The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism (2014) | Hacker News Reader

The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism (2014)

newyorker.com

60 pointsgreenail256 comments

If everything is constructed, if everything is relative, if everything is subjective and if everything is on a spectrum then what are we even arguing about?

Nobody fits their gender norms perfectly. No culture has identical gender norms. Even physiologically chromosomes are more nuanced than X and Y.

Because not everything is constructed, nor relative. And the spectrum is not evenly. People are also not always honest, be it on purpose or by ignorance. And Science, as also society still has many open questions. That's why people are still arguing.

And then there are also the gazillion of traumatized people who just fight against those who abuse them, whether it's justified or not, whether they hit the right target or the wrong one.

It's all not that simple...

I don’t believe everything is constructed and I don’t believe in most statements of moral relativism. However the people involved in the arguments generally favor some view of subjective truth and/or moral relativism, at which point why do they care?

(Similar to the question of: if people claim gender is a social construct how can someone be the wrong one?)

I think the solution is nothing new, it relies on going back to teaching a classical liberal definition of tolerance and the objective morality of empathy and compassion. No need to reinvent the wheel.

The one thing that seems a little rough is in sports other than that I'd agree.

It's also a bit rough on women in women's prisons where any sex offender declaring themselves a woman can now get moved to.

Doesn't it say more about our prisons that this is a real concern though? That the lack of ability to prevent prisoners from sexually assaulting one another is the expected norm? And it isn't like there aren't women capable of sexually assaulting each other, but I guess that's more acceptable somehow?

You are literally allowing men who sexually assaulted women to say they are women and house them with women.

What percent of male sexual offenders will sexually assault women, vs the general female prison population assaulting women?

You are literally locking foxes with the hens.

On a sidenote, your excusing away of this behaviour under the guise of "it happens anyway" is ridiculous. I wonder under what prison in the world assault and violence is a solved problem. Oh, complete isolation prisons I guess.

> You are literally allowing men who sexually assaulted women to say they are women and house them with women.

We literally house women who've sexually assaulted women with other women, and men who've sexually assaulted men with other men.

> On a sidenote, your excusing away of this behaviour under the guise of "it happens anyway" is ridiculous.

I am not excusing the behavior, rather the opposite: I'm saying that we shouldn't allow sexual assault in prison period. Ever. I think it is ridiculous that we accept it at all.

A lot fewer percent of women assault women sexually than men, and vice versa. That was my whole point. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the strength differences and if an assault by a penis is different to a lesbian assault…

And We don’t accept it. That’s not why it happens. It happens because it’s not possible to prevent it.

You clearly have some utopian vision of humanity but the reality is different.

I dont think we should allow sexual assault or any assualt or anything bad anywhere ever.

Unfortunately like most things our desires eclipse our capabilities and/or resources.

To a certain extent that is true and we can't prevent sexual assault in all sorts of circumstances, but I think that is irrelevant. What parent is arguing is that simply having a male incarcerated with females increases the chance of sexual assault so significantly that we need a different solution for transwomen. I am saying that I think it says a lot about how we conceptualize both prison and gender that we find the incidence of male-male and female-female sexual assault in prison acceptable by comparison, because that's what we're saying here: put transwomen in male prison and transmen in female prison.

Besides which, I reject the notion that we cannot do a better job prevent sexual assault in prison. In the US at least, prison conditions are horrifically bad because a significant portion of the population likes it that way. We're a cheap, vengeful, petty people on the whole.

Yes, we can't make it perfect. So what? Perfect is the enemy of good. I think we would be better served by dealing with the problem of prison's high incidence of sexual assault in general instead of just this one narrow case.

I take a really libertarian stance on this stuff: why should I care? If someone wants me to call them 'she' when they were biologically born 'he', why not? They're not hurting me or anyone else. If it's not my thing, that's fine. Guess what? One of the cornerstones of libertarianism is: everyone is not like me and that's okay.

The whole thing is obvious right-wing outrage trolling. Yes, before someone says it, the left does outrage trolling too.

Read Utah's Republican governor's letter on his veto of an anti-trans bill: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/read-utah-governors-...

TL;DR: I am vetoing this because it's pointless theatrics that could hurt people.

I must also add that this is a tiny percentage of people here. Even if (hypothetically) this is not a good thing, it's not going to cause the (rolls eyes) collapse of Western civilization.

A nuclear war on the other hand could destroy Western civilization. I hear one of the extreme right's favorite strongman buffoons is threatening such a thing right now.

As a meta response, this might be relevant

"arms race heats up just as china reveals space nukes america responds with trans admiral"

https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china...

Sorry but try as it might the Babylon Bee is just not funny. It reads like some right wingers wanted to create a "safe space" version of The Onion where the humor would never turn on them. It reads like that because that's what it is, which is why it's not funny. It's also not funny because it punches down. Punching down is never funny, which is why the left needs to stop making fun of "rednecks" (read: poor white people).

This particular joke isn't funny because if the story were real it would be badass. The USA could put nukes in space in a heartbeat. We even have a fucking space force. We could put tons of nukes in space with giant reusable stainless steel rockets. That would give us transsexual admirals commanding 1950s-style sci-fi shiny rockets full of nuclear space missiles, which would totally badass.

It would be the ultimate nightmare vision of the evil liberal industrial rational West's Kali Yuga vaporizing the brave strongman soldiers of Traditionalism. Take that Dugin! Take that Putin-on-a-horse!

Even worse... make the atomic trans space admiral Jewish...

It's not meant to be funny. It's tragic.

It's showing that the priorities of pushing identity politics down everyone's throat is soo out of perspective. Identity politics driven agenda's are such a idiosyncratic luxury that's only possible because of serious people doing serious things.

The serious things are what matter, the out of perspective moral outrage over LESS important things is so overblown. The silent majority is sick of it, totally sick of it.

> Identity politics driven agenda's are such a idiosyncratic luxury that's only possible because of serious people doing serious things.

Civilization is frivolous. This conversation is frivolous. Culture of any kind is only possible because of "serious people doing serious things." Farmers stop farming and power plants shut down and most people will stop writing novels, making films, playing music, or yes debating the edge cases of social norms like gender. Unless you code for power, farming, or health care applications you'd probably stop coding too.

The right only invokes this "get serious" line when it's something they personally think is unnecessary, ignoring the fact that 90% of what they do is also unnecessary.

The bigger and wealthier civilization gets the more frivolous things it will produce. Pretty soon we'll be spewing rocket ships to the Moon and Mars, which are really damn frivolous over any time scale that matters to any living person.

Also I'm sure for people who strongly feel that they are gender-atypical this is a serious issue. There's an article somewhere about someone who posed as trans for a week to gonzo-report on just how shitty trans people are treated.

Edit: you can do your own experiment in the frivolity of "identity politics." Find a stock photo of a cute girl and pose as her in programming forums for a week or two. Hope you like weird and inappropriate come-ons, lewd messages, and a 50/50 split between people pretending to hang on your every word and people ignoring your opinion. I have never dealt with any of that shit as a white male programmer but I've heard loads of stories.

I do get the concern about trans women in womens' sports. As far as I know that is the only "edge case" where the people pushing back on trans rights have an actual point. The rest of it is pure moral outrage trolling and obsessing over things other people are doing that don't impact you. There is no other job or activity I can think of where this matters. The outrage over it is as stupid as the outrage over plastic straws.

“ Sorry but try as it might the Babylon Bee is just not funny.”

should add a ‘to me’ at the end. It’s extremely popular.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/01/22/as-christ...

Realizing that one is in a bubble that has definitions of what is and is not funny is the first step to understanding a neighbor :)

Gender isn't sex, and people can claim any gender they want. I believe there are hundreds of them nowadays. But with sex, almost everyone is either unambiguously male or unambiguously female, and intersex conditions are close to a rounding error, statistically. Also, trans has nothing to do with intersex, so mixing up all that X and Y stuff into this discussion doesn't really help.

A surprising number of twitch and twitter bans this week. Destiny for example is now permanently banned from twitch because he took the position that trans shouldn't compete in physical sports. Meanwhile, he has extensive history of supporting trans rights in full on debates.

As they say, the left eats their own because they could no longer attack anyone but their own.

Let's throw down. I am trans and have had srs(brassard). I am absolutely not affiliated with the LGBT political activist group.

What is going on? Trans people are treated like horseshit and ostracized from society. When you have a greatly disenfranchised group of people who basically hate society. Their goal becomes tearing down society. Destruction of society is the goal. You have some politicians who want to help and effectively help integrate trans people back into society. However, they did this through compelled speech laws. You either say their ridiculous pronouns or you end up in front of a 'hate crime tribunal' quite literally.

This isn't helping the situation at all. This is in fact making the problem far worse.

I agree with your points so much, all of them.

What do you think might be some better possibilities than the current mess?

Them to rebuild societies far from politicians

>I agree with your points so much, all of them.

Honestly expected to get banned for my view. People are being banned off social media for far far less.

>What do you think might be some better possibilities than the current mess?

Some think the fix is straight forward, stop ostracizing people. This isn't just trans, it's all the usual 'cant discriminate against' and if we simply stop saying bad words that it'll be all better.

That seems on the face like it would fix the problem; but clearly hasn't over how many decades now? The problem is that this approach is literally causing the problem.

How about the baddest word of them all, the N-word. You dont dare say it. Has this done anything at all to stop this racism? Clearly not.

Imagine we start saying it'll ILLEGAL to say some pejorative for white people. You know what happens? You will get a ton of people now saying it. It's edgy, it's maybe hurtful? They'll say it. If my political opponent says I cant say something. I am going to say it. I probably never said it before but because you say I can't say it. I'm going to start saying it. Bring me to the hate crime tribunal, send me to prison.

So what? Government can't do anything? Precisely. The government is literally harming everything here.

How does society fix prejudice? Not by force.

For the general population, how did homosexuals start getting a good rap? People like Neil Patrick Harris being open about it, BUT not throwing it in anyones face. While also being an awesome person. Elton John? Queen? So many great examples.

How about black people? Will Smith, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, SO MANY awesome black people who don't really get in your face about it. In fact, just stop talking about race and be awesome is exactly what they say to do.

How about atheists? Penn Jillette talks exactly on the subject. You need to not throw it in people's face. You be a good person and nice person. You win people over.

Dealing with extremists is not that different. Daryl Davis is beyond brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw Joe Rogan has also interviewed Daryl a bunch of times.

Here's the complication. The current approach of banning people because they wont say their Ze/Zir pronouns does what exactly?

It disenfranchises people. Is this not exactly what we are trying to fix? What happens when you now disenfranchise these *phobes. They will come to hate society in exactly the same way. If you are a daryl davis, these bans are hurting your cause.

There will be people who see Destiny banned and will become transphobes. There's tons of people who see Babylon Bee ban and become even more entrenched against trans people. Rachel Levine being labelled women of the year because of being appointed to a job is beyond absurd. How about Kamala Harris as woman of the year? Clearly far more worthy. First female(and black?) vice president? What a huge success. I could name how many other far more worthy women.

Tons of people say 'twitter isnt free speech. free speech is the government' On the contrary. Section 230 is how Twitter exists and clearly establishes free speech on twitter. You absolutely should have free speech on twitter and other social media. It's a political move by the government to not enforce Section 230 and therefore is the government removing free speech rights.

Want to ultimately and quickly fix this problem. Enforce Section 230's free speech. Mandate free speech with the very few exceptions therein for social media. Disallow these entities to censor speech. You will quickly find this problem goes away.

Nothing important to add, I just wanted to say I wish more people on that side of the fence thought like you!

The rancour and confusion on these issues at the moment is awful, I just hope that it's something that we will get through and come out of with a better understanding of trans issues and better lives for trans people.

I'm hetero white male myself so have no standing on this, but going through the AIDS epidemic at it's height in the 80s as a teenager was a transformative experience for me. In particular the almost gleeful reaction to the advent of the "gay plague" from many religious conservatives in the US horrified me, especially as I consider myself broadly conservative, at least on economics. These were people I considered my natural political allies, but the words and actions of uncomfortably many of them were just monstrous. It was so painful watching LGB public figures (T issues were less prominent back then) go through such humiliating, degrading treatment in the media.

Fortunately we seem to have got through that for the most part. Acceptance of LGB rights and respect for their dignity has, in the upcoming generation including my own kids, become thoroughly uncontroversial and they want to do right by Transgender people too.

The Transgender debate is in a very difficult phase, partly because some issues like sports seem to overlap with and contend uncomfortably with hard won respect for women's rights and identity. You're quite right, the maximalist gender political wing isn't helping at all. Polarisation is not the way to go on this, it's going to take time for people to get to understand the issues and develop informed opinions, but the road we've travelled for LGB rights shows it's possible and worthwhile.

>The rancour and confusion on these issues at the moment is awful, I just hope that it's something that we will get through and come out of with a better understanding of trans issues and better lives for trans people.

I will guarantee that this won't happen. The current approach is radicalizing people against trans.

>I'm hetero white male myself so have no standing on this,

You're wrong. You are part of your society and your society must have a standing. Your opinion matters, whatever it might be. Never ever censor yourself on issues. When the mob comes because you don't have the right opinion. Humour and 'here's my opinion, why am I wrong' is the way to go.

>but going through the AIDS epidemic at it's height in the 80s as a teenager was a transformative experience for me. In particular the almost gleeful reaction to the advent of the "gay plague" from many religious conservatives in the US horrified me, especially as I consider myself broadly conservative, at least on economics.

This sounds like me. There is certainly a statistic that aids does disproportionately harm homosexual males. It's important to make people aware of this, but we both agree the republicans from ~40 years ago were a bit scummy. Hell even the Oreilly and Hannity era...

But this changed. There's many many openly homosexual republicans now. Dave Rubin is probably one of the key people you would be interested in. He literally had Ben Shapiro on his show call him names to his face. That's what has to happen sometimes.

>Fortunately we seem to have got through that for the most part. Acceptance of LGB rights and respect for their dignity has, in the upcoming generation including my own kids, become thoroughly uncontroversial and they want to do right by Transgender people too.

Largely speaking not because of someone coming along and banning you for your views. But rather showing that their prejudices were wrong by being good people to them and talking to them.

>The Transgender debate is in a very difficult phase, partly because some issues like sports seem to overlap with and contend uncomfortably with hard won respect for women's rights and identity.

We aren't even close to the difficult phase yet. All the current pro-trans approaches are causing more animosity and censoring the debate that must occur will actually make the situation far worse than it currently is.

>You're quite right, the maximalist gender political wing isn't helping at all. Polarisation is not the way to go on this, it's going to take time for people to get to understand the issues and develop informed opinions, but the road we've travelled for LGB rights shows it's possible and worthwhile.

The other key factor to deal with. Trans people are pawns in the grander scheme. This has little to do with trans people but rather a political issue that is being used to censor political opponents and remove their seat in the debate. This will come at the cost to Trans people.

> The current approach is radicalizing people against trans.

I have seen no evidence in support of this. There's plenty of anecdotes of people saying it happened to them, but no evidence of a widespread trend.

I remember when "gay" was the insult du jour in middle school. Now high schools are having walkouts in opposition of homophobic laws [1]. This would never have happened ten years ago. It wasn't even conceivable twenty years ago. Gay rights were further from the mainstream than trans rights are now. These things move fast, and they move together.

> There's many many openly homosexual republicans now.

Did the Republican party start supporting gay marriage while I wasn't looking? Some republicans still feel comfortable questioning interracial marriage.

> Trans people are pawns in the grander scheme. This has little to do with trans people but rather a political issue that is being used to censor political opponents and remove their seat in the debate.

Maybe they aren't. Maybe trans people are the important issue here. Maybe people really do believe the things they say they believe, support the things they say they support. It's a comforting thought to deny it, because if attacks on trans people aren't a proxy for some other issue, then it rules out the easy solutions where you can just convince them to stop.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/07/us/orange-county-florida-high...

>I have seen no evidence in support of this. There's plenty of anecdotes of people saying it happened to them, but no evidence of a widespread trend.

I hope you are right and I am wrong.

>I remember when "gay" was the insult du jour in middle school.

Still is. Let's go find a random thread on reddit that has nothing to do with sex or gender.

https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/tm3kd6/anon_has_...

And that's reddit... where there are no conservatives left. They've banned all of us.

>Now high schools are having walkouts in opposition of homophobic laws [1]

School walkouts by children aren't because the students are so well versed and well informed on issues. They were convinced by the teachers to walk out. People who wanted to skip school joins.

In terms of this specific one of 'dont say gay'

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/...

Ctrl + F "gay": 0 results.

Ctrl + F "homo": 0 results.

So frankly the title of 'dont say gay' is propaganda.

So what does it say?

Classroom instruction by school personnel or third 98 parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur 99 in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age 100 appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

So it's not that they banned saying gay. They banned talking about sexual orientation with children below grade 3. So 8 years old? Do kids younger than 8 years old need to know about sexual orientation as defined by the government? or should parents be responsible here? I say parents, but this is a key political point. There is no objective truth of what is right or wrong on this issue. What should the age be? Age of consent is similar, no one has the answer to what the age of consent should be.

>Did the Republican party start supporting gay marriage while I wasn't looking? Some republicans still feel comfortable questioning interracial marriage.

Not exactly what I said; but its amazing how people are allowed to have differing views. I'm not in or from the USA so I'm not going to defend unnamed random republicans who probably dont represent the party. How about Trump's position: https://www.ontheissues.org/2020/Donald_Trump_Civil_Rights.h...

Ya he went around the world and picked a fight with places like the middle east and russia to fight for gay rights. Seems like Trump was doing the right thing?

That gay marriage is a state issue. Which it very clearly is a state issue.

>Maybe they aren't. Maybe trans people are the important issue here. Maybe people really do believe the things they say they believe, support the things they say they support. It's a comforting thought to deny it, because if attacks on trans people aren't a proxy for some other issue, then it rules out the easy solutions where you can just convince them to stop.

We could go into this if you're interested. We would need primers on the grand debt cycle, the new world order stuff(mainly china becoming #1, good job USA shipping all your factories to china), the USA losing their reserve currency benefits, and the coming probable civil war as indicated by the huge political polarization coming from the democratic party. So for example this 43 minute video covering it only slightly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8

> And that's reddit... where there are no conservatives left.

I don't know if that's true. I'd always hear Reddit was more conservative than most other sites.

I've noticed that people of every political alignment think that social media is biased against them. In truth, both sides have prominent figures who would have been banned years ago if they weren't famous enough to get an exception from the rules, both sides have people banned for no good reason, and both sides have people banned for good reasons that they don't think are good reasons. A nuanced study of whether one side is more affected than the other would never survive the heated environment of political social media.

> Ctrl + F "gay": 0 results. Ctrl + F "homo": 0 results.

True and entirely irrelevant. It is easy to make a law that targets a group without directly naming them.

> Do kids younger than 8 years old need to know about sexual orientation?

"Straight" is also a sexual orientation. It is not possible for a child to avoid fairy tales where a prince marries a princess, or ads with a husband and wife in them, or cartoons where a boy and a girl have a crush on each other. So they're gonna know about that one. On the other hand, they might be able to make it to age 8 with minimal exposure to gay couples if their parents are conservative.

Really, it's about whether teachers will be allowed to read a children's book featuring a gay couple to the class. If the principal gets a letter from a lawyer saying a teacher gave age-inappropriate instruction on sexual orientation to first graders, and cited the line of the law forbidding it, then it doesn't matter if the principal supports the teacher. Nor that the "instruction" was just reading a children's book that featured a gay couple; legally, it would likely be considered instruction. Nor that it was entirely age-appropriate; that exception is so vague as to be useless. They can't afford to defend themselves in a lawsuit. So they get rid of the book to make the lawsuit go away. End result is all the books about gay people get thrown out and, if history feels poetic, burned.

(I would also like to note that it has language about requiring schools not to withhold information about the child's health from their parents that seems designed to out transgender and gay children to their parents against their wishes; it too has an exception too vague and limited to be useful.)

> ... Really, it's about whether teachers will be allowed to read a children's book featuring a gay couple to the class. ...

Same-sex couples have nothing whatsoever to do with sexual orientation per se. Heterosexual folks can certainly form strong affiliative bonds with friends/associates of the same sex, that are functionally identical to so-called "gay or lesbian couples", though in fact the traditional term is something like "blood brotherhood".

Sexual orientation matters only inasmuch as it describes why some of these pairs might engage in sexual contact (hopefully of the consensual sort) whereas most do not.

Teach kids about blood brotherhood and similar traditional bonds between people of the same sex, and they will be very well equipped (in fact, more so than most!) to understand "gay marriage" later on, when they are able to relate to what is meant by sexual orientation. Traditional culture has the language to talk about all of this stuff, in a way that's appealing and not offputting to conservative concerns, or for that matter "progressive" ones.

>I don't know if that's true. I'd always hear Reddit was more conservative than most other sites.

Are most other sites far left? frontpage of reddit routinely promotes far left positions. While conservative subreddits are banned.

>I've noticed that people of every political alignment think that social media is biased against them.

There have been studies which very clearly indicate this is 1 sided. This polarization is coming from the democrats. When 'the_donald" was on reddit. There was regularly >50,000 active on there at any time of the day. It was one of the largest subreddits and was constantly on the front page. Reddit banned them over quite illegitimate reasoning, you cant exactly hold a subreddit responsible because they constantly get brigaded and false flagged. This was the first big purge but they've done it over and over since. Now reddit is more or less an echo chamber for the left. From which many people are studying. The societal consequences are huge.

>In truth, both sides have prominent figures who would have been banned years ago if they weren't famous enough to get an exception from the rules, both sides have people banned for no good reason, and both sides have people banned for good reasons that they don't think are good reasons. A nuanced study of whether one side is more affected than the other would never survive the heated environment of political social media.

On the contrary, these studies are extensive and have been publishing for years. The last time there was this much political polarization in the USA there was a civil war.

Why do you think the republicans are making efforts to 'restrict voting'?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict...

>more than 425 bills that would restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states

This is pretty much all states. Very very unusual, why do the republicans think there are voting issues across the country? Ive never seen that before. Then again I do recall Hillary Clinton saying the republicans rigged the election against her. She was certain to win.

>"Straight" is also a sexual orientation. It is not possible for a child to avoid fairy tales where a prince marries a princess, or ads with a husband and wife in them, or cartoons where a boy and a girl have a crush on each other. So they're gonna know about that one. On the other hand, they might be able to make it to age 8 with minimal exposure to gay couples if their parents are conservative.

The parents are responsible to expose their children; not teachers until grade 3. However you just touched on it did you. It has absolutely nothing to do with letting kids know they might be gay. Which is not an important detail before grade 3. This is about politics. This is about forcing this on your political opponents.

>Really, it's about whether teachers will be allowed to read a children's book featuring a gay couple to the class.

Im not american, I havent been to the USA in ages. I have been to Orlando for vacation. I cant recall the big theme park there but ive been there. I dont care what happens in florida to grade 1 kids. I literally linked the law in this case, That's not at all what the law says. Gecko's Garage for example has lesbians characters. Mommy truck and Mommy recycle, this is absolutely allowed in schools at grade 1. Now if geckos garage turned around and did much more? Then it would be wrong.

>If the principal gets a letter from a lawyer saying a teacher gave age-inappropriate instruction on sexual orientation to first graders, and cited the line of the law forbidding it, then it doesn't matter if the principal supports the teacher.

If teachers can't hold back sexual content from grade 1. That teacher needs to be fired. This isn't a good hill to die on for democrats.

> They can't afford to defend themselves in a lawsuit. So they get rid of the book to make the lawsuit go away. End result is all the books about gay people get thrown out and, if history feels poetic, burned.

Lets sideline for a second. Another controversy recently was this nuclear physicist Sam Brinton. Its unimportant if he's qualified for his appointed position for the discussion. I'll even concede and say sure he is qualified, I dont really know tbh.

Why is Sam so controversial? Is it because people really urgently want to promote conversion therapy? No not at all.

Is it because he's occasionally goofy looking? Certainly part of it... but you know taste is subjective.

The controversy is that he's going and having furry bondage sex in public. Obviously done as part of political activism and exhibitionism. This isn't helping the trans cause at all. This is harming it.

>(I would also like to note that it has language about requiring schools not to withhold information about the child's health from their parents that seems designed to out transgender and gay children to their parents against their wishes; it too has an exception too vague and limited to be useful.)

Ive been watching the huge increase of riots in the usa. Various 'occupy' riots. blm race riots like kenosha or minneapolis. I'll even reiterate... these are proper and legitimate riots. Police brutality in the USA is crazy. Clear and obvious racism is objectively true.

These riots have gone into capital buildings and overthrown the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest

Yet they get called a protest? They literally seized the government. They took control over a police precinct and freed prisoners. It's remarkable how well this protest is being treated by the media and even wiki.

All these riots are left-wing. Then the right-wing protest once... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_att...

This INSURRECTION justified banning trump off twitter. They didnt destroy anything, nor overthrow anything. They entered government buildings for 5 hours. In fact, they mocked exactly what happened at CHOP. Beautiful display to show where the situation is.

There was a huge commission to investigate the first right-wing protest who did far far less than anything BLM ever did. Yet people have been held in prison without charge. Others charged and guilty of sedition and being sent to prison for 20 years. Police were committing mass suicide... absolutely crazy.

This very different reaction by the democrats is very revealing. The polarization from the democrats is a gigantic mistake. Mistake is probably the wrong word, it's far worse than a mistake.

Midterms are coming in what 8 months? Georgia and NC are my main watches. EVERYONE will be looking at transparency of that vote counting. Any impropriety is not going to go well.

> Destiny for example is now permanently banned from twitch because he took the position that trans shouldn't compete in physical sports.

Destiny's ban reason and length are only speculated (Twitch uses "indefinite" in its literal sense). May also be from having Nick Fuentes on stream recently, since Twitch can be strict about featuring banned streamers [0]. Others guessed that it was this tweet [1] but I doubt it - seems to be something on-stream.

If the ban is from the trans athletes take (I do agree that it's the most likely cause), Destiny's usual edginess [2] probably contributed. Others have been fine with the same position.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30801959

[1]: https://archive.ph/wRM6u

[2]: https://streamable.com/trlxfu (not my title, I'd say there's deniability in the exact (sub)group being referred to)

>Destiny's ban reason and length are only speculated (Twitch uses "indefinite" in its literal sense).

https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/tnegaw/the_end_of_...

>If the ban is from the trans athletes take (I do agree that it's the most likely cause), Destiny's usual edginess [2] probably contributed. Others have been fine with the same position.

It seems just because he had been banned several times before they finally just said enough is enough.

Thanks for writing this, I agree with the things you've said in this thread (or at least they sound right to me, even if I don't have the experience of them).

> Let's throw down.

Sure! If I'm being honest, when I'm upset/angry about this I've started to sometimes apply the label "transphobic" to myself. I'm not. I have no hatred or negative feelings or lack of sympathy toward anyone, especially not people with feelings about their bodies and identity that are making their lives difficult and causing them to be be badly treated by others. But I know that so many under-40 educated liberals would call me transphobic for my views that I've found myself in anger giving up and saying "fuck it, then I'm transphobic if that's your definition of that term". My position is that I have a definition of "man" and "woman" that I have had since I was a child, and I then became a biologist, and everything I learned confirmed that the traditional definitions of "man" and "woman" were accurate-enough for humans and other mammals to be appropriate terminology, and hence I am not going to change my conception of the human sexes under duress from ideological young progressives. My position is also, as I said above, that of course, absolutely every human being gets treated humanely and with respect and sympathy regardless of the situation they are in or their body or internal psychology (unless they have done something evil). I am not transphobic, but it's accurate to say that I am highly critical of the trans-activist movement (obviously speaking generally -- I'm sure there are many wonderful people who consider themselves part of that movement). So I guess I'm transactivistphobic, in the sense that yes, with the cancel culture, and attacks on feminism and disregard for science, I am prejudiced against trans activism.

>Sure! If I'm being honest, when I'm upset/angry about this I've started to sometimes apply the label "transphobic" to myself.

Do you know which group is statistically the most transphobic? LGBT people, especially Trans. The why is complicated, often stemming from self-denial. Please note, I'm not calling you trans, but I'm saying it's fine to have feelings like this.

Another big statistic most dont seem to know. The majority of trans who get surgeries... IT people. Why? Nobody knows.

>I have no hatred or negative feelings or lack of sympathy toward anyone, especially not people with feelings about their bodies and identity that are making their lives difficult and causing them to be be badly treated by others.

I would welcome you to respond to situations properly. When you see something like: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-maam This trans person was clearly the upset one. Why? Well what do you think happens when you're recently started taking estrogen? Technically don't know what meds they were on, but HRT is near certain. A common, if not the primary symptom of HRT is that your emotions are going to run hot. You then might react incorrectly to a situation and cause a scene. It's going to happen. This is no different than what women go through during puberty, pms, and pregnancy when hormones go a bit wacky.

>But I know that so many under-40 educated liberals would call me transphobic for my views that I've found myself in anger giving up and saying "fuck it, then I'm transphobic if that's your definition of that term".

What's wrong with being transphobic? What other phobias are wrong to be? I fear needles, aichmophobia, am I wrong about that? You can be transphobic. You can even justly judge people like that above link. The thing you need to understand or think about. Not all Trans people are a problem. The 'pre judgement' or 'prejudice' of all in a group is the problem.

>My position is that I have a definition of "man" and "woman" that I have had since I was a child, and I then became a biologist, and everything I learned confirmed that the traditional definitions of "man" and "woman" were accurate-enough for humans and other mammals to be appropriate terminology, and hence I am not going to change my conception of the human sexes under duress from ideological young progressives.

The subject is greater than xx vs xy chromosomes to be sure. You totally got it right on the last part. Some progressive political folks dont get to unilaterally modify language and even in some cases punish people for not accepting their unilateral change. Yet here we are where major social media platforms have done exactly that.

>My position is also, as I said above, that of course, absolutely every human being gets treated humanely and with respect and sympathy regardless of the situation they are in or their body or internal psychology (unless they have done something evil).

My pronouns are probably they/them but they arent. Unofficially my pronouns are beep/boop. Call me whatever the hell you please. When did we drop the sticks and stones reality here?

Here's the thing, when I was in the air force. Pre-everything. No surgery, no transition. Didnt really admit anything to myself. Some civilian started flipping out on me for nothing. Reports that were completely false. Would tell me I had to use the mens changing room. Basically on my case all the time that I was in the gym. I filed harassment complaint.

It was flipped on me, it was considered illegal for me to be in the airforce because trans werent allowed in the canadian military. That this illegal use of the harassment complaint system was actually harassment of the gym dude. They tried to release me honourably but I fought it. I denied being trans. The chief warrant helped me in the case demanded they prove I was trans. They couldn't and dropped it.

From then... I had a day2day job of delivering mail for the base. After dinner, I then would cycle through cleaning the base, firewatch, etc. For the next ~6 months I literally never got a minute to myself. Clear harassment but it was illegal for me to complain. I had to quit and they accepted without even discussing it with me.

Mind you... canadian military had loads of openly homosexual people. They even at the time had a recruiting quota focusing on hiring more homosexuals and women. It was only a hand full of years later when they legalized trans being in the canadian military.

This is a problem. I hadn't transitioned or did anything. I can only imagine how poorly those who have transitioned would be treated.

> I am not transphobic, but it's accurate to say that I am highly critical of the trans-activist movement (obviously speaking generally -- I'm sure there are many wonderful people who consider themselves part of that movement). So I guess I'm transactivistphobic, in the sense that yes, with the cancel culture, and attacks on feminism and disregard for science, I am prejudiced against trans activism.

The LGBT activists do not represent all LGBT people. The media sure seems to push that this is the case.

All I ask, don't treat all trans people like they are these activists. I would guess that most trans dont agree with these people.

> All I ask, don't treat all trans people like they are these activists.

Absolutely, I will not. Thanks for all that.

It's really odd to see a transgender person attacking people for having "ridiculous pronouns" because most LGBT people, in activism or otherwise, have a solidarity-based approach. That's why it's LGBT and not separate lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights movements. It gains strength from unity, because the problems they face are all really the same problem.

The opponents of LGBT rights don't always attack all of them at once. Sometimes they just attack the group that's the most controversial or vulnerable, or those that haven't gained widespread acceptance yet. Nonbinary people with "ridiculous" neopronouns would be the latter. The thing is, if the argument is accepted against one group, it'll likely be accepted against others too. This already happens; conservatives' "one joke" about trans people ("I identify as an attack helicopter") is specifically mocking nonbinary people, but it's usually used to attack binary trans people. If neopronouns are ridiculous, they say, why would you accept a man [sic] saying he's [sic] a woman? And if that works, then they'll move on to lesbian, gay, and bi people, as it's been frequently noted that every attack against transgender people is a recycled attack against gay people.

So when I see people complaining about "compelled speech" for "ridiculous pronouns", I get a bit suspicious.

("The left eats its own" is also a popular right-wing narrative for portraying every dispute between a leftist and (someone they think they can get away with calling) a leftist as the beginning of the end for leftism, proof of their treachery, etc., so that's also an interesting inclusion.)

>It's really odd to see a transgender person attacking people for having "ridiculous pronouns" because most LGBT people, in activism or otherwise, have a solidarity-based approach.

Not true in my experience. This to me is only true as how it is portrayed by the fake news media folks.

>That's why it's LGBT and not separate lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights movements. It gains strength from unity, because the problems they face are all really the same problem.

There's certainly something to be said about unity and trying to fight for what is right. We are past that stage by a long shot.

>The opponents of LGBT rights don't always attack all of them at once. Sometimes they just attack the group that's the most controversial or vulnerable, or those that haven't gained widespread acceptance yet. Nonbinary people with "ridiculous" neopronouns would be the latter.

Absolutely nobody has a problem with picking whatever pronouns you want. It's on you to earn the respect needed to get people to use the pronouns. You don't get to go to the government and demand compelled speech because people think you're ridiculous.

>This already happens; conservatives' "one joke" about trans people ("I identify as an attack helicopter") is specifically mocking nonbinary people, but it's usually used to attack binary trans people

I am trans, I am non-binary, I have had SRS. Surely you accept that I get to pick my pronouns. I ought to be a they/them, I'm not. I was also airforce and find the attack helicopter one awesome. I have used that one in public before. However, all these pronouns are dumb. Right now if I were to be forced to pick pronouns. I am Beep/Boop.

Let's even backtrack slightly. Where is your threshold for when you get to pick pronouns? Do you require surgeries? Lets say that you dont believe surgery is required. Then those conservative trans people who picked their pronoun of attack helicopter are actively being mocked? Or do conservatives have to pick from the list of left-wing approved pronouns? Why do the left wing get to unilaterally get to decide this list?

>So when I see people complaining about "compelled speech" for "ridiculous pronouns", I get a bit suspicious.

Being suspicious is a good thing. Are you accusing me of not being trans enough? Obviously the compelled speech comment is not about the USA. I am VERY jealous of the USA having free speech; unlike here in Canada.

>("The left eats its own" is also a popular right-wing narrative for portraying every dispute between a leftist and (someone they think they can get away with calling) a leftist as the beginning of the end for leftism, proof of their treachery, etc., so that's also an interesting inclusion.)

I do believe Destiny is left-wing and has extensively supported for trans rights. I'm not going to speak to his entire political position.

Here's the thing. You are talking about 'narrative' which by definition implies that this is not true or a fiction or a story.

Lets step back a second, what if I am right? That this isnt a narrative...

> You don't get to go to the government and demand compelled speech because people think you're ridiculous.

That's the thing, I don't actually see trans people advocating for things like that. For example, I've seen some argue against companies making employees put pronouns in their e-mail signatures because, among other reasons, putting pronouns in the signature when it's optional is a useful indicator for if a co-worker is trans-friendly. Generally, they want people who intend to be an ass to them to reveal themselves as quickly as possible, and if they had the power to pass a law of their choosing, they would have much higher priorities than mandating correct pronouns, such as healthcare.

> Where is your threshold for when you get to pick pronouns?

If it's clear that someone isn't being genuine and is only asking people to use neopronouns as part of a rhetorical attack against trans people, the general standard is to ignore them. Otherwise, anything goes. You don't even need to be trans, necessarily. The trans people I know would certainly object to the idea that surgery is necessary.

I think there might have been a misunderstanding about the attack helicopter joke. The attack helicopter joke, nicknamed the "One Joke" for how repetitive it can get, is any joke that goes something like "I identify as an [insert noun], so now you have to do everything I say and if you don't then you're a bigot, ha ha ha." At its best, it's ordinary silly nonsense between friends. At its worst, it's a convenient cliché to dismiss any claim of insensitivity toward someone with an identity deemed unusual, by portraying it as an imperious demand.

> I ought to be a they/them, I'm not.

This is a perspective I haven't seen before. What do you mean by "ought to be a they/them"? Did someone tell you that?

> Are you accusing me of not being trans enough?

Not at all. It's mainly a general suspicion that you're trying to divide transgender people in some way.

> Destiny

I'm not familiar with him. My general second-hand impression is that a lot of people just don't like him, even if he's technically on their side of an argument, and would prefer if he just stopped.

I'm more commenting on how this kind of dispute will be portrayed as a sudden betrayal, or the left not being able to help weakening itself by attacking its allies, even when the two parties never got along in the first place. Mainly it's just an excessively dramatic way to frame an argument.

>That's the thing, I don't actually see trans people advocating for things like that.

Have you heard of Jordan Peterson? His popularity is entirely because we now have compelled speech in Canada. This compelled speech has since expanded beyond trans issues and now we have compelled speech on covid as well.

>I've seen some argue against companies making employees put pronouns in their e-mail signatures because, among other reasons, putting pronouns in the signature when it's optional is a useful indicator for if a co-worker is trans-friendly.

Games Done Quick regularly put their pronouns. Let's say I was competing and I put my personal pronoun choices of Beep/Boop. What do you think would happen? Well I'd certainly get publicly banned from GDQ and called hateful and transphobe. This is 100% certain.

Pronouns and compelled speech are not about trans people, it's about political suppression and censorship.

>Generally, they want people who intend to be an ass to them to reveal themselves as quickly as possible, and if they had the power to pass a law of their choosing, they would have much higher priorities than mandating correct pronouns, such as healthcare.

Lets even continue my prediction at GDQ. I pick my pronouns of beep/boop. As you say, I'll be quickly revealed as an ass right? GDQ would publicly ban me and say how I'm hateful. People will say I committed violence. A microaggression.

It might even go further, they might talk to my boss and try to have me fired. Decent chance I would be headed to speak with the hate crime tribunal of ontario.

It would not matter for a second that I am trans and even had SRS.

>If it's clear that someone isn't being genuine and is only asking people to use neopronouns as part of a rhetorical attack against trans people, the general standard is to ignore them. Otherwise, anything goes. You don't even need to be trans, necessarily. The trans people I know would certainly object to the idea that surgery is necessary.

So you accept my pronouns of beep/boop? I more than qualify.

I'm not sure how you will qualify if someone is 'genuine' or not. Sure if they themselves joke or admit they aren't genuine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymqN9ESj-MM

Is Zuby Genuine or not? I'm not sure.

Perfect, so now lets discuss Gina Carano. Trans people attacked her viciously for Beep/Boop. She got majorly cancelled and replaced on mandalorian.

From your statement you seem to be saying she can legitimately make her pronouns beep/boop. Why then did trans people attack her so aggressively?

>I think there might have been a misunderstanding about the attack helicopter joke. The attack helicopter joke, nicknamed the "One Joke" for how repetitive it can get, is any joke that goes something like "I identify as an [insert noun], so now you have to do everything I say and if you don't then you're a bigot, ha ha ha." At its best, it's ordinary silly nonsense between friends. At its worst, it's a convenient cliché to dismiss any claim of insensitivity toward someone with an identity deemed unusual, by portraying it as an imperious demand.

Should I be cancelled for my pronouns? I have literally used the attack helicopter as my pronouns before. Do I not get to pick my pronouns?

>This is a perspective I haven't seen before. What do you mean by "ought to be a they/them"? Did someone tell you that?

Typically for trans like me they go by they/them.

>Not at all. It's mainly a general suspicion that you're trying to divide transgender people in some way.

What division? I haven't told any trans what to be in any way. Trans people are 100% not united the way the media portrays. If that's not evident by my post here I dont agree with the LGBT political activist group. In fact, I would go so far as to say it's offensive to suggest this political activist group represents all of us without division.

>I'm not familiar with him. My general second-hand impression is that a lot of people just don't like him, even if he's technically on their side of an argument, and would prefer if he just stopped.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KeDUZdcOGic

I too haven't followed him in years, this is a more recent clip and he's right. Maybe I'm missing context but frankly he's not wrong that trans shouldnt compete in womens physical sports.

There's still a debate on non-physical. Chess for example seemingly unnecessarily discriminates and even creates womens titles. Not because women have any sort of disadvantage but because if women dont then they get no spotlight at all. Should trans people be allowed to compete in the women's field? As a male I am absolutely nobody, but as female I would be top 50 for sure, probably closer to top 20.

How controversial would that be?

>I'm more commenting on how this kind of dispute will be portrayed as a sudden betrayal, or the left not being able to help weakening itself by attacking its allies, even when the two parties never got along in the first place. Mainly it's just an excessively dramatic way to frame an argument.

Fair position to be concerned with. If you haven't seen dave chappelle's latest works, I highly recommend. Especially 'sticks and stones' this was an inflection point on trans issues for the right-wing.

The trans folks can continue their attack on the right wing. As I said in OP, lots of bans recently. Babylon Bee's hilarious satire: https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1505674884222967810

They are now martyrs. Every day they remain banned is hurting trans people more and more.

The real response should have been... wait why the hell does an appointed trans person with literally no achievements to their name become women of the year? There's literally lists of lists of more qualified people to be woman of the year.

This ban will remain as a spotlight on this issue.

"an interesting game, professor falcon. It appears the only winning move is not to play."

That seems to be the stance most people take on these kind of things because they are such minefields, but its allowed trolls to basically walk all over society because of our collective fear of offending anyone.

See the "lemmywinks" south park episode from 20+ years ago.

Agreed. The intro to the article claims that few feminists hold positions that there is a difference in the experience of being biologically female vs identifying as female. I would disagree. From what I've observed, many believe there are differences but are tired of being shouted down and "canceled," so they stay quiet. This is especially a problem in women's sports, which has long been a strength for women but is now a hotbed of anger and infighting.

Yeah, most sensible people don't like to argue with fools for fear of being mistaken for one by sinking down to that level.

But the cultural ideology trolls clearly need to be pushed back on and put in place in the larger perspective, where their concerns are overall minor.

This is a great illustration of the point I like to use -

arms race heats up just as china reveals space nukes america responds with trans admiral

https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china...

*Falken[1]

[1] https://war-games.fandom.com/wiki/Stephen_Falken

As the saying goes: keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.

The more that things are discussed, analysed, out-analysed, over-analysed, the more they devolve into a cacophony of views. Particularly with hot-button topics such as this, there are many people pushing an agenda rather than trying to arrive at the truth. We are living in an age of moral relativism with the bleating of a thousand views, but no guiding principals to sort the wheat from the chaff. In the end, all we can do is throw our hands up and declare all views are right, and all views are wrong.

As your first paragraph alludes, logic is a good test for what is actually wrong and should be pushed back on. That includes detecting those agenda driven drivels!

I would suggest that declaring all views to be right and all views to be wrong is indistinguishable from your brain having fallen out. We can do better.

Changing entire social norms to include a very small population will only lead to problems.

Accepting trangenders for who they are is a much better strategy in the long run. Why are they so keen on fitting into existing definitions, social norms and binary gender tropes when they are not the same? It's absolotely ridiculous.

”As members see it, a person born with male privilege can no more shed it through surgery than a white person can claim an African-American identity simply by darkening his or her skin.” Gotta admit I find it hard to disagree with this, even if I usually disagree with extremist ideological groups.

How is that the same though? They're comparing privilege to identity. Two different things. "Male Privilege" is based on the fact that society treats you differently as a male than as a female. Not because you're born with some innate power that you collect once at birth and can never give away. This is why a surgery CAN shed male privilege. Maybe not all of what benefits you've accumulated this far, but you may have many years on this earth left afterwards which would not include that "privilege" anymore.

Isn't skin color based privilege the same though? If someone darkens their skin so everyone perceives them as black instead of white, then that person lost their privileges of that point forth.

White privilege is very much a treatment by society. Racism and sexism are both enacted upon by people based on social norms.

Rachel Dolazal.

The overarching phenomenon is ‘dominant privilege’. In a gender studies program certain people have privilege. In Japan certain people have privilege, within a ghetto certain people have privilege, within Fortune 500s certain people have privilege.

However people mainly focus on certain dominant groups in select socio economic areas of the US. But this phenomenon is found everywhere.

I can disagree. someone that decides to be a different gender than what his appearance dictates is definitely similar to someone that takes up the african culture even though his appearance dictates differently. it’s not the surgery that makes one transgender, they were transgender before and they chose the surgery to minimize the contradiction between identity and body

The point is not that they are not entitled to their chosen identity, but that they should be more sensitive to issues that go beyond the identity and not try to suddenly magically become part of it. Nobody will forbid a white man to use ghetto clothes, but if he suddenly starts to act like he is suffering with racism, that will sound weird. If trans people can’t understand and empathize with the fact that they did not experience the prejudice before, and have the common sense to stay out of the specific issue, then sorry but they are the ones being insensitive and screwing their own chosen ”equals”.

If person can force everyone around them to acknowledge the gender of their preference. Why can’t I force people to acknowledge the race or age of my choosing?

Age is literally just a fact AND people try to identify as different ages all the time, but the race question is interesting.

It seems to me the ultimate goal should be to greatly minimize the differences between sexes and races (drop the traditional, ignorant differentiations we’ve created) and then the urge to identify differently to your physical expression may subside.

If you acknowledge that there is discrimination towards transgender people then you acknowledge that transgender people have a lot to lose by outing themselves to the world.

I'm not here to say that transgender discrimination = discrimination women encounter based on their gender, and I don't believe that the argument that transgender people are making either. Instead, why not look at transgender people as a newly oppressed group that encounter entirely distinct issues?

Transgender people understand that they have not grown up with the same experiences as a natural born Woman, and they do not claim to be able to speak for Woman's experiences in that sense. So all they are asking for is to be recognized as legitimate people and to not be seen as suicidal, depressed, mentally ill people.

I respectfully disagree. They are asking for us to believe that “trans women are women” with absolutely no wiggle room (e.g. collegiate sports). I thought there was wiggle room, but alas…

You have a good point and I basically agree with it 100%. I don’t think any feminist would disagree that transgender people have their own issues to deal with. What they want is to make sure different things are treated differently, and I think it’s reasonable.

I think this is dead wrong, actually. There are a lot of minorities who adopt certain styles, language, or even names, precisely as a way to fit in better with the (in America, white) majority. I am white, but I was born in a rural area where people have a distinctive accent. Growing up, I was told by some teachers that we needed to shed the accent and adopt a more conventional way of speaking so that people wouldn't look down on us. One teacher even shared his own experience of intentionally modifying his voice in college so that he would get more respect.

If a person modifies their methods of speech to better match a different identity group, for whatever reason, would they not begin to receive the level of privilege, or lack thereof, associated with the other identity group?

Now I agree that a person can't claim an "African-American identity" just by changing their skin, that seems wrong. However, if a person looks "black" then they will be treated by society like they are black, so they have to some degree shed white privilege. In the case of Rachel Dolezal, this actually worked to her benefit because of the social justice circles she was in, at least until she was unmasked. The way others treat you is related to the way others perceive your identity, not the "census definition" of your identity.

Trans women often look completely feminine. In that case, a stranger would treat them as a women, unless said stranger knew of their sex. What is privilege, if not the sum of the ways in which other individuals treat you? So, these trans women do not have male privilege, at least going forward.

Sometimes, trans women don't look feminine. They are visibly transgender. In that case, they are probably not being treated like women. However, it's glaring obvious that openly transgender people aren't treated very well by society at large. If you don't believe this, then try an experiment. Wear a wig and a dress (if you're male), or a get a haircut and "he/him" pronoun badge (if you're female), and spend some time hanging out in public spaces. Be sure to visit the bathroom. I think you'll find out pretty quickly the type of abuse that trans people face daily.

So, if openly trans people are treated badly, perhaps even worse than women, then logically they have less privilege. The radical feminist objection that they retain male privilege makes no sense.

i think the more interesting questions are what is a women when adjudicating a rule involving who is a woman. it may even make sense to have multiple definitions of who a woman is depending on the rule. for example i don't think it makes sense for people who were previously men to compete in women sports when one of the main reasons for segregating women's sport is to protect them from competition from men who are biologically better at these sports. but that doesn't mean the same person should be excluded from being considered a woman when deciding some other rule.

people also seem to deliberately be conflating sex and gender. clearly a lot of 'rules' seem to be based on sex but then people will claim gender identity is fluid and then try to use gender identification to backdoor a rule that is based on sex.

I think sport is a a exemple on why gender is a bad measure.

Why are we doing separate competitions for men and women? Because men have physical differences that give them a significant advantage on many sports. For simplicity purpose I will assume this is only because they generate more testosterone though I'm sure it's more complicated.

So people generating more testosterone have a significant advantage on sports. Why should then we care wether they are men or women, whatever that means? A good illustration of this are women who have hyperandrogenism, who are, ironically, sometimes excluded from competing in women competitions because of the unfair advance their high testosterone give them compared to other women, even though they are biological women. I'm sure some men have low level of testosterone compared to the "standard" level of most men, which would give them an unfair disadvantage in men competitions.

So my question is, why, rather than doing men/women competitions, don't we do high/low testosterone competition, regardless of the gender?

After countless female leads in fighting roles pushed in agenda based Hollywood brainwashing, and the era of immense sociopolitical pressure to push the 'women can do anything' line, perhaps the answer is just don't segregate.

Instead of the subjectivity, remove all the segregation and let reality sort it out.

Would certainly clear up a lot of cognitive dissonance.

This should give a sense of the outcome: https://boysvswomen.com/#/

Yes, teenage boys (even 13 and 14 year olds) frequently beat female world records. In almost all athletic sports, a "combined" Olympics would have no female participants at all.

This is why women fought for sex segregation in the first place.

And that is why I advocate that we remove all divisions from sports. Allow all doping and body modifications. And either allow all or ban all equipment, including clothing. Let us achieve best possible results.

The advantages of male puberty and the Y chromosome extend far beyond testosterone.

It's also irrelevant how much testosterone a person produces today. You can reduce the testosterone levels of a Michael Phelps type to female levels (though it would ruin his health), yet he would retain insurmountable advantages over every woman who has ever been born on this planet.

> It's also irrelevant how much testosterone a person produces today

It's really, really not. And if we didn't know that before (we did), trans athletes on HRT provide pretty clear evidence of that, in both directions.

My point is that you can’t reverse all the advantages of the years of previous testosterone (i.e. male puberty) just by cutting today‘s testosterone levels. You can make that person perform worse than other males, sure, but it’s not enough to reach a level playing field with females. There may be exceptions for specific sports - I’m talking about the general case, which is what we base policies on.

In general you also can’t give a female athlete sufficient testosterone to counteract the absence of male puberty and make them competitive with men. You can make them better than non-doping women, sure, but it’s not enough to reach the level of post puberty males, and the more you give the worse the impact on their health. The GDR already ran that experiment.

Sure, the testosterone level was just a simplification as I said. Whatever measurable thing that give an advantage would work. For example the muscular mass, I don't know. Whatever the past, there is always something different now that gives the advantage for the current race.

We do segregate many sports on other dimensions, e.g. by weight in boxing.

The problem with trying to do something like that across the sexes is that the performance gap between elite men and elite women (i.e. those at the top of their statistical distributions) is so large in so many sports (even when controlling for height or weight).

For example, a large number of amateur men who are well under 6 feet tall can dunk a basketball (and Spud Webb was 5 foot 7!), but it's remarkable to find even a professional female player of the same height who could do this. Similarly being tackled by an 85kg male rugby player is a whole other universe of pain compared to being tackled by an 85kg female. Anybody who knows sports can find similar examples. It’s not about testosterone or some other individual item - it’s the whole complex biological organism acting in concert. When you are working with so many dimensions and those are also interacting in real time, it is very hard to divide things into "fair" categories.

Because of these issues, women fought very hard for (and won) the right to have their own competitions, free of male competitors.

For more examples, see https://boysvswomen.com/#/. If Olympic events were mixed sex, most events would have no female competitors at all. Teenage boys routinely beat female world records.

I don’t understand why this is being posted now, nor why it’s trending. There are far more up-to-date sources to be found. Human rights should not be a debate

Almost by definition a “human right” is debated because it’s based on time and culture. It used to mean the right to be alive, then freedom from slavery was added, then access to food.

Shelter isn’t even an established right, what makes you think wanting to be treated differently from how you used to be would be?

What about access to sex? Internet? A car? Mass transit?

A British former TV writer who became a very prominent transphobe years ago was just interviewed and claims to have had his life ruined as a consequence of publicly vilifying a vulnerable segment of society. Be prepared for a new wave of anti-trans sentiment wherever you get your content as new people take up his ridiculous crusade.

His life is ruined because of how he is online, as much as what his crusade was. While most people who spoke up for sex-based rights "buttoned it" when they were piled on and called TERFs, he decided the only way to clear his name was to fight the battle, but he found himself without many allies because he can be so toxic. He drove away his own friends and called people out on Twitter for not backing him up.

However, while I say "this is as much about him as it is about his crusade", he behaved the same way during the Irish abortion campaign (he was for abortion rights btw) and Gamergate. The reason he wasn't "ruined" back then was because the trans rights issue is far more toxic. Nobody is allowed question the current narrative.

The idea that 'no one is allowed to question the current narrative' is rather absurd, considering I live in a state which has openly investigated and harassed families with transgender kids.

The reason why the debate is 'far more toxic' is because there are places which are outright attacking and removing rights of transgender individuals. Naturally this means people are going to be far more defensive because they don't want to be marked as less-than-human.

I think this all very much depends on where you live.

For example, the UK only introduced the Gender Recognition Act in 2004, and that law still stands. The UK doesn't have self-ID, but there are plans to update the GRA to include it. This is very much in line with what trans activists want.

The problem with self-ID is that it necessarily clashes with existing sex-based protections in the Equality Act, and whether you agree with women's rights or trans rights or both, these contradictions need to be discussed. The problem is that the discussion is enough to get you piled-on, blocked, fired etc.

My understanding is that these concerns are, at best, overblown. [1] explains it better than I could.

[1] https://katymontgomerie.medium.com/addressing-concerns-over-...

First, Katy is trans, so where trans rights clash with female sex-based rights, I would assume that Katy is firmly on the trans side. Before using this article as the conversation-ender you think it is, go and steel-man the opposition before you claim that their fears are "at best, overblown"

Second, this article compares being trans with being gay. They're two different things entirely. The only "right" gay people wanted, above being left alone, was equality in law: the right to get married. Gay marriage ask nothing of us. But trans rights asks for something: to believe, and act as if we believe, the reality inside someone else's head, even if it conflicts with our own senses. Personally, I'm fine with that. I'm a married man, long gone from the dating pool. But let's say a woman is about to enter a private space to get undressed and she sees someone that she percieves to be male, but that person says "I am a woman and you must treat me in all respects as if I am a woman". Does that affect her? I would say yes, because she must override the powerful urge to protect her personal safety. Remember, according to this very article, the trans woman in the changing room doesn't need to have undergone surgery, taken hormones or obtained a Gender Recognition Cert. They may look absolutely male while undressed. So this woman must disbelieve her eyes and ignore the inner voice warning her of a possible risk.

On the one hand we tell women to be careful and avoid risks, choose a safe route home, carry pepper spray etc. But when they refuse to get completely naked in a room with someone who looks like "a male stranger"? Bigot!

Third, the article effectively says "look, it's not big deal anyway because you don't even need hormones/op/GRC to change the sex marker on you ID, change sports category, enter the spaces provided for the opposite sex or even have your crimes recorded as being committed by the opposite sex". So... Give us self-id because we effectively have it anyway? That doesn't work, particularly if a lot of people are opposed to it.

Certain trans rights clash with certain female sex-based protections, and many women are only finding out about it when they read stuff like this [1] in the newspapers. Of course they're pissed. This problem isn't going away. It needs to be worked out.

1. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hospital-dismissed-claim-...

> Second, this article compares being trans with being gay. They're two different things entirely. The only "right" gay people wanted, above being left alone, was equality in law

Presenting this as a difference is a lie. There is no difference. Trans people only want to be left alone and to have equality in the law. (No, misgendering does not qualify as leaving them alone.)

You can solve all of these situations by treating the transgender woman the same way one would treat a cisgender woman in that situation. Nobody is obligated to be comfortable undressing in front of a trans woman, in the same way they are not obligated to be comfortable undressing in front of a cis woman. Nobody's going to call them a bigot just for not being comfortable getting naked in front of a stranger.

Transgender people are liable to get beaten for using the changing room or restroom, so many try to avoid public changing rooms anyways.

> So... Give us self-id because we effectively have it anyway? That doesn't work, particularly if a lot of people are opposed to it.

No, it's more like "Give us self-ID because it will help us, and all the reason anyone will give to oppose it are false." This is what the article is about. It will help them get married with the correct name on the certificate, along with some other boring administrative things, which, like gay marriage, asks absolutely nothing of you. It is entirely irrelevant to your example with changing rooms. The hospital example, which is mostly behind a paywall, seems more to do with a horribly sexist notion popular in Britain that a woman cannot commit rape than with the gender of any parties involved. (Note that I am referring to "rape", not "things that British law would consider rape", which is also subject to this notion.) In any case, it too has nothing to do with GRA reform.

What even is a "sex-based right" anyways? Most legal civil rights are equality rights, which apply to everyone equally.

> Presenting this as a difference is a lie. There is no difference. Trans people only want to be left alone and to have equality in the law.

Well, let's just call each other liars then

I haven’t seen that but I’d bet money on who it is, he’s such a prat

Isn't it about clashing rights?

It shocks me how many low-quality, misinformed comments are allowed to stay in this thread. It’s not hard to understand the difference of gender vs. sex. People think it’s fine to publicly harass and harm someone because their existence confuses them. Language like this is why I have friends who can’t step out the house to do something as simple as grocery shopping without something humiliating happening to them. It wasn’t nearly this bad before, and it’s getting worse as this topic becomes more heated. There is a terrible war happening right now, but people are instead obsessed with making others feel as ashamed as possible for their existence.

I think a lot of us on the terf side of the debate have no intention of publicly harassing or harming anyone. We just don't think trans women are the same as women, and the differences ought to be respected by sports, family locker rooms, etc.

Leaving aside the question of sports, do you really not see how banning someone who looks feminine from women's restrooms would cause awkwardness or discomfort for that person? If a transgender women is being abused by her male partner, you think that she should be barred from any women's resources or support groups even though she is going through the very situation that these resources were designed for?

Also, what about trans men. Do you feel comfortable with a bunch of bearded men with deep voices in the women's facilities? Or, do you instead think by some sort of double standard that trans men are men but trans women are not women?

I'm sorry, but unless you can answer these questions reasonably then your claim that you have no intention of harming anyone doesn't hold up.

I'd assume this is due to recent news:

US supreme court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson can't define 'Woman': https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/us/politics/ketanji-brown...

Lia Thomas breaks women's records and nearest swimmer by 38 seconds: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10282301/Transgende...

That must be so frustrating for those women who now see that they have no chance due to genetics. I'm surprised that having male bone density isn't considered "doping" if you compete as a female.

Isn't there always going to be someone better due to genetics? As a cis man, I know that even if I trained 24/7 with the world's best trainers, I'd never be as good a runner as some Kenyan dude or as good a basketball player as a tall and lanky dude. I have no chance due to genetics, even though I have a male body.

It's not like humans were made equally. Each body has genetic advantages and disadvantages, and your early childhood nutrition permanently changes your athletic potential too. You can't exactly level the playing field to begin with.

Why don't these sports have brackets instead of gender divides? Is a biological man/woman divide really the most useful distinguisher between athletes?

I guess for context, I just don't get the brouhaha. I am fairly active and tremendously enjoy several sports, even though I'm no good at them despite years of training and effort. A large part of it may be genetics. These are just hobbies and games.

Professionally, doing what I do for work, I'm also mediocre at best. There are people more intelligent than me, better communicators than me, more ambitious than me, more focused than me. Some of that is genetics too, though harder to tease apart.

So what? We don't know the upper limits of human potential, especially the environmental and epigenetic contributors that keep producing better and better athletes and thinkers. We're not static chess pieces with finite moves, but constantly evolving animals whose body plans keep adapting to new conditions as they arise and work to our advantage.

You can slice and dice a million humans into subgroups and there are always going to be statistical clumps, much of which is genetic. But so what? Why is that such a big deal for concern?

If the goal is to tease out the absolute best, only a no holds barred competition (with or without doping) can reveal that, and the competitors will likely get better over time. Anything else is just a handicap made for spectacle and entertainment, so why does it matter HOW you bracket? Why is the sex bracketing more important than race or weight or height or mental ability or leg strength or whatever other distinguisher? Humans never were equal to begin with.

People have been worrying about trans women in athletics for the last fifty years and the discourse against them competing has never changed. Underlying all the arguments is the belief that trans women are not women. A cis woman who is stronger, bigger, and faster than her peers is never called out for the circumstances of her birth and upbringing that allowed it to happen. But the circumstances of a trans woman's birth and upbringing is a matter of controversy instead of being a normal variation. If Lia Thomas was a cis woman with the same physical capabilities she does now, nobody would care.

Yeah, I understand there is that controversy (should newcomers with different bodies be able to displace old timers)... and presumably there isn't as much controversy about trans men who can't perform as well as cis men?

But what I don't get is why women's brackets are so much more important than, say, racial or height or any other brackets.

As a cluster, are "people born with vaginas" more similar in athletic ability than "people born of a certain ethnicity" or "people who reliably ate at last 1500 calories a day" or whatever.

Presumably this goes the other way too, with cis women being better at ultra endurance sports than cis men. So what?

Like isn't the whole point of brackets to give lesser athletes a moment to shine in the spotlight, even though they aren't technically the best? So why don't they just make more brackets not based on genitalia?

This is not correct.

Underlying everything is the science that says that a person who goes through puberty as a male gets permanent increases in bone and muscle density over people who go through puberty as a female.

In day to day life this ends up washing out in a sea of averages and individuals. In competitive sports, on the other hand, where we're no longer talking about averages but about peaks of performance, peak performers that experienced male puberty will always outperform peak performers that experienced female puberty. The advantage does not go away with hormone therapies, either. You'd get the same controversy if you let heavyweight boxers identify as welterweights too.

Many sports have handicapping systems that restrict or normalize natural advantages to allow fair competition. In track and field, for example, the most basic of these was the male-female split.

Lia Thomas is cheating the handicapping system. It's not fair.

No different to the 90%+ men like me who also have no chance due to genetics.

No, it’s very different. We’re not talking about 90%+ of women, we’re talking about the women who previously held records, who now can no longer compete because we’ve expanded the definition of “woman” to include anyone who claims to be one.

We used to separate men and women in sports exactly so this wouldn’t happen. Now, you have no chance unless you are born male.

So by your own argument, are Caster Semenya or Christine Mboma not women? In the fear around transgender individuals competing and somehow dominating all records (which is a small amount of an even smaller minority) you end up outright excluding cisgender women because they don't fit your increasingly narrow idea of what a woman is supposed to be.

Those cases are different and you know it. The athlete mentioned above is Lia Thomas. From wikipedia:

> In the 2018–2019 season she was, when competing in the men's team, ranked 554 in the 200 freestyle, 65 in the 500 freestyle, and 32 in the 1650 freestyle. In the 2021–2022 season, those ranks are now, when competing in the women's team, 5 in the 200 freestyle, first in the 500 freestyle, and eight in the 1650 freestyle.

How am I excluding cisgender women? I am arguing that forcing cis women to compete against trans women, who have the undeniable advantage of being born with a male body, is unfair. Athletics are separated by sex because, as a rule, men are just bigger and stronger than women. Like another commenter pointed out, if we remove this separation, 99% of female athletes would no longer be able to compete.

I brought up examples of women who were born with an undeniable advantage. They are faster and stronger than most other women because of their genetics. Should they be not considered women? Should they have to compete in their own bracket? Saying that it's 'different' isn't much of an argument.

I bring this up because part of the problem was transgender fears is what fuels the discrimination those individuals face despite being cisgender women.

If your answer is 'it's complicated' then you're admitting that defining what is and isn't a woman is more complicated than how it seems. The majority of transgender women competing in these sports do not break records or anything of the sort.

If we start to limit who can enter women's competitions based on traits, should we do same with males too? Like maybe not allow above average height players in basketball, to make more even field?

> are Caster Semenya or Christine Mboma not women?

My apologies for posting under a shitty throwaway, but fyi, the two athletes you mentioned are XY and thus not women by the simplest and most straightforward of definitions.

It is a very common position that they should be excluded from women's sports. In fact, the fact that all three medalists in the women's 800m at the 2016 Olympics have XY chromosomes is a very strong argument for doing so!

I'm with you on that reasoning, but it is worth noting that were we to drop the gender segregation in athletics then many female athletes lose their careers. It is easy to see why that's a concern for them, even if you don't agree that it is a good reason to keep the segregation.

I think you ought to tell the women who beat her that they had no chance of beating her.

In the NCAA Division I Women's Championship, she competed in the 100 yard, 200 yard, and 500 yard Freestyle events. She won only the last of those. This makes sense, as pre-transition, the longer freestyle events were her best ones.

> Human rights should not be a debate

Human Rights were made by humans. They are not natural, nor given by god. They emerged from the suffering of people and debates. Thus, we MUST debate them, especially when new aspect appear, and we must adapt our views to a new world.

And debates also serve for learning. People learn the reasoning, the history and the deeper implications of something through debate. And regarding human rights this today is more than necessary. Just look at how the peoples are acting today, on social networks, twitter, in debates. They all know the humans rights and take them for granted, yet openly violate and break them, because they don't understand them and just focus on their own single-minded ideology. Especially in the last two years with the pandemia and now the war this became very visible.

Thus, we do need far more debates about those things again. Every generation need to debate it anew to understand it.

Why does everyone need to control everyone else. Can we just live our lives and deal with everyone as individuals not as members of some other group?

We seemed to almost arrive at that situation up to around 2000, maybe 2005. The center of politics and individual rights won.

Then something went wrong and the authoritarians took over, wanting to make everything about group identity again.

Such a shame.

Libertarians where too focused on Right Authoritarians we got flanked by Left Authoritarians and never saw it coming,

the problem now is too many liberty minded people are see the Right Authoritarians as allies to the cause of liberty making the same mistake as the 90's when we allied with left authoritarians to put down the right.

Enemy of my Enemy of my friend is ALWAYS terrible doctrine

The left authoritarians control almost all of culture. Movies, academia, tech.

We're a long way from the right authoritarians to regain any sort of power.

I do agree on your broad point though. There shouldn't allegiances with extremists of any kind.

Now, that was not always the case.

Hollywood was changing in the 90's but it was very mixed then, more balanced. that was a time where Congress was holding hearings on Violence in Video Games, and wanting to ban pornography and other things like that.

Academia was similar, left for sure, but libertarian left

The Right was very much the authoritarian "side" of politics in the 90, started to change in 00's. then in 2016 Trump drove the Left right into Full blown totalitarian frenzy

Members of the dominant group don’t realize they’re unjustly controlling minorities.

I'll just say that this issue has made me pretty upset and angry over the last few years. The idea that people, "friends" even, hate me because I choose (respectfully) to stick to the definition of "woman" that I learned as a child and which my education as a biologist confirmed was reasonable is an absurd fact about modern western societies.

(2014)

Must everyone pretend that words cannot have more than one definition for just this word?

women (noun)

1) An adult female person 2) Whatever we say it means

Typically in context it's not difficult to determine which definition people are using.

By definition, literally, your secondary definition is meaningless.

The more diluted a term is, the noisier it becomes, until it no longer conveys information. From everything I can see, this dilution appears intentional for the purpose of establishing new dominance hierarchies.

As I'm sure you are fully aware, sometimes we find that certain concepts don't fully match reality as it is, and we then have to work to update our conceptual frameworks.

Is it that hard to imagine that "woman" and "man" might be one of those concepts? Especially given the amount of scientific progress that has occurred in the past few centuries?

Not saying I have all of the answers. It's just interesting to me how some people seem completely closed off to the idea that we may need to improve our understanding in this area.

The reality and the science is very clear. What you're saying is that science should be adjusted to take into account people's feelings.

That is not science.

And it's only being made more ridiculous when the proponents for the fuzziness of the concept of what a women is also insist that there are a multitude more genders and that you can change between them on the fly several times a day.

If the science is so clear, can you help me understand? Why do trans people claim what they claim? Can you point me to the research?

I need a more detailed explanation than “they have a medical disorder”.

It's curious how politics and activists tend to approach definitions backward. Anyone who aims to be rigorous (as politology and sociology should be) knows that you first must define clearly a term and then reason about it. Instead, we usually see attempts to redefine well-established terms, not by adding an additional meaning, but by replacing the original one. In a purely rational reasoning system, this change would be irrelevant because the important thing is the meaning, not the significant. But we humans are fallible beings, and we tend to transfer the perceptions and logical conclusions attached to the meaning to the significant itself. This way, when a redefinition is done in a society, the term will drag for a while the concepts related to the old meaning. This is a powerful manipulation weapon and I think it's the reason why it's so prevalent in those fields.

This is not saying that you shouldn't redefine anything. As you said in our daily lives there are a lot of terms that have lossy definitions that don't match perfectly with our mental models. But you should be cautious with the real intent of the redefinition, especially if it comes top-down.

But if there is no universal definition, then why would anyone get upset about being called a women or a man?

Because they've asked not to be.

I knew someone born by the name Todd. He hated the name, and changed it to John. Anyone who knew he wanted to be called John and still called him Todd got an earful - because he asked not to be.

I'm not talking about names, I'm talking about being identified as a man or a woman.

If there is no definition of what a woman is, then being identified incorrectly can't exactly be condemned.

But there is a definition: female mammals are XX and have female morphology. So you're not helping the conversation by investigating consequences of a false premise.

Again: They asked not to be.

Using an identifying word, that you've asked not to use, is a dick move. Accidents can happen, until you get used to something, and most people are fine with that and will give a gentle reminder. But continuing to use a term you've been asked not to, isn't fine.

Let's put it another way.

There's a girl I know, who was born Tiwi. However, though she looks Tiwi, she asks not to be referred to that way, and prefers Australian or native, or indigenous. For why? Every single one of the Tiwi Elders raped her, at one time or another. She shouldn't need to explain that horrifying background for you, reliving those oh-so-pleasant memories, for you to see reason in not calling her Tiwi. Because she's asked not to be.

Similarly, people have asked to be identified a certain way. Some of the reasons may be traumatic. They shouldn't have to relive that trauma, just for you to consider acquiescing to their effortless request.

All that should matter... Is they asked not to be. Fin.

The two words are brutally honest in what they mean: a man is a creature with manas (i.e. intelligence), and a woman is a man with the "wo" body parts.

People are confusing their psychological mind with their physical reality. You don’t just get to decide you’re a bird and be able to fly. Why do we debate this stuff? Instead of getting so offended stop Defineing yourself by something so insignificant

The psychological mind is a real physical thing.

No one is claiming to be a bird. That's a non-sequitur.

We debate these things because some people say "I feel X" and others say "You aren't allowed to feel that way and here is how we will marginalize you for that".

These are complicated issues. We should be willing to listen more and not assume we have all the answers about people who may have a very different life experience than you or me.

> We debate these things because some people say "I feel X" and others say "You aren't allowed to feel that way and here is how we will marginalize you for that".

Talk about missing the plot. This is 100% incorrect and not at all what the debate is about. No cares how anyone feels, people can feel any way they want, this is not the complaint.

The issue is “I believe I am <gender>, and I demand you treat me as <gender>, and also demand that you also agree that I not only feel like <gender>, but that I actually am <gender>.”

Yeah, sorry no that isn’t how biology works. It’s also selfish and narcissistic to demand everyone else partake in your self perception. Demanding everyone use your “pronouns” is just as silly if I demanded that everyone use the adjectives “strong and handsome” when they refer to me because that is how I feel and perceive myself. Having my own adjectives is extremely pompous, and so is having your own pronouns. You can feel however you want that’s fine, but you don’t get demand every else in the world must take part in your self perception and compel their speech and behavior to do so.

See my comment to your sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30797059

Equating gender / identity phenomena with wanting to be considered "strong and handsome" is not very... charitable.

The whole pronoun thing is massively overblown from what I've seen. Very, very, very few people are asking for unusual pronouns. Calling someone "they / their" is not hard. I live in LA and only come across someone asking once or twice. It's not a big deal.

For what it is worth, I sort of agree with you on the unusual pronouns. I'm not sure what I would do if someone asked me to call them some pronoun I've never heard of. I'm usually pretty agreeable, so I would try to be polite. But it would probably weird me out a bit. However, I don't even know if I will ever face this scenario. I'm not too worried about it :)

Transgenderism is the treatment to dysphoria. Dysphoria is a condition that is just as demonstrably provable as depression or any other mental illness.

If you were to wake up tomorrow in the wrong body you would also have dysphoria, and you would also try to treat that.

Humans are not some machines of perfect logical emotions and reasoning - you are no exception. On the contrary, it's narcissistic and selfish to think everyone has to be you, someone whom doesn't have dysphoria. That you are somehow the arbiter of what gender is. From what source is your knowledge based?

I used to think things were defined in books and by experts, turns out we know jack about humans, all we can really know is by experiencing them, and I can tell you first hand dysphoria is enough for good people to kill themselves. So, think on why that is, and look to the truth for an answer.

Saying transgenderism is the treatment to dysphoria is itself an extremely controversial statement and not one you can present as as a pillar of any argument. There is a contingent that _don't want_ anything other than transgenderism to be the solution to dysphoria, because it would put a lot of question marks over the accepted dogma.

This was previously on the WPATH Wikipedia page but has since been removed:

In 2021, WPATH's President-Elect, Marci Bowers called the association intolerant of dissenting opinions. She said, "There are definitely people who are trying to keep out anyone who doesn't absolutely buy the party line that everything should be affirming, and that there's no room for dissent."

It's not controversial, and the vast majority of transgender individuals belong to no orgs nor follow them. They're just people that are looking for solutions. There is always going to be political organizations using people and muddying the narrative for clout.

> Transgenderism is the treatment to dysphoria.

It's not a "treatment" at all. By definition a treatment (in this context) is:

`The use of an agent, procedure, or regimen, such as a drug, surgery, or exercise, in an attempt to cure or mitigate a disease, condition, or injury.`

Transgenderism is the rejection of any treatments, and an insistence there is no disease, condition, or injury.

> On the contrary, it's narcissistic and selfish to think everyone has to be you

I never claimed this. That said, if you want to have any useful discussions and dialog there has to be an agreement on things like definitions and facts. Otherwise communication is completely a useless endeavor.

> That you are somehow the arbiter of what gender is.

Again, never claimed I am somehow solely the arbiter or what gender is.

>From what source is your knowledge based?

From 1,000's of years of human history and language of people classifying biological sex. Also, just having common sense and the ability to do basic reasoning.

If you receive surgery to stop your back from hurting, is that not a treatment?

Transgenderism does not reject that there is a problem. It exists exactly because there's a problem it is resolving.

I'm going to make a number of assumptions. 1. Your ideas of transgender comes from fabricated ideas you've heard other people say. 2. You've never experienced what working with real humans is like, nor do you care to. 3. You didn't learn this topic before deciding to talk about it.

To have an honest conversation you have to do honest work to learn something. From what I see you have chosen to watch a few YouTube videos or sources that align with your pre conceived ideas. Therefore, you are not interested in being convinced.

If you're actually interested in learning the topic you're going to have to accept humans are different from you, feel things you don't, and have to live lives you do not. Look into why, be honest, and persue truth over whatever fancy you're having here.

> If you receive surgery to stop your back from hurting, is that not a treatment?

Yes that would be treatment. If you look back at the definition of a treatment you will see they are all things you do only to the affected individual. Treatments are directed inward to fix an issue with the self. Transgenderism, at least in its current form, is directed outward demanding everyone else prescribe to an ideology, that is not a treatment, that is tyranny.

> I'm going to make a number of assumptions.

Feel free to make all the assumptions you want about me. However, all the ones you have listed are 100% false.

> To have an honest conversation…

Seems to me your idea of an “honest conversation” is simply me siding with your point of view, anything less in your view is somehow “less than honest”. There doesn’t seem to be any room for disagreement in you definition of an “honest conversation”.

> From what I see you have chosen to watch a few YouTube videos or sources that align with your pre conceived ideas. Therefore, you are not interested in being convinced.

Now you are simply attacking my character and dismissing me rather than trying to dispute my arguments or engage in, as you put it, an honest conversation.

> If you're actually interested in learning the topic you're going to have to accept humans are different from you, feel things you don't, and have to live lives you do not.

I have never disputed that people can’t feel whatever the hell they want. That’s fine. I don’t expect, or even imagine, that anyones life experiences have been the same as mine. You are totally misrepresenting what I have argued.

Look the fundamental problem here is that the world, the universe, exists inside a framework, and we exist in that framework. We can manipulate it to some extent, but we aren’t gods. We cannot rewrite the framework. You don’t have to like the framework, but you can’t fundamentally change it either.

For example, someone paralyzed from the neck down may hate that they are paralyzed. They may wish with all their being that they weren’t paralyzed. They may feel that they are in the wrong body and that they should be in an abled body. And no doubt being paralyzed probably causes people to go through emotional hell. But reality isn’t going to change. Treatment is accepting reality, however fucking hard that may be, and playing the best hand you can with the cards that are dealt. Not demanding that you are able bodied, and asking the world to agree that you are able bodied because that is how you feel. And by no means am I ridiculing, or disparaging paralyzed people here. There are paralyzed people that have accomplished amazing things, and have done way more impressive things than I could ever hope to do. But those people didn’t, and never would have, accomplished those things if they refused to accept the cards they were dealt and instead became hyper focused on their disability and how it made them feel. No technology exists, yet anyway, that can change a persons XX chromosomes to XY, or vice versa. You might think that sucks, you might hate it, but it is the framework and reality that exists.

If your asking me to denounce that framework (reality), and enter into a delusion, then sorry but my answer is no.

"Look the fundamental problem here is that the world, the universe, exists inside a framework, and we exist in that framework. We can manipulate it to some extent, but we aren’t gods. We cannot rewrite the framework. You don’t have to like the framework, but you can’t fundamentally change it either."

This is a belief, not a fact. Delusion is where you use mental gymnastics to represent your beliefs as facts. Humans don't fit into frameworks, and you nor I know what those would be even if they do. Psychology, again, is a heavily flawed and infant science that can't treat the overwhelming majority of people.

Biology says nothing of how we as humans identify ourselves, it says nothing of sexuality. The deeper you look into biology you discover the core differences are almost entirely hormones. The science of biology is why we can transition our bodies, it does not prevent it.

Xy and xx chromosomes don't represent sex either. They're signals of what may be identifiable as man or woman but are not exclusive. When you look at the difference of male to female reproductive organs the core difference is a few genetic switches and hormones at an early stage. 8th grade science class on human body development is not representative of this more complicated reality.

Your framework is not based on reality, and you nor anyone else can claim they have a framework on human biology or psychology. That's not how science works. If you want actual answers look towards those that study genetics in relation to body development. We have more questions than answers.

>This is a belief, not a fact. Delusion is where you use mental gymnastics to represent your beliefs as facts. Humans don't fit into frameworks...

If you believe biology, and physics, etc. are not factual frameworks (which they are), then I am afraid there isn't much of a discourse or discussion here. Since we can't seem to agree on fundamental concepts.

>Biology says nothing of how we as humans identify ourselves

Agreed. And male and female are biological terms, that have absolutely nothing to do with how anyone identifies or feels.

> it says nothing of sexuality.

Incorrect, biology explains a lot about sex, namely how reproduction fundamentally works.

> Xy and xx chromosomes don't represent sex either.

Of course they do, that is the literal definition of male and female.

>Your framework is not based on reality, and you nor anyone else can claim they have a framework on human biology or psychology.

Unfortunately your framework is the one not based in reality. You are operating under a crazy assumption that biology is so complex that no one could possibly understand it, and we have so much more to learn! What you are actually doing is rejecting what science has known for 100's of years, and projecting yourself as some profound "deep" person who is able to see beyond what science has already settled.

>We have more questions than answers.

Agreed, there are so many unknown things in the universe, and things to discover, which is why its ridiculous to waste time disputing basic biology 101 things like "What is a male, and what is female" when this has been answered for 100's of years.

> We debate these things because some people say "I feel X" and others say "You aren't allowed to feel that way and here is how we will marginalize you for that".

Sounds like a straw man fallacy. Some people are saying "I feel like such and such", and the others are saying "you have a mental condition, let's seek medical treatment".

Being gay used to be considered a medical condition, but now everyone agrees that was a huge mistake. We should tread carefully here.

Maybe there are genuine disorders affecting some aspects of the less commonly found gender / identity phenomena. I'm not an expert. I don't know. I'm guessing you aren't either.

I'd prefer to error on the side of respecting the way someone feels if they aren't hurting anyone or imposing a large burden.

> but now everyone agrees that was a huge mistake

Citation needed. Not everyone agrees.

> Maybe there are genuine disorders affecting some aspects of the less commonly found gender / identity phenomena. I'm not an expert. I don't know. I'm guessing you aren't either.

You don't have to be an expert to see the parallels between this and any other fad we've seen before, such as hipsters and goths and emos and punks.

> I'd prefer to error on the side of respecting the way someone feels

We're witnessing postmodernism today, where everything is relative, and no absolute truths exist anymore. What you mentioned is a symptom of that way of thinking.

Oh hey, it’s you from the other thread. You never explained to me why you think evolution is false :)

Morality is an evolved trait. It doesn’t come from a god, so that’s why don’t need to worry that a religious book tells you ”being gay is wrong”.

We have an intrinsic sense of morality by means of what Islam calls "Fitrah" - the natural disposition which God instilled in us. This is why people are naturally inclined to believe in The Creator. This does not mean that the Fitrah cannot be concealed and/or corrupted. A lot of society today still has remnants and fragments of Truths from the previous Messages. In the West, this manifests through the remnants of Truth from Judaism and Christianity, even though they have been corrupted, generally speaking.

Once we establish, through proof and evidence, the True message from God, then it is only rational to obey and submit (e.g. see https://www.provingislam.com/). What is wrong, or why something is wrong may not be immediately apparent to us. As long as God ordained it, we would be irrational not to obey.

“ Morality is an evolved trait. “

This is one of many opinions. In a diverse society it’s better not to speak in absolutes, lest you fall for the relativistic trap of ‘there is no absolute truth except this sentence’.

I would say hormone blockers in prepubescent teens without parental consent is not treading lightly.

The de-transition community on reddit and Twitter can more concretely explain and show the harm being done under the desire to be blindly supportive and affirming.

Hormone blockers in prepubescent teens has been used for decades before transgender people had the option available. It was frequently used to treat people going through early puberty. We know how safe and effective they are because we have a whole body of scientific literature around people being on hormone blockers for 5-6+ years.

It's only as a result of the fear around transgender people that this is causing problems and, as usual, it also affects cisgender children because they issue blanket bans on treatments.

On a case by case basis, sure. However we are seeing a mass psychosis around trans identity in middle school. The rates of middle school girls identifying as something other than CIS are reaching levels as high as 40% in some school districts.

Maybe that is not a problem for some but that will be a problem for society in about a generation.

> The rates of middle school girls identifying as something other than CIS are reaching levels as high as 40% in some school districts.

> Maybe that is not a problem for some but that will be a problem for society in about a generation.

Why will that be a problem for society?

It's easy to look at all the forums where people regretted what they did. These fads are not reversible, and when people grow out of them, as many are, there will be ill effects on society.

Bluntly society exists to serve current and future generations. All future generations are predicated on a nuclear family. No significantly large human cultures without a basis around a nuclear family have survived from an evolutionary perspective.

For society to continue to exist it needs to primarily serve and be determined by people who meet, have kids, and form a nuclear family. While there are societies that do not do this they do not last more than a generation or two at the most.

While good societies should be inclusive and welcoming of non paired or alternative lifestyles they by definition need to remain alternative for society to continue to flourish or else the society dies as its members do.

We already have a birth rate below replacement rate. Societies where that is the trend typically do not last long either and have some fairly bad outcomes while they disappear.

Yeah I agree that hormone blockers in teens is not an action to take lightly (my understanding is that it is not reversible). I don’t have a ton of knowledge on it, but it seems we should be careful with that.

Note that there is no ethical way to determine if hormone blockers on children are nonreversible due to the known long term possible side effects of any medication.

The otherkin community does believe they are birds, and the overlap between them and trans people is likely quite high (specifically I claim that many more otherkin are trans than would be expected from non otherkin)

Same with furries but less extreme. Also lots of overlap.

claiming to be a bird is a thing. They call themselves ‘otherkin’

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin

What I don't understand about the trans-in-sports issue is why there is never any discussion of transgender men (ie people born female who take testosterone and transition to male). Everything I have ever read suggests that there are just as many trans men as trans women, if not more, and yet trans male athletes seem rarely mentioned.

There was an interesting case in Texas that did involve a trans male wrestler [1]. Because of restrictions imposed by the state of Texas, high school athletes must compete with their birth sex. The wrestler in question takes testosterone, which naturally gives him a huge advantage over the women against he competes against, leading him to consecutive victories at the state championships. According to news coverage of the championships, he was booed after his victory, and a lawsuit was filed to try and stop him from competing at all.

And yet, if you believe that anyone with two X chromosomes is a woman, these victories were the correct outcome: the championship was a competition between two women. Sure, the hormones he takes give him an advantage, but they were prescribed by a doctor for a medical condition (gender dysphoria). If a women was very tall, a result of her biology (in other words, a medical condition), no one would object when she made the basketball team.

What if we generalize his case to more elite athletes? If you have a problem with a muscular, bearded, man with a military haircut demolishing cisgender women in high level competitions, then you do not agree that people with two X chromosomes should always compete, because this is what many trans men look like.

A more logical position might be that anyone with elevated testosterone shouldn't compete with women, but then we have another problem, trans women often have lower testosterone than cis women [2]. So, if you object to cases like Lia Thomas's, which I totally agree seems unfair from the media coverage, then this won't work either.

It seems like the solution is pretty simple: in adult athletic competitions there should be two categories, women and "open". Women is for people with two X chromosomes and testosterone in the female range, while open is for everyone else. There is one last difficulty, though. Androgens are one of the most potent athletic performance enhancers that we know of. So, if you sample elite female athletes it is almost guaranteed that many of them have higher than average testosterone. Some may even be intersex without realizing it. They would all have to compete with men, which would be awkward for them, and likely make them less competitive. But hey, if you think that a trans man with a beard demolishing high school girls in wrestling is unfair, then you ought to think that female athletes with high testosterone is also unfair, even when those athletes have had long careers winning against other women [3].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/25/transgender-... [2] https://www.sfaf.org/wp-content/uploads/resources/transfemin... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/feb/18/caster-se...

What are the hermaphrodites?

This is throwing up a paywall URL. Any alternative links?

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...

Thanks. I wonder how long that site'll work for...

Quite simple: a person with XX chromosomes. Or are people starting to deny biology now?

You're understanding of biology is rather outdated. There are several X & Y chromosomal variations that are rather common but frequently undiagnosed. The X & Y Variations include 47, XXY OR Klinefelter Syndrome, 47, XYY (Jacob’s Syndrome) , 47, XXX (Triple X). There are also several variant disorders which include Tetrasomy X, Pentasomy X, 49, XXXX, 48, XXXY, 48, XXYY, and 49, XXXXY. So no, it's not quite simple.

Not outdated. The cases you mentioned are extremely extremely rare, and are indicative of physical ailments. The are no excuse to generalize across the population to attempt to redefine what "man" and "woman" mean. A child can tell you what a man and woman are.

Minorities still matter even if there aren't many of them. At what boundary does something being rare enough mean it's ok to not consider it a seperate form of sex?

Is it 10% of the population, 5%, or 0.5%? Why?

Calling genetic abnormalities in sex chromosomes separate sexes makes about as much sex as considering cancer a developmental stage.

We do not consider people who suffer from dwarfism a separate species, they are humans with a condition which limited their growth. People with Hypertrichosis are not seen as a separate species either, they are humans who show abnormal hair growth over their bodies. People with Syndactyly are just as human as those who do not have webbing between their fingers or toes.

In short, the presence of abnormal conditions does not create separate categories nor does it void existing categorisations, it just means that the individual who has that condition differs from the normal in some way.

Yeah but it's a matter of perspective. It's logical that the majority matters so much more, won't someone think of the majority? Majorities have rights, too

Exceptions to a rule are just that - exceptions. They don't refute the general rule.

I might draw a hand with a thumb and four fingers. The fact that some people are born with more or fewer fingers doesn't change the fact I drew a hand.

Those people still have hands.

Right, but we don't look at someone who was born without a hand and say "ok, clearly our definition of a hand is wrong."

So how many full percentages those affect in general population?

Lia Thomas has XY chromosomes, always has, has benefited from their advantages, and continues to do so.

Everyone knows DSDs exist, but most of the time they are brought into this debate, they are merely a rhetorical device rather than any real attempt to address the specific situation. One of my close relatives has Klinefelter's, and I can assure you he finds this sort of thing extremely upsetting.

Upsetting in which manner? The support of "xx doesn't define a woman" or vice versa?

I think he feels like a prop for someone else's agenda. Imagine living a long life with congenital issues that seriously impacted your physical development, made you infertile etc., then suddenly loads of people are talking about your condition. But it's rarely in order to benefit you, and very often just a sort of debating tactic, to advance the goals of XY people who don't share your condition at all and whose goals you disagree with. I would also find that upsetting.

I have a PhD in biology. You are wrong: the idea that human sex isn't essentially binary (with the usual rare edge cases of biology) is something that has been pushed by non-scientists with an ideological axe to grind; the essentially binary nature of human (and mammalian) sex is not something that mainstream researchers question in any significant numbers.

When actual scientists speak out, they get downvoted by the delusional who refuse to accept reality. Thank you for speaking up, and keep at it please. We live in a clown world today that is hanging on to the last remaining strands of sanity.

> Quite simple: a person with XX chromosomes. Or are people starting to deny biology now?

This is a really common response, and I do honestly empathise with it because for most people (me included most of the time) in everyday life there's not really any need to think about it too deeply. Like you said in another comment "A child can tell you what a man and woman are."

But can they? Or can they just point at people and guess, with about the same accuracy as you or me? They probably can't _actually_ tell you what a man and woman _are_ in any useful way any more than most grown-ups.

Like you agreed in that other comment too, there are some "extremely extremely rare" cases where a child would probably say they're a man or woman but their chromosones aren't what you'd expect.

That highlights that chromosones aren't really a deciding factor though right? The child isn't using chromosones when they decide, and I've never been asked about my chromosones, or heard of anyone else being asked about theirs outside of a hospital.

So to answer your question, I don't think anyone is denying biology, it's just that biology isn't as relevant as it might seem at first thought.

I can see your point here, but would argue that biology is the underlying reason that you don't have to think about it too much.

Think of it this way... in your lifetime of genuine interactions with people (e.g. conversations), how many XX people have you mistaken for XY people, and vice versa? For most people the answer is very close to zero, but why is that?

I would argue it's because billions of years of evolution (a biological process) have already helpfully trained us to detect even the tiniest differences between males and females. We have been a sexually dimorphic species for a very long time. And those differences (whether massive or tiny) are directed in large part by the chromosomes inside our trillions of somatic cells - skin, hair, bones, eyes, brain, etc. etc.

Also, for those rare cases you mention, the chromosomes often are a major deciding factor in how we do the classification, e.g. we might be confused about someone with a DSD because although they were "assigned female" since birth, they continue to show some male characteristics, due to the Y chromosome present in their organs, skeleton, etc. Surgeons can operate on genitals etc., but they can't alter all of the trillions of somatic cells in the body.z

> how many XX people have you mistaken for XY people, and vice versa?

I have no way to know, that's my point.

Most of us have a basic biology education to drawn on that allows us to look back and in hindsight say "The men I know probably have XY and the women XX chromosones" but it's never part of the process any of us actually use.

To me, chromosones just seem like a distraction. It promises to replace all of the messy, political, social uncertainty with a polite, clinical, objective answer if only everyone would realise it's just about the biology.

The trouble is, the biology can't seem to answer the questions that are the most contentious. I have no idea what my chromosones are in reality, but I know how I'd like to live my life and mostly there's no problem, no one checks, no one asks, and if they did, how would that knowledge justify overriding my autonomy?

People have 1 head. There is at least one case that this is not true.

Forcing radical viewpoints on all of society over extreme outliers is ridiculous.

> People have 1 head. There is at least one case that this is not true.

> Forcing radical viewpoints on all of society over extreme outliers is ridiculous.

"Don't take away basic human rights from people with more than 1 head" doesn't seem all that radical to me, but maybe I'm out of touch.

"Taking away rights" is a straw man. Give them medical treatment, that's also a right.

Sure, give them the right to seek medical treatment and don't take that right away, I agree.

Conflating genetic sex, with cultural identity, is the mistake being made here. One doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the other.

There are people who prefer a different outward expression of who they are. The underlying genetics are as important as your blood type. Useful for a doctor, irrelevant when choosing shoes.

Denying physical reality is a dangerous precedent. A dog can be a cat, and a phone can be a washing machine.

> a phone can be a washing machine.

The morphology, function, and complexity of the modern phone is such that it probably isn't even recognisable as a phone from even thirty years ago. The concept of what a phone is has gone through so many changes, from a device that sends audio down a physical line, to what it is today that very rarely even has a physical line attached, that it probably demonstrates how words and identity can evolve new meanings better than any other example you could have picked.

This is detracting from the point. Again, a child can tell you that a phone is not a washing machine, just like a child can tell you that a man is not a woman. Men and women have been the same as men and women from thousands of years ago. We did not magically change species or something.

Do physical conditions exist (XXY, XYY, etc) exist? Yes they do, but what we're seeing today is mass hysteria around a mental issue. What should be done is start looking at the underlying causes. Hormone imbalances? childhood trauma? Depression? Wanting out of the current lifestyle? Lack of religion? People with too much time on their hands that they start inventing problems? All these and more should be investigated

> just like a child can tell you that a man is not a woman. Men and women have been the same as men and women from thousands of years ago. We did not magically change species or something.

Ah. You have a very limited background. Right.

We have been the same species for thousands of years. And for thousands of years there have been male and female (sex) groups that have presented as men and women (gender), that is not the same as the one you might assign to them. (The galli priests of Rome, the Hijras of India, the khanith of Arabia, etc.)

And no... No, a child is not always able to tell them apart. Nor does a child, necessarily, instinctively call them either man or woman. If you were to ask a child of the Tiwi tribe what one of their ladyboys are, today, man or woman, they would answer "ladyboy". If you press the point - the child becomes confused. The ladyboys have been present in the Tiwi for roughly the last eight to ten thousand years or so ("kirrijamiyagirraga" in Tiwi). They are as much a part of the social fabric as man or woman. Tiwi is a gendered language, and has three genders (kirri - male, makirri - female, rraga - ladyboy), as well as a fourth tense that is used for gender-neutral terms (ramiya). And, well, if you assume that they're all genetic males, you'll get that wrong as well.

> the khanith of Arabia

I'm very well aware of Arabian culture. khanith is a homosexual and/or effeminate male, and is heavily used as an insult today (almost like "fag" in english). It was never a "third gender" as you're trying to claim. So no, the entire basis is incorrect.

Repeat after me, there are two genders. Everything you described has one of two parts between their legs, barring physical ailments like intersex, which are extremely extremely rare.

> Repeat after me, there are two genders. Everything you described has one of two parts between their legs, barring physical ailments like intersex, which are extremely extremely rare.

As the Tiwi would say today (and have been saying for an order of magnitude longer than most nations have existed - about eight thousand years or so):

> Kirrijamiyagirraga naramiya makirri kirrikirriramiya

To roughly translate into English... "If you cannot see if it is a woman, nor a man, why must it be either?"

It loses a little bit of meaning, as it uses four genders and English is not a gendered language, but you can get the gist. (Naramiya is closer to "bear witness" or "absolutely determine" in a somewhat-legal sense. It's a stronger phrase than English really has.)

You are conflating the genetics of _sex_ with the cultural status of _gender_. No one is denying the genetics side. They have just managed to understand the difference between how one presents oneself, and something else that only their doctor need know.

That has been the trend for years now.

Current supreme court nomination can’t define a woman.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/24/supreme-court-nominee-judge-ke...

Postmodernism in action.

Does it really matter what a woman is? Trans people just want to stop being discriminated against and have the same rights as everyone else.

When you start to introduce other moral issues like whether people under the age of 18 should be allowed to take medication that allows them to transition that's a much more debatable subject.

Who are we to say what people can / can't feel based on two chromosomes? Sure I have an XY chromosome but I'm not going to let that define every decision I make in life.

When someone is sick, we point them to proper medical treatment. By indulging in their dissociation from reality, we're not doing anyone a favor.

The mind of a person, in its authentic and self-aware form, has no gender. Any gender normative behaviour is imprinted by habit or selected by the subject by choice, because that's how they choose to identify.

This person then has two options: to not mind what body they have, because it's irrelevant to who they are; or to select to alter their body because they don't like it, or prefer the aesthetic properties of another body enough to make the alterations.

Analogy: imagine everyone is born and given a car. All the cars are identical in speed, economy and safety, but differ in terms of status and social stigmas attached to the badge on the hood.

When they're old enough to drive it, if they think philosophically about it, it's irrelevant what brand the car is, provided that it works, and we'll say for argument's sake that all the cars work.

However, plenty of people would pay to change their Skoda or Honda for a Mercedes or Tesla badge, and vice versa. This is because the brands have acquired a series of associations in the public consciousness -- Mercedes is associated with prestige, wealth and luxury; Honda with reliability, value for money, fuel economy, and so on.

Some of these associations are deliberate results of marketing and design, and some (in particular negative connotations regarding the drivers) have been earned through what are essentially memes.

Many people jokingly stereotype Mercedes and BMW drivers as assholes, and others stereotype drivers of Japanese or Korean cars as poor -- because they're not in a German luxury car, not because the Japanese and Korean manufacturers don't make expensive luxury cars.

Let's get back to bodies. Since you cannot currently swap your body for another one, and since it has yet to be determined conclusively that there is a neat Cartesian division between mind and body (evidence suggests that the contrary is true, and that the line between mind and body is pretty blurry), people must resort to paying for modifications to their body to acquire the looks they want.

The aesthetic construct of the body is obviously tightly coupled to the modifier-type person's sense of identity. It isn't simply that they want to be more beautiful, they want to feel more beautiful, and they want beauty to be a defining characteristic.

This may stem from abuse in their developing years teaching them that their looks are coupled to their identity (you're ugly so you aren't good enough to play with us) or it may simply be their nature -- this debate is volatile, but more importantly it is irrelevant.

Why is it irrelevant? Because it doesn't matter whether working to unwind the abuse to help people accept their natural body would reduce the popularity if plastic surgery or not, to try and make that judgement across the whole human race or indeed the subset that seeks out body alteration is both dangerous and not possible to do without misjudging someone. There are always outliers, people who get plastic surgery because they see no harm in it and just want something they see as an imperfection removed or corrected. And that's okay, it's every person's choice and no one should be made to answer for their choices in life provided that they didn't hurt anyone else in the process.

This simply covers cosmetic alteration, of course.

When coming to the question of gender re-assignment, it is not so much more complicated as it is more delicate. For starters, it's a bigger change that enlarging breasts or straightening noses.

And while philosophically it makes no difference to the authentic, self-aware person's mind, in reality it is the culmination of a decision in that person's mind to change gender (which may not simply be a desire to look different, but rather a way to visibly manifest and perhaps even justify/normalise their desire to behave in line with gender norms that oppose their biological gender.

Additionally, even if the person behaves no differently and just wanted to change for no apparent reason (for argument's sake) it will have a far greater effect on how the rest of society will perceive that person compared to cosmetic enhancements.

Sure, people can be judgemental of others who get breast enlargement or nose correction, botox, whatever. But more people are likely to be more judgemental of people who change genders.

The very notion, while considerably more mainstream and accepted than even 20 years ago, is still likely to evoke intolerance and discomfort in a lot of people -- they have simply been taught by TV or direct experience that they have to be selective with whom they confide their feelings to.

The rudimentary answer to the question "what is a woman?" is a female human. And in a world where no one is judgemental, there is no historic prejudice, no patriarchal shaping of language and power, etc, this is all there would be.

But that's not the world we live in.

We live in a world where women were historically treated by many cultures as inferior humans who were only necessary for the production of offspring and the performance of housekeeping. Where women who tried to prove that they were anything more were mocked, criticised, ostracised, abused or just killed.

We live in a world where man formed languages in direct reference/deference to himself, and some of our languages even attach genders to certain objects.

We live in a world where a man is defined by his power, and a woman by her beauty and by how closely she matches whatever manifestations of the female gender archetype are en vogue. In other words, by her ability to attract a man.

Ultimately, the same primitivism that caused women to be sidelined as cooks and mothers lies embedded in the marketing machine that pumps out glistening glossy airbrushed idols and bombastic celebrities for women to emulate today.

The real danger of this, however, lies in the reaction. Women do not see through this ruse to make them buy perfume and eyeliner, instead they react the opposite way and try to emulate the male stereotype.

This is like Camus compared to to Heidegger. Heidegger says Sisyphus, keep bringing the rocks, it sucks but if you can't accept that it sucks, you're just deluding yourself and that's no way to live. Camus says rebel, run away, fuck the rocks, rocks are whack.

My point is that a lot of feminists looked at Sisyphus's wife getting her nails and think that carrying rocks is awesome because it's not feminine, and then another wave of feminists come and see other feminists carrying rocks and decide that it's better to embrace being feminine and go to get their nails done. And then you have your actual feminists who look at Sisyphus, his wife, and the other feminists and think how utterly absurd the whole picture is, and work to change the problems in society through literary criticism and post-structuralist psychoanalysis.

The reason why people have problems with gender re-assignment is that they have thousands of years of history and opinions making them make emotional and thus bad judgements about the whole situation, and most importantly, not thinking critically about why they are making those judgements. They're just on autopilot.

What is a woman? A woman is a female human. What is a female human? A human with a female body.

What is a woman? Some might answer that woman is a mother, a sister, a daughter, a protector and someone who needs protecting -- but if you generalise these to parent and child, you get a protector and a protectee without gender anyway. So that can't be it.

Like I said, the mind has no gender. If you genderise the mind, you're just falling back on, or forming new gender norms that aren't accurate and shouldn't be accurate.

The more interesting question is what is identity? If someone chooses to identify with effeminate behaviour, are they doing so authentically? Or because they like the way it encourages others to behave? Or because they like the way they think it encourages others to behave, even if it really doesn't?

In a perfect world, we would categorise nothing by gender. That residual primitivism exists even today with the toilet division thing. It's only because in our past humans were sexually predatory and remorseless for such behaviour that today it is deemed civilised to separate the genders, but if the species were truly civilised, that civility would speak for itself and we would just all piss in cubicles for the sake of privacy, or perhaps this would be optional. But we don't trust ourselves even now, and why would we? Most people I've met are driven by the same things that animals want. They want to eat, sleep and reproduce, have a decent nest, look better than the other animals and make sure their offspring are going to be good at all of the above.

I personally have no interest in any of these things. I'm most comfortable alone, speaking with others when I can be bothered, I sleep and eat out of necessity, and the only thing that really drives me is my desire to learn and master things, to understand the universe and its contents, and to write or create things with that knowledge. I care not for what I leave behind, when I am dead, my consciousness presumably dies too, and being conscious of things is what I truly take pleasure in, so I wish to learn of as much as possible before my death. There is no gender in this, but crucially, there's no gender in the instinctive desires to have children or to eat, to sleep or to have a nice warm secure home.

Genders are around because people were taught that there were two genders, and that each gender should behave a certain way because that's what was taught before. These behaviours were taught for a menagerie of reasons, some of which to guarantee that children will grow up behaving in a manner that would not offend a future mate, others to make sure that children would grow up being employable, and so on.

All of this is based on the same daft notion that the way you behave with respect to your reproductive organs somehow has any bearing on your ability to produce a child or be good at a job.

Gender is just BS. There is no female brain, and if there are differences in a brain from a woman compared to one from a man, they will be the result of thousands of years of stereotyping having a physiological/epigenetic manifestation.

> But, if that’s true, why would men demote themselves to womanhood? For reasons of sexual fetishism, says Jeffreys

i just looked up some stats on trans death. it was hard to get a good international life expectancy source; most seem to peg it at about 32-40, or half the general population's. i did definitively find that 2 in 5 living american trans people self-report attempted suicide. must be quite the fetish, Sheila.

the paradox of tolerance: tolerating bigotry replaces your alienated userbase with bigots until it stops couching itself in virtuous newyorker articles.

> good international life expectancy source; most seem to peg it at about 32-40

Which sources? The frequently cited 35 years figure is nonsense: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/09/23/41471629/is-the-...

the article that you linked is trying to debug the US life expectancy claim. i specifically wrote "international". your own article cites a (quite thorough! better than i found on short notice) analysis in latin america estimating the number between 30-35 as its 772nd citation...

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