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Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

The pesticide atrazine? Because it was atrazine that cause the frog deformities, not BPA. I'm not sure why we're talking about atrazine in an article about the different chemical, BPA. Since atrazine was invented in 1958 and gender dysphoria existed before then, I think your hypothesis is incorrect.

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But there's been an unnatural rise in instances of alleged gender dysphoria. I have no idea about any of the facts surrounding this issue, just wanted to point out that some X simply existing prior to a point in time when something else Y was introduced to the environment does not mean that Y cannot have any effect on the rate of instance of X.

Edit: I don't mean unnatural in a bad way. I mean it like something has caused the previous rate to change in a noticeable way that warrants studying. s/unnatural/noticeable

That's what I would think, but actually it's just that gay rights have improved, and trans people are just asking to be heard too.

It's a social awakening, it's not linked to chemicals.

How can you know its not both? What we are seeing is some chemicals are clearly disrupting hormones and its something we have tested pretty well in other animals. At the minimum I don't think that we can rule out new chemicals as a part. It also seems likely that gender dysphoria and sexuality are very different things that can't be reasoned about the same way.

Some sexologists do consider this to be related to sexuality. For example, Anne Lawrence, who has considerable expertise with gender dysphoria, has noted that in many cases it appears to be a type of 'erotic target identity inversion', in which the subject of sexual desire is oneself in a different physical form - in this case, the opposite sex.

It can be both (it almost certainly is).

And as for the social awakening, acceptance is one thing (marriage and rights were a long time coming) - denial of reality for the sake of people's feelings is quite another.

100% of all LGBTQ+ people have some form of a fertility disorder.

I'm not saying that to be cruel or unkind - but if the gametes don't meet, there can be no zygote.

At an individual level it does not matter to me in the least - but when it comes to the question of universal fertility it's a different matter.

> 100% of all LGBTQ+ people have some form of a fertility disorder.

> I'm not saying that to be cruel or unkind - but if the gametes don't meet, there can be no zygote.

gametes can easily meet in BTQ+ relationships. L&G, too, especially if there is T involved.

cis-cis L & G relationships aren't the whole of the LGBTQ+ space.

> L&G, too, especially if there is T involved.

If T is involved, e.g. a woman being impregnated by a trans-identifying male, then that would be a heterosexual pairing, not a homosexual one.

Even if we accept that your use of language may in some sense be legitimate, it's not accurate as far as the term LGBTQ+ that you borrowed is defined, so it doesn't matter.

It matters to people who are actually lesbian or gay, as an accurate definition of our sexuality.

I mean, just have a look at this article, it explains exactly what happens when heterosexuals start identifying into homosexuality https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385.

Sure, but depending on the T the delivery/reception mechanism can be somewhat functionally compromised.

I would appreciate some source for this

Why is it an "unnatural" rise? How do we distinguish it from a natural rise?

We can't. That's why its such a difficult thing to study let alone the political issues of such a study. It seems almost obvious that some rise is a rise in reporting but its not possible to rule out other factors either. And these other factors seem pretty likely considering we can observe them in tests on other animals.

Because to the extent that it's induced by chemicals that have never naturally existed, it's unnatural?

There's been a rise in autism during the same period, some people chalk that up to increased diagnosis but pollution is a very reasonable hypothesis as well.

Because reality wouldn't be so perverse as to have multiple endocrine disrupters.

Of course there are, but it seems obvious to me that greater LGBTQ+ acceptance recently has led to people being more open with that side of themselves, rather than it being the result of environmental pollution.

Anyway, the alarm is very selective. I don't see people rapidly reducing their animal product consumption because of dioxin, a potent endocrine disruptor that is bioaccumulating. Atrazine is still used in most US corn production, are all the people concerned about plastic avoiding non-organic corn and corn products?

> Of course there are, but it seems obvious to me that greater LGBTQ+ acceptance recently has led to people being more open with that side of themselves, rather than it being the result of environmental pollution.

Why does that seem obvious to you? Additionally, even if it's true, it may not be the only cause in rise of cases of gender dysphoria. Additionally additionally, it's also possible that some change in our environment has affected the prevalence of "LGBTQ+ acceptance" in the first place.

The West's movement away from an Abrahamic worldview has certainly helped with the acceptability.

There's no doubt that there's an aspect of the expectation of acceptance and safety that makes self-identification more viable (certainly more so than the expectation that your family is about to throw a bunch of rocks at you).

However, that does not mean there's been no change in the underlying rates - it just means that the data is noisy.

We've dealt with noisy data before.

I guess a more succinct way to phrase my question-point is: what if as western liberal humans we've always been accepting of anything as it increases in prevalence and something has cased the prevalence of LGBTQ+ to rise to a point where we naturally accept it more? Just a thought experiment I'm definitely not trying to question all the work activists have done. More-so opening the table and asking what if it's an effect and not a cause. I guess covid may be an obvious counter-example but meh.

If there's a shared cause to both it's industrialisation.

It is the reason we're well fed and well educated - here's where I'd look for the cause of acceptance.

It's also the beast we built to burn the world.

It seems that as more people start to absorb the ideology of gender identity that is being pushed upon society, some who wouldn't have otherwise considered it are applying these concepts to themselves.

Hence the trend of people identifying as 'non-binary' in recent years - it's the logical conclusion of believing that 'man' and 'woman' refer to a collection of gendered stereotypes, rather than a description of one's sex.

There's obvious correlation, but causation? And in particular that it would be obvious which way?

I'm sure I'll regret this comment - I really don't have an axe to grind - I just don't find that 'obvious' at all (however real and fine the feeling itself).

> greater LGBTQ+ acceptance recently has led to people being more open with that side of themselves, rather than it being the result of environmental pollution

That's a very weird implication. All human beings are complex products of social, economical, genetic, environmental and historical factors.

External factors do not make a person "less themselves" or "less real".

I think he's overstating the impact, but external factors absolutely impact how people present themselves.

There aren't to many openly gay Saudi Arabians.

Do you think Saudi Arabia is secretly 20% LGBT, like the US gen-z is openly?

That suspiciously high 20% doesn't just include people who are LGB or identify as T. It originates from a poll commissioned by GLAAD, who also included in that category anyone who described themselves as "gender non-conforming". Which could mean anything really: clothing styles, haircuts, hobbies, etc.

Multiple issues here:

> I'm not sure why we're talking about atrazine in an article about the different chemical, BPA.

It wasn't a top-level comment, further down the comment tree the subject can diverge - I responded to a comment about Alex Jones, not the specific endocrine disrupter in the article.

> ... invented in 1958 and gender dysphoria existed before then, I think your hypothesis is incorrect.

This doesn't logically follow the comment it replied to, the parent comment in no way claimed that endocrine disruption was entirely responsible for sex dysphoria, but wondered whether it was "largely responsible".

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