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.
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
Forcing radical viewpoints on all of society over extreme outliers is ridiculous.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Current supreme court nomination can’t define a woman.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/24/supreme-court-nominee-judge-ke...
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.
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
[2]: https://streamable.com/trlxfu (not my title, I'd say there's deniability in the exact (sub)group being referred to)
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.
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.
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.
What do you think might be some better possibilities than the current mess?
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.
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.)
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...
> 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.
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.
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.
White privilege is very much a treatment by society. Racism and sexism are both enacted upon by people based on social norms.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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?
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.
Nobody fits their gender norms perfectly. No culture has identical gender norms. Even physiologically chromosomes are more nuanced than X and Y.
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...
(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 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.
"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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
Same with furries but less extreme. Also lots of overlap.
See the "lemmywinks" south park episode from 20+ years ago.
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...
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.
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?
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.
Instead of the subjectivity, remove all the segregation and let reality sort it out.
Would certainly clear up a lot of cognitive dissonance.
Then something went wrong and the authoritarians took over, wanting to make everything about group identity again.
Such a shame.
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 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.
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.
Which sources? The frequently cited 35 years figure is nonsense: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/09/23/41471629/is-the-...
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.
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.
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.
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...
