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On July 07 2023 02:47 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 02:12 StasisField wrote:On July 06 2023 23:24 Acrofales wrote:On July 06 2023 23:12 NewSunshine wrote:On July 06 2023 21:56 Acrofales wrote:On July 06 2023 15:20 StasisField wrote:
Well then I guess let me be the first to inform you that gender studies is an academic field and this isn't just kids making it up as they go and adults going along with it. The online right ridiculed gender studies for years in the 2010's so I'm not surprised you're unfamiliar with the field and what it covers (not meant as a jab. Genuinely doubt any given political circle would talk about a field it doesn't value in some way). Pronouns like she/them are pretty simple. They don't inform you of what gender a person is but rather what pronouns a person is happy to be referred to as. For example, I am a cis man and I'm happy to be referred to as he or him in conversation but I wouldn't have any problems with being referred to as they or them in conversation either. Therefore, my pronouns are he/them. Genuine curiosity. Why are your pronouns he/them and not he/they? I mean. I self-identity as a man and would not be offended if someone referred to me as "they", but it would be weird if you phrased a sentence as: "he needs that book back tomorrow, so can you please remember to give it back to them?" That may be, but it's not that you need to use the proper mix of pronouns in any given sentence, it's that any of them are OK by that person. It's the same as the idea that a bisexual person does not need to be dating both a man and a woman at the same time in order to be a bisexual. They're just down for either one at a given moment. Yeah, I understood that. But if it's a list, why not just list them all in subject form, rather than the second one in object form, which gives the impression that if I say I identify as he/them, I want to be called "he" if I am the subject of the sentence, but "them" if I am the object. If I were to list my pronouns as he/they, wouldn't that be clearer in showing that I am happy to be referred to as either he or they, or as an object, as him or them? It's just to keep the original format of subject/object like with he/him, but you're right that listing all of them like he/him/they/them or listing only the subjects or only the objects like he/they or him/them would be clearer. thank you for clarifying! 
No problem!
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On July 07 2023 00:25 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2023 14:56 BlackJack wrote:On July 06 2023 13:01 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t really get the conversation dynamics that fixate everybody on trans issues. Like, I thought xDaunt used to be kind of masterful at saying something exactly provocative enough to earn hundreds of angry liberal responses (of which he would choose the dumbest one to reply to, spout some new inflammatory bullshit, rinse and repeat). I didn’t like or even respect it, per se, but I could recognize there was a craft to it.
But in the last week or so there’s the same effect but without any of the cleverness. Page after page of bathroom shit, followed by the most obvious troll shitpost I’ve seen in ages (“you don’t actually think trans women were women, because you wouldn’t sleep with one, lol”) getting a pretty similar level of response.
I’m not criticizing, mind you, I just don’t understand why it works. It’s not just that it’s inflammatory – GH said something like “the US basically picked up where the Nazis left off” not long ago to basically no responses! There’s this bizarre fixation on anything to do with trans people existing in society that nobody can seem to shake.
The central question to the whole debate, as far as I can tell, is “does the existence of trans people threaten society somehow.” And the “yes” side of that debate can’t come up with anything stronger than “they might provide an excuse for predators to go in the women’s room” and “their existence might confuse your kids.” That’s… pretty thin. We already pretty much universally agree we should tolerate various religions and ideologies with *way* more credible arguments that they’re a threat to society (I think Scientologists have had clandestine plots to infiltrate the government before?), so if that’s all they’ve got it’s a pretty open and shut case for “nope, not a threat to society, we should just coexist with them like everybody else.” I’m not even sure who in the thread disagrees with that? Not BJ, not any of the liberals. Not even sure if Introvert would? Is it just the obvious trolls from the last few pages we’re arguing against?
I mean, it feels a bit like the “Ground Zero Mosque” or the “Migrant Caravan” – basically made up stories that Republicans yell about in an election year to try to bump the national conversation off course for a bit. Except it’s not an election year, and the national conversation has been stuck on this for kind of a long time now. Why? The fixation is not just on trans people but also on the broader ideas of gender ideology. Personally I think it’s really fascinating. It’s kind of like COVID in that it’s a new thing that’s happening on a grand scale that everyone is trying to figure out. It also has massive generational divides. The idea that everyone can pick whatever pronouns to call themselves that everyone else has to abide by that lest they be an asshole is really interesting. Ideas that you can be gender fluid and be a man one day and a woman the next or even back and forth on the same day. Very interesting. I’ve seen some people with pronouns like she/them. What’s that mean, they can be a woman at the start of the sentence but non-binary by the end of it? Or their gender depends on how the sentence is structured? I don’t really know. At some point it just feels like a bunch of bullshit everyone is making up as they go along and the final and most fascinating part is that it seems like it’s the teenagers that are evolving these ideas and all the adults in the room are just going along with whatever they decide. Near as I can tell the genderfluid and nonbinary stuff is an afterthought for most people. 90% of the fixation is on trans men and trans women, from what I see. But I’ll grant that a big part of this is the generational warfare “The kids are doing something WEIRD!” part of it. And I shouldn’t underestimate the draw that has; there’s a reason there were about a million chumbox news articles about what millennials are or aren’t doing. I guess you could see the present moral panic as a modern version of people in the 60s and 70s freaking out about long hair. But if so, the usual dynamics apply: the old people fundamentally misunderstand what the kids are doing and why, and they’re scaring themselves silly imagining how this is going to Destroy America or w/e. Meanwhile the kids just want to be left alone. Sometimes there are aspects of the kids’ new trends that really are harmful (I think 60s drug culture really was incredibly lethal, for instance), but the old people don’t have a chance of “getting through to them” about it because their understanding of the situation is so misinformed and catastrophized. Like, suppose for the sake of argument there is something to the “social contagion” thing (I despise the term and think the research supporting it is shoddy, but I digress). At its heart, the phenomenon being described would be transness having an outsized presence in the national conversation in a way that biases kids to think gender misidentification might be a component in their psychological issues. That’s happened with various diagnoses over the years – people mistakenly diagnose themselves as OCD or something because it’s been in the news – and obviously it’s better for people to correctly (rather than incorrectly) identify the source of their problems. But, come on, it’s a dumb reason for a panic. Some trans kids will figure out they’re trans sooner, some cis kids will think they’re trans for a bit, but they’ll figure it out in the end. It’s normal and good for kids to be trying out identities for themselves (gender and otherwise) to figure out what suits them the best. Meanwhile the fearmongering about it is actually a major component of perpetuating the dynamic, so it’s self-defeating if the goal is actually to help kids (of course, I think the actual goal of the fearmongers is grift, in which case it’s not self-defeating at all).
The problem is that it's coinciding with a national emergency in pediatric mental health, that includes for example, ED visits for suspected suicide attempts up 51% for girls aged 12-17. We also have hundreds of suicidal teens spending the night in emergency rooms because the pediatric psych facilities are so full they can't take them in. Going along with your argument that if social contagion were true, the kids would find out sooner or later and it's good and normal for them to explore new identities, I would say this is an incredibly anxiety-ridden group of people that catastrophizes everything. If it leads them to question their identity or even question whether they are about to be genocided I think that's the last thing that's good for them.
Otherwise, yes, I generally agree that over time this will work itself out and the "hey you kids, stop being so obsessed with gender!" is not going to accomplish anything anyway.
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Personally I just think he/her is just dumb and pointless anyway. They/them or someone’s name works every single time. I can’t think of any unique situation where he/her serves.
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On July 07 2023 04:49 Mohdoo wrote:
Personally I just think he/her is just dumb and pointless anyway. They/them or someone’s name works every single time. I can’t think of any unique situation where he/her serves.
Do you mean in terms of someone who specifically identifies as he/her, or the idea of using he/her as a gender-neutral reference to someone you don't know?
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On July 07 2023 05:17 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 04:49 Mohdoo wrote:
Personally I just think he/her is just dumb and pointless anyway. They/them or someone’s name works every single time. I can’t think of any unique situation where he/her serves. Do you mean in terms of someone who specifically identifies as he/her, or the idea of using he/her as a gender-neutral reference to someone you don't know?
I’m saying the words he/her don’t serve a unique purpose and if they simply didn’t exist, we would not suffer in any way. Nothing to do with identity stuff. Just on the topic mentioning how he/her isn’t actually helpful for communicating
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On July 07 2023 06:05 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 05:17 NewSunshine wrote:On July 07 2023 04:49 Mohdoo wrote:
Personally I just think he/her is just dumb and pointless anyway. They/them or someone’s name works every single time. I can’t think of any unique situation where he/her serves. Do you mean in terms of someone who specifically identifies as he/her, or the idea of using he/her as a gender-neutral reference to someone you don't know? I’m saying the words he/her don’t serve a unique purpose and if they simply didn’t exist, we would not suffer in any way. Nothing to do with identity stuff. Just on the topic mentioning how he/her isn’t actually helpful for communicating
Do you mean no other purpose than one of them is singular and the other one is plural? "He is here" vs "They are here" is helpful for communicating that one person is here vs an unknown amount of people. As the Dave Chappelle Joke goes, "Careful Dave, they after you!" "Hm one They or many Theys?"
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I think Mohdoo meant something different... not that "he" or "she" are not needed.
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On July 07 2023 06:44 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 06:05 Mohdoo wrote:On July 07 2023 05:17 NewSunshine wrote:On July 07 2023 04:49 Mohdoo wrote:
Personally I just think he/her is just dumb and pointless anyway. They/them or someone’s name works every single time. I can’t think of any unique situation where he/her serves. Do you mean in terms of someone who specifically identifies as he/her, or the idea of using he/her as a gender-neutral reference to someone you don't know? I’m saying the words he/her don’t serve a unique purpose and if they simply didn’t exist, we would not suffer in any way. Nothing to do with identity stuff. Just on the topic mentioning how he/her isn’t actually helpful for communicating Do you mean no other purpose than one of them is singular and the other one is plural? "He is here" vs "They are here" is helpful for communicating that one person is here vs an unknown amount of people. As the Dave Chappelle Joke goes, "Careful Dave, they after you!" "Hm one They or many Theys?"
I feel like lots of people use "they" to refer to a singular person plenty of times. Or just use the person's name. I am saying we could just erase he/him and she/her from the English language entirely and nothing of value would be lost. Its just not even a good convention even ignoring the identity stuff.
On July 07 2023 07:26 ZeroByte13 wrote:
I think Mohdoo meant something different... not that "he" or "she" are not needed.
No I'm saying if we released a patch tomorrow where the words were magically erased from English as if they never existed, nothing negative would occur.
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The point is not that "they" can't be used for a singular person. The point is that "he" can't be used for many people. So using "he" does allow you to communicate more information in a concise manner.
Also it is helpful in communication by avoiding confusion. Say you are having a conversation about the Los Angeles Lakers and their star player, LeBron James. It's helpful if you can use "he" to refer to LeBron James and "they" to refer to the team. If "they" can be either LeBron James or the team you can easily get confused to the point that you'd have to abandon pronouns altogether and use the proper names to distinguish between the two.
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Northern Ireland25186 Posts
If language doesn’t transfer meaning in any intuitive way it’s not especially useful.
They/them, pretty intuitive, used it all the time before the concept of non binary gender identity really caught on.
Neopronouns, I don’t really get the point. They’re too esoteric to be generally adopted in the wider lexicon. They’re also so specific and tied into bespoke individual identities that they’re not that generically useful.
If you know a person well enough to adopt some new pronoun you’ve never experienced before, I mean surely you’re on name terms already when referring to them.
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On July 07 2023 07:39 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 06:44 BlackJack wrote:On July 07 2023 06:05 Mohdoo wrote:On July 07 2023 05:17 NewSunshine wrote:On July 07 2023 04:49 Mohdoo wrote:
Personally I just think he/her is just dumb and pointless anyway. They/them or someone’s name works every single time. I can’t think of any unique situation where he/her serves. Do you mean in terms of someone who specifically identifies as he/her, or the idea of using he/her as a gender-neutral reference to someone you don't know? I’m saying the words he/her don’t serve a unique purpose and if they simply didn’t exist, we would not suffer in any way. Nothing to do with identity stuff. Just on the topic mentioning how he/her isn’t actually helpful for communicating Do you mean no other purpose than one of them is singular and the other one is plural? "He is here" vs "They are here" is helpful for communicating that one person is here vs an unknown amount of people. As the Dave Chappelle Joke goes, "Careful Dave, they after you!" "Hm one They or many Theys?" I feel like lots of people use "they" to refer to a singular person plenty of times. Or just use the person's name. I am saying we could just erase he/him and she/her from the English language entirely and nothing of value would be lost. Its just not even a good convention even ignoring the identity stuff. Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 07:26 ZeroByte13 wrote:
I think Mohdoo meant something different... not that "he" or "she" are not needed. No I'm saying if we released a patch tomorrow where the words were magically erased from English as if they never existed, nothing negative would occur.
I think if you're trying to minimize the number of words in the English language, then deleting gendered pronouns could be fine, as well as synonyms and plenty of other words. That being said, I'm in agreement with BlackJack that gendered pronouns do offer an opportunity to clarify a particular subject or object within a sentence containing multiple subjects or objects. For that reason, I don't think it's fair to say that "nothing negative would occur", but rather, we would need to change how we spoke to supplement the loss of these helper words, so that we could still get across the same meaning. We can still eventually get there, but it probably wouldn't be as easy to communicate the point as if we had the option to also use more pronouns/words.
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United States42647 Posts
On July 07 2023 00:21 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2023 16:20 Slydie wrote:On July 06 2023 13:13 Mohdoo wrote:On July 06 2023 11:40 iFU.spx wrote:
So you basically allow self identification for gender and accepting and follow new identity made by another person? This sounds crazy. Whats the point? A friend of mine was born as a male and said something along the lines of: "I am not trans. So I don't identify as a woman or anything, but I'm also not a man either. I dunno, I am just focusing on being cute and calling it good there. I wouldn't say I'm particularly motivated to label myself as some kinda specific gender". It was an interesting experience for me, because I am not particularly involved with the new wave of gender identity stuff. I understood trans stuff and dysphoria and whatnot, but it was the first time I had heard of someone just kinda not giving a shit about the distinction as a whole. As a person, they are definitely very feminine in many ways. But also definitely not a woman. Its very interesting. Its like they have transcended the question as a whole and they live a happy, stable, good life. Your question of "what's the point" made me think of this, because the experience was really confusing to me to hear my friend describe the quote I typed above. It made me realize gender identity is so unimportant that someone can just choose to not even participate and it changes nothing. So it made me wonder "what's the point?" of gender identity. Why bother being a dude? why bother being a woman? The answer is: Because identity is important to a person internally. It is important for someone to be who they feel like they are. If someone thinks they are a woman, whatever, apparently makes zero difference. same with being a man. same with just kinda not being either one I guess? I also have a friend who considers themselves just kinda not sexual or attracted to either men or women and has zero intention of ever being in a romantic relationship. Not just not having kids. Not just not getting married. They just don't really have an inclination towards romance as a whole. So when you put these 2 things together, you are able to reach an interesting conclusion: gender identity is not necessary for romance/sexuality. and also, romance/sexuality is not necessary for an individual either. Some people just kinda bypass the whole thing. And so what is the impact from each of these people? Basically zero. It doesn't change anything for anyone. So maybe the entire issue just isn't even real. Maybe we are so used to "boy or girl?" that we aren't realizing the question itself can be ignored. For sexuality, you are right, you can just leave them alone. I think teaching kids that being a-sexual is completely normal is a good idea, though. For genders, it is more complicated, as we are often forces to pick male or female, and for very good reasons: Sports is one glaring issue, but also changing rooms, prisons, healthcare etc. This needs to be discussed properly. What you "identify as" should not be the only factor. You are correct. But we have had people in this thread who are also against the idea of people adopting a gender other than the one they were given at birth. Some people think the entire idea is a net negative. My intention was to show how the identity component, in a vacuum, is entirely benign and truly means nothing externally. Let people be what they want. But I do agree the other topics are complicated and difficult. The only one I am confident in is: all sports should be “biological women only” and “open”. Rather than male and female. I think the trans rights advocates are overplaying their hand and pulling a LatinX on society by trying to say trans women should participate in women’s competitions in sports. It’s just harming the optics of the rights movement. The one I am on the fence about is trans stuff in kids under 18. I don’t fully understand the nitty gritty of the biological effects of puberty blockers. But I firmly believe a child should never be allowed to biologically alter their body before the age of 18, no exceptions. What I have been told is that puberty blockers do not have a permanent effect and allow someone to just push the decision out until they are 18. But after follow up investigation, it appears we aren’t 100% sure that is true and there may be permanent effects. So I leave that box as gray. I plan to investigate further but it is possible the information simply does not currently exist.
I think there’s an element of status quo bias in your puberty blocker stance.
Imagine a 12 year old requesting a cocktail of hormones that would trigger a permanent series of extreme physiological and mental changes. You would tell them that they’re too young to make that kind of life altering decision. Hormones, in the doses your body produces during puberty, are among the more potent and dangerous drugs a human can take.
With regard to hormone blockers the status quo bias amounts to an argument that children are too young to choose not to do drugs. A child who comes to you saying they don’t feel ready to decide if they want to do drugs yet and they’d rather make that decision when they’re older must not be allowed to.
Now obviously for most of human history puberty wasn’t a choice and so we don’t frame it in those terms. But for most of human history we also just bumped into shit when our vision started to fail. Puberty is now functionally a choice and if we respect the choice of children to take all those hard drugs then surely we must also respect the choice of children who would rather wait until they’re older.
Imagine two 14 year olds fucking (not literally). It’s natural, it’s their biology, they consent, they’re horny, it feels good, their bodies are telling them to do this. I’m certain there will be absolutely no argument that they’re old enough to make a choice to use birth control. That even though biology is telling them to make a baby it would be the reasonable and mature choice to override the status quo and that if they want to override biology they should be allowed to. I don’t see why forcing someone who wants to defer puberty to go through it just because of biology is that much better than forcing someone who wants to defer getting pregnant to go through it.
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Canada11349 Posts
Yeeeah, we don't frame it that way because that is an... incredible... way of describing basic human processes. We also don't choose to be born, when to walk, we don't choose to turn on our language acquisition ability or to connect that synapse or prune the other one. The body has a developmental process that marches on so successfully that people have started calling the human race a virus of all things. The idea that that very successful process could be compared in any meaningful way as to the dangers of taking hard drugs really beggars belief. And quite frankly if puberty is a significant decision on par with taking hard drugs, shouldn't everybody be deferred until they are older to make such a life changing decision?
I also am rather doubtful that it's quite as simple as 'deferring' puberty as though we simply hit pause/ unpause, no consequences at all.
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On July 07 2023 09:29 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 00:21 Mohdoo wrote:On July 06 2023 16:20 Slydie wrote:On July 06 2023 13:13 Mohdoo wrote:On July 06 2023 11:40 iFU.spx wrote:
So you basically allow self identification for gender and accepting and follow new identity made by another person? This sounds crazy. Whats the point? A friend of mine was born as a male and said something along the lines of: "I am not trans. So I don't identify as a woman or anything, but I'm also not a man either. I dunno, I am just focusing on being cute and calling it good there. I wouldn't say I'm particularly motivated to label myself as some kinda specific gender". It was an interesting experience for me, because I am not particularly involved with the new wave of gender identity stuff. I understood trans stuff and dysphoria and whatnot, but it was the first time I had heard of someone just kinda not giving a shit about the distinction as a whole. As a person, they are definitely very feminine in many ways. But also definitely not a woman. Its very interesting. Its like they have transcended the question as a whole and they live a happy, stable, good life. Your question of "what's the point" made me think of this, because the experience was really confusing to me to hear my friend describe the quote I typed above. It made me realize gender identity is so unimportant that someone can just choose to not even participate and it changes nothing. So it made me wonder "what's the point?" of gender identity. Why bother being a dude? why bother being a woman? The answer is: Because identity is important to a person internally. It is important for someone to be who they feel like they are. If someone thinks they are a woman, whatever, apparently makes zero difference. same with being a man. same with just kinda not being either one I guess? I also have a friend who considers themselves just kinda not sexual or attracted to either men or women and has zero intention of ever being in a romantic relationship. Not just not having kids. Not just not getting married. They just don't really have an inclination towards romance as a whole. So when you put these 2 things together, you are able to reach an interesting conclusion: gender identity is not necessary for romance/sexuality. and also, romance/sexuality is not necessary for an individual either. Some people just kinda bypass the whole thing. And so what is the impact from each of these people? Basically zero. It doesn't change anything for anyone. So maybe the entire issue just isn't even real. Maybe we are so used to "boy or girl?" that we aren't realizing the question itself can be ignored. For sexuality, you are right, you can just leave them alone. I think teaching kids that being a-sexual is completely normal is a good idea, though. For genders, it is more complicated, as we are often forces to pick male or female, and for very good reasons: Sports is one glaring issue, but also changing rooms, prisons, healthcare etc. This needs to be discussed properly. What you "identify as" should not be the only factor. You are correct. But we have had people in this thread who are also against the idea of people adopting a gender other than the one they were given at birth. Some people think the entire idea is a net negative. My intention was to show how the identity component, in a vacuum, is entirely benign and truly means nothing externally. Let people be what they want. But I do agree the other topics are complicated and difficult. The only one I am confident in is: all sports should be “biological women only” and “open”. Rather than male and female. I think the trans rights advocates are overplaying their hand and pulling a LatinX on society by trying to say trans women should participate in women’s competitions in sports. It’s just harming the optics of the rights movement. The one I am on the fence about is trans stuff in kids under 18. I don’t fully understand the nitty gritty of the biological effects of puberty blockers. But I firmly believe a child should never be allowed to biologically alter their body before the age of 18, no exceptions. What I have been told is that puberty blockers do not have a permanent effect and allow someone to just push the decision out until they are 18. But after follow up investigation, it appears we aren’t 100% sure that is true and there may be permanent effects. So I leave that box as gray. I plan to investigate further but it is possible the information simply does not currently exist. I think there’s an element of status quo bias in your puberty blocker stance. Imagine a 12 year old requesting a cocktail of hormones that would trigger a permanent series of extreme physiological and mental changes. You would tell them that they’re too young to make that kind of life altering decision. Hormones, in the doses your body produces during puberty, are among the more potent and dangerous drugs a human can take. With regard to hormone blockers the status quo bias amounts to an argument that children are too young to choose not to do drugs. A child who comes to you saying they don’t feel ready to decide if they want to do drugs yet and they’d rather make that decision when they’re older must not be allowed to. Now obviously for most of human history puberty wasn’t a choice and so we don’t frame it in those terms. But for most of human history we also just bumped into shit when our vision started to fail. Puberty is now functionally a choice and if we respect the choice of children to take all those hard drugs then surely we must also respect the choice of children who would rather wait until they’re older. Imagine two 14 year olds fucking (not literally). It’s natural, it’s their biology, they consent, they’re horny, it feels good, their bodies are telling them to do this. I’m certain there will be absolutely no argument that they’re old enough to make a choice to use birth control. That even though biology is telling them to make a baby it would be the reasonable and mature choice to override the status quo and that if they want to override biology they should be allowed to. I don’t see why forcing someone who wants to defer puberty to go through it just because of biology is that much better than forcing someone who wants to defer getting pregnant to go through it.
You are right and I agree if we assume there is zero downside to blocking puberty. If it’s truly as simple as it occurring later and there aren’t significant risks or downsides, sure. But my understanding is that it’s not to simple. If I were to read some literature showing there are small risks of this or that but nothing to actually worry about, works for me. But from what I understand, that is not the case. But I have not fully looked into it to determine, so that’s why I have an asterisk next to my view on it.
If it is essentially a reversible process and there’s no reasonable reason to worry about risks, I am fine with it if either a doctor recommends it or a parent signs off on it.
Small caveat, there has recently been a lot of literature regarding women’s birth control pills perhaps having some more pronounced downsides than we first thought and the idea of blanket recommendation of them may need to be reconsidered. I know quite a few people personally who had very negative emotional outcomes from birth control.
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On July 07 2023 04:17 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 00:25 ChristianS wrote:On July 06 2023 14:56 BlackJack wrote:On July 06 2023 13:01 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t really get the conversation dynamics that fixate everybody on trans issues. Like, I thought xDaunt used to be kind of masterful at saying something exactly provocative enough to earn hundreds of angry liberal responses (of which he would choose the dumbest one to reply to, spout some new inflammatory bullshit, rinse and repeat). I didn’t like or even respect it, per se, but I could recognize there was a craft to it.
But in the last week or so there’s the same effect but without any of the cleverness. Page after page of bathroom shit, followed by the most obvious troll shitpost I’ve seen in ages (“you don’t actually think trans women were women, because you wouldn’t sleep with one, lol”) getting a pretty similar level of response.
I’m not criticizing, mind you, I just don’t understand why it works. It’s not just that it’s inflammatory – GH said something like “the US basically picked up where the Nazis left off” not long ago to basically no responses! There’s this bizarre fixation on anything to do with trans people existing in society that nobody can seem to shake.
The central question to the whole debate, as far as I can tell, is “does the existence of trans people threaten society somehow.” And the “yes” side of that debate can’t come up with anything stronger than “they might provide an excuse for predators to go in the women’s room” and “their existence might confuse your kids.” That’s… pretty thin. We already pretty much universally agree we should tolerate various religions and ideologies with *way* more credible arguments that they’re a threat to society (I think Scientologists have had clandestine plots to infiltrate the government before?), so if that’s all they’ve got it’s a pretty open and shut case for “nope, not a threat to society, we should just coexist with them like everybody else.” I’m not even sure who in the thread disagrees with that? Not BJ, not any of the liberals. Not even sure if Introvert would? Is it just the obvious trolls from the last few pages we’re arguing against?
I mean, it feels a bit like the “Ground Zero Mosque” or the “Migrant Caravan” – basically made up stories that Republicans yell about in an election year to try to bump the national conversation off course for a bit. Except it’s not an election year, and the national conversation has been stuck on this for kind of a long time now. Why? The fixation is not just on trans people but also on the broader ideas of gender ideology. Personally I think it’s really fascinating. It’s kind of like COVID in that it’s a new thing that’s happening on a grand scale that everyone is trying to figure out. It also has massive generational divides. The idea that everyone can pick whatever pronouns to call themselves that everyone else has to abide by that lest they be an asshole is really interesting. Ideas that you can be gender fluid and be a man one day and a woman the next or even back and forth on the same day. Very interesting. I’ve seen some people with pronouns like she/them. What’s that mean, they can be a woman at the start of the sentence but non-binary by the end of it? Or their gender depends on how the sentence is structured? I don’t really know. At some point it just feels like a bunch of bullshit everyone is making up as they go along and the final and most fascinating part is that it seems like it’s the teenagers that are evolving these ideas and all the adults in the room are just going along with whatever they decide. Near as I can tell the genderfluid and nonbinary stuff is an afterthought for most people. 90% of the fixation is on trans men and trans women, from what I see. But I’ll grant that a big part of this is the generational warfare “The kids are doing something WEIRD!” part of it. And I shouldn’t underestimate the draw that has; there’s a reason there were about a million chumbox news articles about what millennials are or aren’t doing. I guess you could see the present moral panic as a modern version of people in the 60s and 70s freaking out about long hair. But if so, the usual dynamics apply: the old people fundamentally misunderstand what the kids are doing and why, and they’re scaring themselves silly imagining how this is going to Destroy America or w/e. Meanwhile the kids just want to be left alone. Sometimes there are aspects of the kids’ new trends that really are harmful (I think 60s drug culture really was incredibly lethal, for instance), but the old people don’t have a chance of “getting through to them” about it because their understanding of the situation is so misinformed and catastrophized. Like, suppose for the sake of argument there is something to the “social contagion” thing (I despise the term and think the research supporting it is shoddy, but I digress). At its heart, the phenomenon being described would be transness having an outsized presence in the national conversation in a way that biases kids to think gender misidentification might be a component in their psychological issues. That’s happened with various diagnoses over the years – people mistakenly diagnose themselves as OCD or something because it’s been in the news – and obviously it’s better for people to correctly (rather than incorrectly) identify the source of their problems. But, come on, it’s a dumb reason for a panic. Some trans kids will figure out they’re trans sooner, some cis kids will think they’re trans for a bit, but they’ll figure it out in the end. It’s normal and good for kids to be trying out identities for themselves (gender and otherwise) to figure out what suits them the best. Meanwhile the fearmongering about it is actually a major component of perpetuating the dynamic, so it’s self-defeating if the goal is actually to help kids (of course, I think the actual goal of the fearmongers is grift, in which case it’s not self-defeating at all). The problem is that it's coinciding with a national emergency in pediatric mental health, that includes for example, ED visits for suspected suicide attempts up 51% for girls aged 12-17. We also have hundreds of suicidal teens spending the night in emergency rooms because the pediatric psych facilities are so full they can't take them in. Going along with your argument that if social contagion were true, the kids would find out sooner or later and it's good and normal for them to explore new identities, I would say this is an incredibly anxiety-ridden group of people that catastrophizes everything. If it leads them to question their identity or even question whether they are about to be genocided I think that's the last thing that's good for them. Otherwise, yes, I generally agree that over time this will work itself out and the "hey you kids, stop being so obsessed with gender!" is not going to accomplish anything anyway.
That’s another classic generational warfare dynamic, though, right? You look at a bunch of teens who have never worked a day in their life and don’t know how to do their own laundry and think “oh, sure, *these* are the geniuses that are gonna unlock some truth about human gender and sexuality that we’ve all been missing this whole time?” And I mean, there’s something to that. Young people tend to have very little expertise and yet think they know everything.
But also, there was a lot our parents’ generations thought we were crazy for when I was a teenager. In some cases they had a point, in other cases I’m pretty confident they were the crazy ones. That’s just kinda how it goes; a new generation comes in with a new perspective, and gets some stuff right and other stuff wrong.
@JimmiC: that’s interesting too. I’ve been maybe naively accepting the premise that the trans panickers have some sincere concern for the well-being of (those self-identifying as) trans people. But it’s probably a more selfish motivation than that. The “shoving it down our throats” bit is diction that they tend to gravitate back to again and again.
With that in mind maybe their motivation is nothing more than anger at the loss of cultural control they once enjoyed. They had a set of values and all the movies, tv shows, and famous people talked in alignment with those values. That made them feel good. Now they’re made in alignment with the younger generation’s values, and that makes them feel bad. So what they want is less to erase trans people from existence than to erase them from culture (although they might support the former to achieve the latter).
Of course I’m not actually naive about this, I was just trying to take the argument at face value. It can be interesting to analyze people’s “true motivations” for their political opinions but they tend to hate it when you do it to their face.
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On July 07 2023 10:37 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 09:29 KwarK wrote:On July 07 2023 00:21 Mohdoo wrote:On July 06 2023 16:20 Slydie wrote:On July 06 2023 13:13 Mohdoo wrote:On July 06 2023 11:40 iFU.spx wrote:
So you basically allow self identification for gender and accepting and follow new identity made by another person? This sounds crazy. Whats the point? A friend of mine was born as a male and said something along the lines of: "I am not trans. So I don't identify as a woman or anything, but I'm also not a man either. I dunno, I am just focusing on being cute and calling it good there. I wouldn't say I'm particularly motivated to label myself as some kinda specific gender". It was an interesting experience for me, because I am not particularly involved with the new wave of gender identity stuff. I understood trans stuff and dysphoria and whatnot, but it was the first time I had heard of someone just kinda not giving a shit about the distinction as a whole. As a person, they are definitely very feminine in many ways. But also definitely not a woman. Its very interesting. Its like they have transcended the question as a whole and they live a happy, stable, good life. Your question of "what's the point" made me think of this, because the experience was really confusing to me to hear my friend describe the quote I typed above. It made me realize gender identity is so unimportant that someone can just choose to not even participate and it changes nothing. So it made me wonder "what's the point?" of gender identity. Why bother being a dude? why bother being a woman? The answer is: Because identity is important to a person internally. It is important for someone to be who they feel like they are. If someone thinks they are a woman, whatever, apparently makes zero difference. same with being a man. same with just kinda not being either one I guess? I also have a friend who considers themselves just kinda not sexual or attracted to either men or women and has zero intention of ever being in a romantic relationship. Not just not having kids. Not just not getting married. They just don't really have an inclination towards romance as a whole. So when you put these 2 things together, you are able to reach an interesting conclusion: gender identity is not necessary for romance/sexuality. and also, romance/sexuality is not necessary for an individual either. Some people just kinda bypass the whole thing. And so what is the impact from each of these people? Basically zero. It doesn't change anything for anyone. So maybe the entire issue just isn't even real. Maybe we are so used to "boy or girl?" that we aren't realizing the question itself can be ignored. For sexuality, you are right, you can just leave them alone. I think teaching kids that being a-sexual is completely normal is a good idea, though. For genders, it is more complicated, as we are often forces to pick male or female, and for very good reasons: Sports is one glaring issue, but also changing rooms, prisons, healthcare etc. This needs to be discussed properly. What you "identify as" should not be the only factor. You are correct. But we have had people in this thread who are also against the idea of people adopting a gender other than the one they were given at birth. Some people think the entire idea is a net negative. My intention was to show how the identity component, in a vacuum, is entirely benign and truly means nothing externally. Let people be what they want. But I do agree the other topics are complicated and difficult. The only one I am confident in is: all sports should be “biological women only” and “open”. Rather than male and female. I think the trans rights advocates are overplaying their hand and pulling a LatinX on society by trying to say trans women should participate in women’s competitions in sports. It’s just harming the optics of the rights movement. The one I am on the fence about is trans stuff in kids under 18. I don’t fully understand the nitty gritty of the biological effects of puberty blockers. But I firmly believe a child should never be allowed to biologically alter their body before the age of 18, no exceptions. What I have been told is that puberty blockers do not have a permanent effect and allow someone to just push the decision out until they are 18. But after follow up investigation, it appears we aren’t 100% sure that is true and there may be permanent effects. So I leave that box as gray. I plan to investigate further but it is possible the information simply does not currently exist. I think there’s an element of status quo bias in your puberty blocker stance. Imagine a 12 year old requesting a cocktail of hormones that would trigger a permanent series of extreme physiological and mental changes. You would tell them that they’re too young to make that kind of life altering decision. Hormones, in the doses your body produces during puberty, are among the more potent and dangerous drugs a human can take. With regard to hormone blockers the status quo bias amounts to an argument that children are too young to choose not to do drugs. A child who comes to you saying they don’t feel ready to decide if they want to do drugs yet and they’d rather make that decision when they’re older must not be allowed to. Now obviously for most of human history puberty wasn’t a choice and so we don’t frame it in those terms. But for most of human history we also just bumped into shit when our vision started to fail. Puberty is now functionally a choice and if we respect the choice of children to take all those hard drugs then surely we must also respect the choice of children who would rather wait until they’re older. Imagine two 14 year olds fucking (not literally). It’s natural, it’s their biology, they consent, they’re horny, it feels good, their bodies are telling them to do this. I’m certain there will be absolutely no argument that they’re old enough to make a choice to use birth control. That even though biology is telling them to make a baby it would be the reasonable and mature choice to override the status quo and that if they want to override biology they should be allowed to. I don’t see why forcing someone who wants to defer puberty to go through it just because of biology is that much better than forcing someone who wants to defer getting pregnant to go through it. You are right and I agree if we assume there is zero downside to blocking puberty. If it’s truly as simple as it occurring later and there aren’t significant risks or downsides, sure. But my understanding is that it’s not to simple. If I were to read some literature showing there are small risks of this or that but nothing to actually worry about, works for me. But from what I understand, that is not the case. But I have not fully looked into it to determine, so that’s why I have an asterisk next to my view on it. If it is essentially a reversible process and there’s no reasonable reason to worry about risks, I am fine with it if either a doctor recommends it or a parent signs off on it. Small caveat, there has recently been a lot of literature regarding women’s birth control pills perhaps having some more pronounced downsides than we first thought and the idea of blanket recommendation of them may need to be reconsidered. I know quite a few people personally who had very negative emotional outcomes from birth control.
The BC pill studies show negative effects on fertility, not just mental health. Puberty blockers show negative effects on bone density and other physical traits when prescribed off label in this way. More importantly, puberty blockers also appear to have mental effects that prevent "desisting" (aka a kid realizing his body is really good actually). Studies show that kids placed on them rarely desist, but those that do not almost always do. This is important, because desisting teens have much much lower rates of suicide/attempts and a whole host of other issues. We want every possible kid who can desist, to desist because it is better for them long term (even ignoring the elephant in the room of continuing to have a functional reproductive system).
On top of this, on the AMA/AAP recommendations, there is significant international disagreement. This is highly problematic for trusting those two American associations because documents indicate that transgender clinics are incredibly profitable. It is speculative, but not improbable to say that puberty blockers and HRT would not be a thing anywhere if America had socialized healthcare.
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On July 07 2023 12:07 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2023 10:37 Mohdoo wrote:On July 07 2023 09:29 KwarK wrote:On July 07 2023 00:21 Mohdoo wrote:On July 06 2023 16:20 Slydie wrote:On July 06 2023 13:13 Mohdoo wrote:On July 06 2023 11:40 iFU.spx wrote:
So you basically allow self identification for gender and accepting and follow new identity made by another person? This sounds crazy. Whats the point? A friend of mine was born as a male and said something along the lines of: "I am not trans. So I don't identify as a woman or anything, but I'm also not a man either. I dunno, I am just focusing on being cute and calling it good there. I wouldn't say I'm particularly motivated to label myself as some kinda specific gender". It was an interesting experience for me, because I am not particularly involved with the new wave of gender identity stuff. I understood trans stuff and dysphoria and whatnot, but it was the first time I had heard of someone just kinda not giving a shit about the distinction as a whole. As a person, they are definitely very feminine in many ways. But also definitely not a woman. Its very interesting. Its like they have transcended the question as a whole and they live a happy, stable, good life. Your question of "what's the point" made me think of this, because the experience was really confusing to me to hear my friend describe the quote I typed above. It made me realize gender identity is so unimportant that someone can just choose to not even participate and it changes nothing. So it made me wonder "what's the point?" of gender identity. Why bother being a dude? why bother being a woman? The answer is: Because identity is important to a person internally. It is important for someone to be who they feel like they are. If someone thinks they are a woman, whatever, apparently makes zero difference. same with being a man. same with just kinda not being either one I guess? I also have a friend who considers themselves just kinda not sexual or attracted to either men or women and has zero intention of ever being in a romantic relationship. Not just not having kids. Not just not getting married. They just don't really have an inclination towards romance as a whole. So when you put these 2 things together, you are able to reach an interesting conclusion: gender identity is not necessary for romance/sexuality. and also, romance/sexuality is not necessary for an individual either. Some people just kinda bypass the whole thing. And so what is the impact from each of these people? Basically zero. It doesn't change anything for anyone. So maybe the entire issue just isn't even real. Maybe we are so used to "boy or girl?" that we aren't realizing the question itself can be ignored. For sexuality, you are right, you can just leave them alone. I think teaching kids that being a-sexual is completely normal is a good idea, though. For genders, it is more complicated, as we are often forces to pick male or female, and for very good reasons: Sports is one glaring issue, but also changing rooms, prisons, healthcare etc. This needs to be discussed properly. What you "identify as" should not be the only factor. You are correct. But we have had people in this thread who are also against the idea of people adopting a gender other than the one they were given at birth. Some people think the entire idea is a net negative. My intention was to show how the identity component, in a vacuum, is entirely benign and truly means nothing externally. Let people be what they want. But I do agree the other topics are complicated and difficult. The only one I am confident in is: all sports should be “biological women only” and “open”. Rather than male and female. I think the trans rights advocates are overplaying their hand and pulling a LatinX on society by trying to say trans women should participate in women’s competitions in sports. It’s just harming the optics of the rights movement. The one I am on the fence about is trans stuff in kids under 18. I don’t fully understand the nitty gritty of the biological effects of puberty blockers. But I firmly believe a child should never be allowed to biologically alter their body before the age of 18, no exceptions. What I have been told is that puberty blockers do not have a permanent effect and allow someone to just push the decision out until they are 18. But after follow up investigation, it appears we aren’t 100% sure that is true and there may be permanent effects. So I leave that box as gray. I plan to investigate further but it is possible the information simply does not currently exist. I think there’s an element of status quo bias in your puberty blocker stance. Imagine a 12 year old requesting a cocktail of hormones that would trigger a permanent series of extreme physiological and mental changes. You would tell them that they’re too young to make that kind of life altering decision. Hormones, in the doses your body produces during puberty, are among the more potent and dangerous drugs a human can take. With regard to hormone blockers the status quo bias amounts to an argument that children are too young to choose not to do drugs. A child who comes to you saying they don’t feel ready to decide if they want to do drugs yet and they’d rather make that decision when they’re older must not be allowed to. Now obviously for most of human history puberty wasn’t a choice and so we don’t frame it in those terms. But for most of human history we also just bumped into shit when our vision started to fail. Puberty is now functionally a choice and if we respect the choice of children to take all those hard drugs then surely we must also respect the choice of children who would rather wait until they’re older. Imagine two 14 year olds fucking (not literally). It’s natural, it’s their biology, they consent, they’re horny, it feels good, their bodies are telling them to do this. I’m certain there will be absolutely no argument that they’re old enough to make a choice to use birth control. That even though biology is telling them to make a baby it would be the reasonable and mature choice to override the status quo and that if they want to override biology they should be allowed to. I don’t see why forcing someone who wants to defer puberty to go through it just because of biology is that much better than forcing someone who wants to defer getting pregnant to go through it. You are right and I agree if we assume there is zero downside to blocking puberty. If it’s truly as simple as it occurring later and there aren’t significant risks or downsides, sure. But my understanding is that it’s not to simple. If I were to read some literature showing there are small risks of this or that but nothing to actually worry about, works for me. But from what I understand, that is not the case. But I have not fully looked into it to determine, so that’s why I have an asterisk next to my view on it. If it is essentially a reversible process and there’s no reasonable reason to worry about risks, I am fine with it if either a doctor recommends it or a parent signs off on it. Small caveat, there has recently been a lot of literature regarding women’s birth control pills perhaps having some more pronounced downsides than we first thought and the idea of blanket recommendation of them may need to be reconsidered. I know quite a few people personally who had very negative emotional outcomes from birth control. The BC pill studies show negative effects on fertility, not just mental health. Puberty blockers show negative effects on bone density and other physical traits when prescribed off label in this way. More importantly, puberty blockers also appear to have mental effects that prevent "desisting" (aka a kid realizing his body is really good actually). Studies show that kids placed on them rarely desist, but those that do not almost always do. This is important, because desisting teens have much much lower rates of suicide/attempts and a whole host of other issues. We want every possible kid who can desist, to desist because it is better for them long term (even ignoring the elephant in the room of continuing to have a functional reproductive system). On top of this, on the AMA/AAP recommendations, there is significant international disagreement. This is highly problematic for trusting those two American associations because documents indicate that transgender clinics are incredibly profitable. It is speculative, but not improbable to say that puberty blockers and HRT would not be a thing anywhere if America had socialized healthcare.
I would love to see any studies you’re referring to. Not that I don’t believe you, but it’s the core variable in whether or not I support puberty blockers for gender identity purposes
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EPT
