Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On May 10 2023 07:25 micronesia wrote: So if I'm following the conversation, the choice is to either say, "I'll hold the fort," confusing my American brethren who aren't familiar with that historically accurate expression, or say, "I'll hold down the fort," clearly communicating my intentions to my American brethren but frustrating speakers of British origin? The part I'm unclear on is if the intent of language is to clearly communicate your intentions or rather to make British expats happy.
“I’ll hold the fort” isn’t remotely confusing to this American, fwiw.
Says the well-above-average American, rendering the opinion almost meaningless!
well-above-average American on what metric? "Hold the fort"-sentence understanding? What is average? How far above average is "well above"? One sigma? Two sigma? And what is the standard error we are talking about here? Moreover, what is your population sample and experimental methodology for this study?
micronesia called me above average, stop questioning it :D
On May 11 2023 21:27 Simberto wrote: The only reasonable measurement here is height above sea level.
I, living in southern Germany at about 500m above sea level, am well-above-average for a German. However, there are a bunch of far superior Germans around, like those living in the alps, or on other mountains.
Your high and mighty attitude gives a new definition to alt-right. Sir.
On May 11 2023 21:27 Simberto wrote: The only reasonable measurement here is height above sea level.
I, living in southern Germany at about 500m above sea level, am well-above-average for a German. However, there are a bunch of far superior Germans around, like those living in the alps, or on other mountains.
Your high and mighty attitude gives a new definition to alt-right. Sir.
Don't you mean alp-right?
I just can't please everybody. Your expectations are too high.
On April 24 2023 18:05 Liquid`Drone wrote: Tbh I'm guessing many conservative minded people would be opposed if they saw a Sid Vicious type of person in charge of the local library's book reading session, and many of them would indeed be inclined to think 'I'm gonna find some other place instead'.
That something is inappropriate for children and that some people think something is inappropriate for children are distinctly different things. Tbh, the former might actually be influenced by the latter, in some way, but inherently, it's more a question of how people want their children to turn out. Myself I don't really care about the gender identity of my son so if he wants to borrow this tshirt + Show Spoiler +
https://tl.net/staff/LiquidDrone/genderbender.jpg
then I'd be totally happy with that. However I'm a semi-pacifist and would have a hard time with him say, wanting to become a professional boxer or joining some branch of the army not explicitly involved in self-defense, so I'd have a bit of a negative reaction to groups influencing my child towards either of those directions, especially if it's tax-funded. Obviously he gets to live his own life the way he wants to live it, but I think it's plenty normal to have certain idealized futures that you envision and certain futures you don't want.
For a bunch of conservative-y, right-leaning people, there's this visceral reaction to 'men that don't look like men', and even when there's a 'I can accept that these people are like that' (which isn't always present, but sometimes), they're still very likely to have a 'but damn if I want my boy to be like that'.
I do think there should be different expectations for what a teacher can wear and what a performance artist can wear, tbh. I'd generally be discouraged from coming to school like this + Show Spoiler +
but for a person reading the story of the little mermaid, it's entirely on point.
Just from personal experience I can say it’s absolutely crazy now that everyday I meet a new transgendered kid that wants to kill themselves and 5 years ago this did not exist.
Your personal experiences may have changed, but I can guarantee it's not that they didn't exist 5 years ago. Autism isn't on the cusp of consuming humanity, for example, we're just finally diagnosing it more, so the numbers started going up. People who were left-handed, and people who are gay, aren't suddenly increasing in number now that they're allowed to exist.
These people have always existed. Its whether their existence is being acknowledged by others, and whether they feel safe to identify as they are. That's what's changing.
Going to bump this conversation since not much is happening in this thread and I now have some time to lay down some thoughts on this idea that the explosion in transgenderism/non-binary-ism is coming from people that were essentially born that way and society had just been repressing them until now.
“Tourette syndrome symptoms portrayals on highly-viewed TikTok videos are predominantly not representative or typical of Tourette syndrome,” says Alonso Zea Vera, M.D., neurologist at Children’s National Hospital and lead author of the study.
“Although many videos are aimed at increasing Tourette syndrome awareness, I worry that some features of these videos can result in confusion and further stigmatization,” Dr. Zea Vera says. “A common cause of stigmatization in Tourette syndrome is the exaggeration of coprolalia (cursing tics) in the media. We found that many videos portrayed this (often used for a comedic effect) despite being a relatively rare symptom in Tourette syndrome.”
Tourette's is just one of many. There are a slew of other mental health illnesses that supposedly increased dramatically during the pandemic and primarily among adolescents. POTS, OCD, ADHD, PTSD, just to name a few. What you have on TikTok is a place where adults have left the room and teens are diagnosing each other and going down these algorithm driven rabbit holes. Then you can easily doctor shop until you get the diagnosis you want. You can find news stories on the shortage of adderall because a short tele-health zoom meeting can get you an ADHD diagnosis and an adderall prescription.
But why are all these teenagers tripping over themselves to try to get diagnosed with ailments? One theory is that it might be related to society telling us that if you're white you're an oppressor. I may be going out on a limb here, but I think not everyone wants to be identified as a little white privileged racist cunt. If you can go from that to being a victim of genocide or a victim of other able-ist bigotry maybe it's a tempting offer.
Another theory is that some people just want attention and clout. If you're average looking with rather average interests and hobbies literally nobody is going to care about you on social media. Having some illness at least gives you a niche that might be somewhat interesting and create that positive feedback loop of receiving more attention and then playing up your niche even harder and so on.
Or.... we could just use the left-handed theory and just assume that marked increases in these illnesses just come from society no longer persecuting them and people are now finally free to display their tics or change their gender. Sure, a plausible theory. To me it doesn't even seem like the most likely. To me the idea that somebody would be so confident in that theory that they have no hesitation in surgically removing the breasts of young women seems insane.
On May 17 2023 07:53 BlackJack wrote: But why are all these teenagers tripping over themselves to try to get diagnosed with ailments? One theory is that it might be related to society telling us that if you're white you're an oppressor. I may be going out on a limb here, but I think not everyone wants to be identified as a little white privileged racist cunt.
I'm curious what critical functions to life that top surgery removes from someone. Does a women without breasts become lesser if they decide they are a woman? Is milk production essential to the human experience in some way?
I mean stone cold how many women mistakenly remove their breasts mean to you vs a trans person killing themselves?
It's a lot of projection to say that people are normally being labeled as little, white, privileged, and racist. I have never been called that or led to believe I am that due to my birth circumstances. I've also never been comfortable just randomly releasing a slur but that's just me.
Damn, you got me. I’ve never heard of white people having privilege or being inherently racist either. That’s something I just made up and thought it would slip by.
On April 24 2023 18:05 Liquid`Drone wrote: Tbh I'm guessing many conservative minded people would be opposed if they saw a Sid Vicious type of person in charge of the local library's book reading session, and many of them would indeed be inclined to think 'I'm gonna find some other place instead'.
That something is inappropriate for children and that some people think something is inappropriate for children are distinctly different things. Tbh, the former might actually be influenced by the latter, in some way, but inherently, it's more a question of how people want their children to turn out. Myself I don't really care about the gender identity of my son so if he wants to borrow this tshirt + Show Spoiler +
https://tl.net/staff/LiquidDrone/genderbender.jpg
then I'd be totally happy with that. However I'm a semi-pacifist and would have a hard time with him say, wanting to become a professional boxer or joining some branch of the army not explicitly involved in self-defense, so I'd have a bit of a negative reaction to groups influencing my child towards either of those directions, especially if it's tax-funded. Obviously he gets to live his own life the way he wants to live it, but I think it's plenty normal to have certain idealized futures that you envision and certain futures you don't want.
For a bunch of conservative-y, right-leaning people, there's this visceral reaction to 'men that don't look like men', and even when there's a 'I can accept that these people are like that' (which isn't always present, but sometimes), they're still very likely to have a 'but damn if I want my boy to be like that'.
I do think there should be different expectations for what a teacher can wear and what a performance artist can wear, tbh. I'd generally be discouraged from coming to school like this + Show Spoiler +
but for a person reading the story of the little mermaid, it's entirely on point.
Just from personal experience I can say it’s absolutely crazy now that everyday I meet a new transgendered kid that wants to kill themselves and 5 years ago this did not exist.
Your personal experiences may have changed, but I can guarantee it's not that they didn't exist 5 years ago. Autism isn't on the cusp of consuming humanity, for example, we're just finally diagnosing it more, so the numbers started going up. People who were left-handed, and people who are gay, aren't suddenly increasing in number now that they're allowed to exist.
These people have always existed. Its whether their existence is being acknowledged by others, and whether they feel safe to identify as they are. That's what's changing.
Going to bump this conversation since not much is happening in this thread and I now have some time to lay down some thoughts on this idea that the explosion in transgenderism/non-binary-ism is coming from people that were essentially born that way and society had just been repressing them until now.
“Tourette syndrome symptoms portrayals on highly-viewed TikTok videos are predominantly not representative or typical of Tourette syndrome,” says Alonso Zea Vera, M.D., neurologist at Children’s National Hospital and lead author of the study.
“Although many videos are aimed at increasing Tourette syndrome awareness, I worry that some features of these videos can result in confusion and further stigmatization,” Dr. Zea Vera says. “A common cause of stigmatization in Tourette syndrome is the exaggeration of coprolalia (cursing tics) in the media. We found that many videos portrayed this (often used for a comedic effect) despite being a relatively rare symptom in Tourette syndrome.”
Tourette's is just one of many. There are a slew of other mental health illnesses that supposedly increased dramatically during the pandemic and primarily among adolescents. POTS, OCD, ADHD, PTSD, just to name a few. What you have on TikTok is a place where adults have left the room and teens are diagnosing each other and going down these algorithm driven rabbit holes. Then you can easily doctor shop until you get the diagnosis you want. You can find news stories on the shortage of adderall because a short tele-health zoom meeting can get you an ADHD diagnosis and an adderall prescription.
But why are all these teenagers tripping over themselves to try to get diagnosed with ailments? One theory is that it might be related to society telling us that if you're white you're an oppressor. I may be going out on a limb here, but I think not everyone wants to be identified as a little white privileged racist cunt. If you can go from that to being a victim of genocide or a victim of other able-ist bigotry maybe it's a tempting offer.
Another theory is that some people just want attention and clout. If you're average looking with rather average interests and hobbies literally nobody is going to care about you on social media. Having some illness at least gives you a niche that might be somewhat interesting and create that positive feedback loop of receiving more attention and then playing up your niche even harder and so on.
Or.... we could just use the left-handed theory and just assume that marked increases in these illnesses just come from society no longer persecuting them and people are now finally free to display their tics or change their gender. Sure, a plausible theory. To me it doesn't even seem like the most likely. To me the idea that somebody would be so confident in that theory that they have no hesitation in surgically removing the breasts of young women seems insane.
While tics can be indicative of Tourette syndrome, tics can also come about without that specific mental health diagnosis. Stress/anxiety/nervousness, lack of sleep, withdrawal, and other factors can create motor/facial/verbal tics even without having Tourette's. As someone who has Tourette's, I really appreciate your link elaborating on the fact that most cases aren't the extreme "scream curse words" level of Tourette's that many people think is standard.
I can definitely see how new stressors (like dealing with the fallout of a global pandemic) could potentially lead to tics, and even how some impressionable minds could trick themselves via confirmation bias into thinking they might have mental health issues when they see other people with self-diagnosed problems. That being said, I'm not sure if I buy the idea that people are consciously faking Tourette's en masse, just to appear special.
I also don't know if Tourette's, OCD, or PTSD parallels transgenderism particularly well. For example, if there was an actual cure for my Tourette's - which there isn't - I'd be first in line, but I'm not really experiencing a tremendous amount of social pressure or condemnation or anti-Tourette legislation. On the other hand, I think the trans community is looking more for cultural acceptance and validation, and the opportunity to make their own medical decisions and avoid anti-trans laws.
On May 17 2023 09:30 BlackJack wrote: Damn, you got me. I’ve never heard of white people having privilege or being inherently racist either. That’s something I just made up and thought it would slip by.
You quoted me to "bump" the conversation and immediately proceeded to change the subject that you yourself brought up. If the goal was to confuse anyone who might've tried to pay attention to you you're succeeding.
On May 17 2023 08:50 Sermokala wrote: I'm curious what critical functions to life that top surgery removes from someone.
Critical functions to life? You’re curious if breasts are a critical function to support life? There’s actually an unbelievable amount of limbs, appendages, organs that can be removed and aren’t a critical function of life. Surely this can’t be news to you.
Does a women without breasts become lesser if they decide they are a woman?
At least a few pounds less, I would imagine.
Is milk production essential to the human experience in some way?
By my estimate about 50% of humans will never make milk, myself included. So I guess you could say it’s not essential to the human experience.
I mean stone cold how many women mistakenly remove their breasts mean to you vs a trans person killing themselves?
What are you asking me here? How many mastectomies mean to me vs a trans person killing themselves?? Like what ratio of women mistakenly removing their breasts is worse than a trans person killing themselves? I don’t know? Is this something I should know? Do you have a number for this? I’ve never been posed the trolley problem with breasts before. Should my answer be in number of breasts or number of women?
Maybe you can just formulate an argument and offer that instead of a hodgepodge of silly questions that I’d rather answer literally so you don’t have an opportunity to add your own interpretations and contexts
On April 24 2023 18:05 Liquid`Drone wrote: Tbh I'm guessing many conservative minded people would be opposed if they saw a Sid Vicious type of person in charge of the local library's book reading session, and many of them would indeed be inclined to think 'I'm gonna find some other place instead'.
That something is inappropriate for children and that some people think something is inappropriate for children are distinctly different things. Tbh, the former might actually be influenced by the latter, in some way, but inherently, it's more a question of how people want their children to turn out. Myself I don't really care about the gender identity of my son so if he wants to borrow this tshirt + Show Spoiler +
https://tl.net/staff/LiquidDrone/genderbender.jpg
then I'd be totally happy with that. However I'm a semi-pacifist and would have a hard time with him say, wanting to become a professional boxer or joining some branch of the army not explicitly involved in self-defense, so I'd have a bit of a negative reaction to groups influencing my child towards either of those directions, especially if it's tax-funded. Obviously he gets to live his own life the way he wants to live it, but I think it's plenty normal to have certain idealized futures that you envision and certain futures you don't want.
For a bunch of conservative-y, right-leaning people, there's this visceral reaction to 'men that don't look like men', and even when there's a 'I can accept that these people are like that' (which isn't always present, but sometimes), they're still very likely to have a 'but damn if I want my boy to be like that'.
I do think there should be different expectations for what a teacher can wear and what a performance artist can wear, tbh. I'd generally be discouraged from coming to school like this + Show Spoiler +
but for a person reading the story of the little mermaid, it's entirely on point.
Just from personal experience I can say it’s absolutely crazy now that everyday I meet a new transgendered kid that wants to kill themselves and 5 years ago this did not exist.
Your personal experiences may have changed, but I can guarantee it's not that they didn't exist 5 years ago. Autism isn't on the cusp of consuming humanity, for example, we're just finally diagnosing it more, so the numbers started going up. People who were left-handed, and people who are gay, aren't suddenly increasing in number now that they're allowed to exist.
These people have always existed. Its whether their existence is being acknowledged by others, and whether they feel safe to identify as they are. That's what's changing.
Going to bump this conversation since not much is happening in this thread and I now have some time to lay down some thoughts on this idea that the explosion in transgenderism/non-binary-ism is coming from people that were essentially born that way and society had just been repressing them until now.
“Tourette syndrome symptoms portrayals on highly-viewed TikTok videos are predominantly not representative or typical of Tourette syndrome,” says Alonso Zea Vera, M.D., neurologist at Children’s National Hospital and lead author of the study.
“Although many videos are aimed at increasing Tourette syndrome awareness, I worry that some features of these videos can result in confusion and further stigmatization,” Dr. Zea Vera says. “A common cause of stigmatization in Tourette syndrome is the exaggeration of coprolalia (cursing tics) in the media. We found that many videos portrayed this (often used for a comedic effect) despite being a relatively rare symptom in Tourette syndrome.”
Tourette's is just one of many. There are a slew of other mental health illnesses that supposedly increased dramatically during the pandemic and primarily among adolescents. POTS, OCD, ADHD, PTSD, just to name a few. What you have on TikTok is a place where adults have left the room and teens are diagnosing each other and going down these algorithm driven rabbit holes. Then you can easily doctor shop until you get the diagnosis you want. You can find news stories on the shortage of adderall because a short tele-health zoom meeting can get you an ADHD diagnosis and an adderall prescription.
But why are all these teenagers tripping over themselves to try to get diagnosed with ailments? One theory is that it might be related to society telling us that if you're white you're an oppressor. I may be going out on a limb here, but I think not everyone wants to be identified as a little white privileged racist cunt. If you can go from that to being a victim of genocide or a victim of other able-ist bigotry maybe it's a tempting offer.
Another theory is that some people just want attention and clout. If you're average looking with rather average interests and hobbies literally nobody is going to care about you on social media. Having some illness at least gives you a niche that might be somewhat interesting and create that positive feedback loop of receiving more attention and then playing up your niche even harder and so on.
Or.... we could just use the left-handed theory and just assume that marked increases in these illnesses just come from society no longer persecuting them and people are now finally free to display their tics or change their gender. Sure, a plausible theory. To me it doesn't even seem like the most likely. To me the idea that somebody would be so confident in that theory that they have no hesitation in surgically removing the breasts of young women seems insane.
While tics can be indicative of Tourette syndrome, tics can also come about without that specific mental health diagnosis. Stress/anxiety/nervousness, lack of sleep, withdrawal, and other factors can create motor/facial/verbal tics even without having Tourette's. As someone who has Tourette's, I really appreciate your link elaborating on the fact that most cases aren't the extreme "scream curse words" level of Tourette's that many people think is standard.
I can definitely see how new stressors (like dealing with the fallout of a global pandemic) could potentially lead to tics, and even how some impressionable minds could trick themselves via confirmation bias into thinking they might have mental health issues when they see other people with self-diagnosed problems. That being said, I'm not sure if I buy the idea that people are consciously faking Tourette's en masse, just to appear special.
I also don't know if Tourette's, OCD, or PTSD parallels transgenderism particularly well. For example, if there was an actual cure for my Tourette's - which there isn't - I'd be first in line, but I'm not really experiencing a tremendous amount of social pressure or condemnation or anti-Tourette legislation. On the other hand, I think the trans community is looking more for cultural acceptance and validation, and the opportunity to make their own medical decisions and avoid anti-trans laws.
"Faking it" is not the correct characterization of my argument. I don't think anyone is faking anything to be oppressed or faking anything for clout. I would call these things subliminal incentives or catalysts. Our minds are impressionable indeed, young minds even more so. It's why billions of dollars are spent on advertising. It's why placebos can heal people. It's why people with conversion disorder can be unable to walk despite nothing being wrong with their legs. You wouldn't say that somebody that can't walk despite nothing being wrong with their legs was "faking it."
When you see a bunch of different ailments that are increasing significantly in prevalence and manifesting in ways we don't typically see you need an explanation. Some illnesses that were typically more prevalent in males are now more prevalent in females. Some illnesses that typically first surfaced in early childhood are now surfacing acutely in adolescent girls. Amazing coincidences. Sure you could have a different theory to explain each of these, e.g. less repression of transgendered people means more people feel comfortable coming out and more stress during the pandemic means more people are developing tics, etc. Or you could just have the one theory that explains it all - that this is primarily driven by social contagion related to the rise in Tiktok and social media. Occam's razor applies.
The woman in this video is far more eloquent than I am and I think she makes a good argument. Starts at 15:30 in this video and is about 7 minutes in length
You can find news stories on the shortage of adderall because a short tele-health zoom meeting can get you an ADHD diagnosis and an adderall prescription.
I've suspected for quite a while that our chemical sectors, as well as our pharmacological, coupled with how society fuctions nowadays is extremely detrimental to human physiology. I think we'll see how it evolves, but longitudinal studies or ecological data is notoriously very hard to come by - especially non biased takes. So while this will be a non falsifiable hypothesis lurking in the back of my mind and I'll try to stray away from confirmation bias, we will see what pollution and microplastics and anti-anxiolytics and social media algorithm optimization etc will mean for the human condition in the next few generations.
What I'm looking for: upticks in cancer, mental illness, dementia, antisocial tendenciea (communal and individual).
On April 24 2023 18:05 Liquid`Drone wrote: Tbh I'm guessing many conservative minded people would be opposed if they saw a Sid Vicious type of person in charge of the local library's book reading session, and many of them would indeed be inclined to think 'I'm gonna find some other place instead'.
That something is inappropriate for children and that some people think something is inappropriate for children are distinctly different things. Tbh, the former might actually be influenced by the latter, in some way, but inherently, it's more a question of how people want their children to turn out. Myself I don't really care about the gender identity of my son so if he wants to borrow this tshirt + Show Spoiler +
https://tl.net/staff/LiquidDrone/genderbender.jpg
then I'd be totally happy with that. However I'm a semi-pacifist and would have a hard time with him say, wanting to become a professional boxer or joining some branch of the army not explicitly involved in self-defense, so I'd have a bit of a negative reaction to groups influencing my child towards either of those directions, especially if it's tax-funded. Obviously he gets to live his own life the way he wants to live it, but I think it's plenty normal to have certain idealized futures that you envision and certain futures you don't want.
For a bunch of conservative-y, right-leaning people, there's this visceral reaction to 'men that don't look like men', and even when there's a 'I can accept that these people are like that' (which isn't always present, but sometimes), they're still very likely to have a 'but damn if I want my boy to be like that'.
I do think there should be different expectations for what a teacher can wear and what a performance artist can wear, tbh. I'd generally be discouraged from coming to school like this + Show Spoiler +
but for a person reading the story of the little mermaid, it's entirely on point.
Just from personal experience I can say it’s absolutely crazy now that everyday I meet a new transgendered kid that wants to kill themselves and 5 years ago this did not exist.
Your personal experiences may have changed, but I can guarantee it's not that they didn't exist 5 years ago. Autism isn't on the cusp of consuming humanity, for example, we're just finally diagnosing it more, so the numbers started going up. People who were left-handed, and people who are gay, aren't suddenly increasing in number now that they're allowed to exist.
These people have always existed. Its whether their existence is being acknowledged by others, and whether they feel safe to identify as they are. That's what's changing.
Going to bump this conversation since not much is happening in this thread and I now have some time to lay down some thoughts on this idea that the explosion in transgenderism/non-binary-ism is coming from people that were essentially born that way and society had just been repressing them until now.
“Tourette syndrome symptoms portrayals on highly-viewed TikTok videos are predominantly not representative or typical of Tourette syndrome,” says Alonso Zea Vera, M.D., neurologist at Children’s National Hospital and lead author of the study.
“Although many videos are aimed at increasing Tourette syndrome awareness, I worry that some features of these videos can result in confusion and further stigmatization,” Dr. Zea Vera says. “A common cause of stigmatization in Tourette syndrome is the exaggeration of coprolalia (cursing tics) in the media. We found that many videos portrayed this (often used for a comedic effect) despite being a relatively rare symptom in Tourette syndrome.”
Tourette's is just one of many. There are a slew of other mental health illnesses that supposedly increased dramatically during the pandemic and primarily among adolescents. POTS, OCD, ADHD, PTSD, just to name a few. What you have on TikTok is a place where adults have left the room and teens are diagnosing each other and going down these algorithm driven rabbit holes. Then you can easily doctor shop until you get the diagnosis you want. You can find news stories on the shortage of adderall because a short tele-health zoom meeting can get you an ADHD diagnosis and an adderall prescription.
But why are all these teenagers tripping over themselves to try to get diagnosed with ailments? One theory is that it might be related to society telling us that if you're white you're an oppressor. I may be going out on a limb here, but I think not everyone wants to be identified as a little white privileged racist cunt. If you can go from that to being a victim of genocide or a victim of other able-ist bigotry maybe it's a tempting offer.
Another theory is that some people just want attention and clout. If you're average looking with rather average interests and hobbies literally nobody is going to care about you on social media. Having some illness at least gives you a niche that might be somewhat interesting and create that positive feedback loop of receiving more attention and then playing up your niche even harder and so on.
Or.... we could just use the left-handed theory and just assume that marked increases in these illnesses just come from society no longer persecuting them and people are now finally free to display their tics or change their gender. Sure, a plausible theory. To me it doesn't even seem like the most likely. To me the idea that somebody would be so confident in that theory that they have no hesitation in surgically removing the breasts of young women seems insane.
While tics can be indicative of Tourette syndrome, tics can also come about without that specific mental health diagnosis. Stress/anxiety/nervousness, lack of sleep, withdrawal, and other factors can create motor/facial/verbal tics even without having Tourette's. As someone who has Tourette's, I really appreciate your link elaborating on the fact that most cases aren't the extreme "scream curse words" level of Tourette's that many people think is standard.
I can definitely see how new stressors (like dealing with the fallout of a global pandemic) could potentially lead to tics, and even how some impressionable minds could trick themselves via confirmation bias into thinking they might have mental health issues when they see other people with self-diagnosed problems. That being said, I'm not sure if I buy the idea that people are consciously faking Tourette's en masse, just to appear special.
I also don't know if Tourette's, OCD, or PTSD parallels transgenderism particularly well. For example, if there was an actual cure for my Tourette's - which there isn't - I'd be first in line, but I'm not really experiencing a tremendous amount of social pressure or condemnation or anti-Tourette legislation. On the other hand, I think the trans community is looking more for cultural acceptance and validation, and the opportunity to make their own medical decisions and avoid anti-trans laws.
"Faking it" is not the correct characterization of my argument. I don't think anyone is faking anything to be oppressed or faking anything for clout. I would call these things subliminal incentives or catalysts. Our minds are impressionable indeed, young minds even more so. It's why billions of dollars are spent on advertising. It's why placebos can heal people. It's why people with conversion disorder can be unable to walk despite nothing being wrong with their legs. You wouldn't say that somebody that can't walk despite nothing being wrong with their legs was "faking it."
When you see a bunch of different ailments that are increasing significantly in prevalence and manifesting in ways we don't typically see you need an explanation. Some illnesses that were typically more prevalent in males are now more prevalent in females. Some illnesses that typically first surfaced in early childhood are now surfacing acutely in adolescent girls. Amazing coincidences. Sure you could have a different theory to explain each of these, e.g. less repression of transgendered people means more people feel comfortable coming out and more stress during the pandemic means more people are developing tics, etc. Or you could just have the one theory that explains it all - that this is primarily driven by social contagion related to the rise in Tiktok and social media. Occam's razor applies.
The woman in this video is far more eloquent than I am and I think she makes a good argument. Starts at 15:30 in this video and is about 7 minutes in length
I didn't think you were making any "argument" in particular. You listed a few competing hypotheses, and I reflected on them. The video clip brings in anorexia as yet another parallel, so now we're comparing trans identity to Tourette's, POTS, OCD, ADHD, PTSD, and anorexia. I'm still not sure what the point is, here. If you're making an actual argument (not that you have to be, but you're claiming to be arguing something), what is it? Especially something that incorporates being trans under the same umbrella as having Tourette's or anorexia? Is it something like "There seems to be a significant uptick in people having certain conditions or non-standard identities, and it might be because they're self-diagnosing themselves based on how they see other people presenting these conditions and identities"? That statement could be broad enough to include both the LGBTQ+ community and people with mental health disorders, sure.
However, the former has been in the closet for a very long time, so it may be hard to figure out how many people who come out as trans (or gay, etc.) are doing so because they had been hiding it but finally feel safe and validated vs. suddenly being convinced that they're not cis or not straight based on seeing others in those communities.
And also, I'm not really sure how much that matters, given that those who receive gender-affirming care and surgery are overwhelmingly happy with their decision to transition:
"The year-long review screened more than 4,000 studies and identified 56 that assessed whether gender transition improves the mental well-being of transgender individuals. The analysis concluded that 93 percent of the studies found positive effects from gender transition, indicating “a robust international consensus in the peer-reviewed literature that gender transition, including medical treatments such as hormone therapy and surgeries, improves the overall well-being of transgender individuals.”" https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2018/04/analysis-finds-strong-consensus-effectiveness-gender-transition-treatment
So when you make statements like "To me the idea that somebody would be so confident in that theory that they have no hesitation in surgically removing the breasts of young women seems insane", you're making an argument from emotion. The fact of the matter is that people who have transitional surgery tend to be extremely happy with the results, and generally pose little-to-no regret, regardless of how graphic the imagery may be to an outsider.
I think the extremness of the procedure is something that should be evaluated differently.
I am a cis male (like probably most people on this forum). At literally no point in my life have i ever even considered getting my penis removed, and if someone were to suggest that, i would view them as insane. I am pretty confident that most cis males view their situation in the same way.
This, to me, means that people who do make that decision (or a decision to have breasts removed as a woman) are starting from a fundamentally different point. There must be some tremendous suffering pressure onto them to force them into such a decision. And considering how certain i am that my decision is correct for me, i should probably respect their decisions for themselves, even if they are different from those that i would make for me, because clearly there is something going on with them that is very different from what is going on with me.
I think that it is a tremendous waste of everyone's time and bandwidth talking about issues that affect far less than 1% of the population. It is sad that nowadays the right find nothing better to do than make waves on a topic that is overall so insignificant in terms of impact.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Drag-Queen-Story-Hour-Youtube.png)
