Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

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> However in my personal case I don’t believe transgender and gender identity roles are something that should be pressed on still developing minors.

I don't think those things should be pressed on developing minors either. But I see people of all stripes dressing their boys in pants and their girls in skirts; blue for boys, pink for girls; encouraging boys to hang with boys and play with "boy things" and girls to hang with girls and play with "girl things" and romanticizing cross-gender interactions between children as young as a day old. I don't think we should be forcing these norms on children of this age.

But I suspect that what you're actually saying is that we should not tolerate transgender expression in children. Which, I submit, violates the rights of that child to express themselves.

And, by the way, freedom of speech includes the freedom to respond to deplorable speech with criticism and even shunning. If somebody thinks that you're a bigot or a hater, will you defend their rights to say so?

I do not know if you habe children, but this is for good reason.

Children are brutal when it comes to peer pressure and such. They do not engage in white lies, they say it as they think it is.

If you send your boy in a pink mini dress to school, you will not be doing him a favour.

There should be some rules on how humans present themselves when in public and in groups. I mean, if society would be such that ypu could walk down the city center naked with all reproductional organs exposed with nothing but a kkk t shirt, this simply would not find acceptance.

In summary, kids minds and kid environments like school are fertile grounds for bullying under peer pressure etc. It is good if a school promotes freedom of expression and tolerance, but some very vocal minority groups want everything yesterday and are pushing it down everyones throats.

Having had a close family member losing 5 years of his life and his savings to a fortuneteller crook has made me realize that people with too much of an open mind, in a crisis situation, will believe the most ridiculous coping strategies told to them by others. Kids are often insecure and easy to influence, I think they should be kept away from people promoting irreversible things like gender changes. Cigarettes , gambling and alcohol are forbidden to be promoted to minors, so should be this.

But how do we know what the "right" ways to present yourself are? It used to be that if you were a white kid in the US and you played with black kids, other white kids would treat you badly. I presume we all agree that this is not good behavior, and not good for society. But can you clearly delineate between this, and between kids bullying other kids because they are wearing the wrong colors?

I understand that we have to realistically look at the effects these changes have on individuals. But I don't think that we have reached any kind of "optimal social rules". Deciding to stop right here and now seems arbitrary, and I'm reasonably certain that there have always been people making this exact argument for any kind of change.

> But I see people of all stripes dressing their boys in pants and their girls in skirts; blue for boys, pink for girls; encouraging boys to hang with boys and play with "boy things" and girls to hang with girls and play with "girl things" and romanticizing cross-gender interactions between children as young as a day old. I don't think we should be forcing these norms on children of this age.

I don't think we should be either. But asides from the well known differences in brain size and white / grey matter ratios which I'm sure you're already with, I encourage you to visit your local Lesbian Mother's Group where I am sure you will find many parents who absolutely believe in year-0 of sex differences and who, based on my sister's experiences, are often very surprised about how boys and girls act.

> But I suspect that what you're actually saying is that we should not tolerate transgender expression in children.

There is no reason to say this. Many people against gender theory are former 'tomboys' that are healthy adults, don't conform to gender stereotypes, and are glad that breast binding, hormones and cosmetic surgery weren't foisted on them as children.

Local Lesbian Mother here. What do you mean by "healthy adults"?

> > Many people against gender theory are former 'tomboys' that are healthy adults, don't conform to gender stereotypes, and are glad that breast binding, hormones and cosmetic surgery weren't foisted on them as children.

> What do you mean by "healthy adults"?

By healthy adults I mean they don't feel any need to conform to gender stereotypes, and are glad that breast binding, hormones and cosmetic surgery weren't foisted on them as children.

Edit reply due to rate limit: yes I edited because I realised I’d already written this in the comment you were replying to, you just hadn’t bothered to read the comment before replying. I wanted to highlight how foolish you were. I hope you understand now.

And yes mutilating one’s body is harming it, I have no qualms in telling you this in a very direct non-quiet fashion. Stop encouraging people to wreck their bodies.

I see you edited from:

> Comfortable as the sex they were born with, acting however they like, without harming their bodies.

> I would have thought that was clear but if you were asking genuinely there’s your answer.

Yeah. It was clear to me that you were using "healthy" to assert that transgender people who transition are "unhealthy." That surgery is "harm." Your later edit

> > > Many people against gender theory are former 'tomboys' that are healthy adults, don't conform to gender stereotypes, and are glad that breast binding, hormones and cosmetic surgery weren't foisted on them as children.

> By healthy adults I mean they don't feel any need to conform to gender stereotypes, and are glad that breast binding, hormones and cosmetic surgery weren't foisted on them as children.

shows that you understand your initial statement to be a dog whistle, and that upon reflection, you decided not to say the quiet part loud.

The topic here is about principles and rights of free speech. You've swerved into a debate about the legitimacy of transgender existence. I'm not here for that debate; you can keep yammering if you like.

> shows that you understand your initial statement to be a dog whistle, and that upon reflection, you decided not to say the quiet part loud.

You seem to be making some very strong assumptions about intent [E] and have been since your first response in this thread. As an outside observer, those assumptions don't seem supported by the conversation up to this point.

Instead of assuming this person is strongly biased and bigoted, perhaps can you instead assume they simply did not make the point they were trying to make as clearly as they would have liked, and thus revised their statement accordingly?

Something something positive intent and the like. Assuming negative intent when there's very little signal to support that assumption speaks more to your own prejudices and biases than anything else.

> Something something positive intent and the like

Trust, but verify. It's one thing to recognize a dog whistle and flip out. It's quite another thing to hear a dog whistle, ask for elaboration, and nope out when negative intent is revealed.

What negative intent is there in not wanting children to harm their own bodies?

I agree with parent poster in their assumptions. Few posts up @nailer repeats anti-trans talking point that originated from 4chan.

The 'talking points' thing is a non argument. For the record, my sister - the same one from the Lesbian Mother's Group - counsels at-risk adolescents and I live near the Tavistock center which was shut down by the UK government after one of their doctors blew the whistle on 'gender affirming' care.

I'm not sure why you're bothering replying to someone who's misgendering someone in their previous comment?

As your comment-sibling suggests, it's good to at least try to assume good faith. Perhaps I wanted to give just a bit more rope for the commenter to hang theirself with. This is, perhaps, a counterintuitive argument for free speech: if you don't let them make asses of themselves in public, nobody will believe that they're doing it in private.

The ad-hominem response is little more than confirmation that I hold the higher ground.

I’m sorry what ad-hominem response? You labelled me a bigot for pointing out that gender theory harms children, which I guess you think isn’t ad hominem?

I told you to stop harming children and you think that is ad hominem and proves you have the moral high ground?

Kim Petras was abused as a 12 year old boy. You're welcome to your own newspeak but the rest of us don't have to revise history because you want us to.

In case you missed it:

Yes I edited because I realised I’d already written this in the comment you were replying to, you just hadn’t bothered to read the comment before replying. I wanted to highlight how foolish you were. I hope you understand now.

And yes mutilating one’s body is harming it, I have no qualms in telling you this in a very direct non-quiet fashion. Stop encouraging people to wreck their bodies.

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