defined solely as a mental state. They also suggest that people might internalize gender roles and stereotypes and mistake them for innate feelings.
This was something that struck me from the outset when I looked into this topic. It seems that all the basic principles of what we know about how the mind works are being abandoned, which is a clear warning sign. The last time clinical psychologists believed that their clients have infallible access to mental states and that they as therapists could validate these states on the basis of subjective judgement, we had repressed/recovered memories.
The main point though is that it is irrelevant whether the mental state in question is considered a delusion or product of a delusion. As quoted in the article: "it is irrelevant whether someone’s gender identity has some identifiable clinical aetiology. We are simply asking for some positive explanation of how being a man or woman (or some other combination) can be alchemized from strongly felt feelings so that intuitively absurd comparisons can be avoided: simply saying that feelings maketh the man, woman (or some other combination) is not illuminating without some positive explanation of how that alchemization is supposed to occur. We are not denying that no such explanation is available, but until one is given, the politically driven insistence that someone’s affective mental state overrides their objective biological makeup looks remarkably like culturally normalised medieval superstition."
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
If only.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Food for thought.
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