5 ms·

You're getting political here, but I'll bite. It's not that we political conservatives believe transgender people are faking it. Transgenderism is real. We con

by judah 9y ago

You're getting political here, but I'll bite. It's not that we political conservatives believe transgender people are faking it. Transgenderism is real. We conservatives acknowledge some folks are born with a sincere belief or feeling they are the wrong gender. I personally sympathize with such people; it must be torturous and painful to be a particular biological sex, with hormones and chromosomes of one biological sex, but feel and believe you are a different biological sex. Where we differ with leftists is how to view the transgender phenomenon. This article, for example, states that this "girl" became a boy due to a "rare genetic disorder occurs because of a missing enzyme which prevents the production of a specific form of the male sex hormone - dihydro-testosterone - in the womb." It was a genetic disorder; a birth defect. Thus, this "girl" wasn't a girl at all. Biologically and scientifically speaking, he was a boy with an undeveloped penis. So it is with transgender folks in the West. We see transgenderism as an outgrowth of the medical condition known as gender dysphoria. Folks suffering with gender dysphoria should seek help, whether that be a medical sex change operation or counseling.

Chris2048 9y ago
There is also the issue of language policing, which confuses the issue; As a political device, some demand trans-women be called women, which confuses discussion of the issue. There are times that I think this might be the aim - to shut down rational discussion so only the emotive appeal remains. A whole other issue is segregated bathrooms; I have yet to see people get past the label-flinging stage to ask the fundamental question: why are bathrooms segregated (hetero/cis M/F) in the first place?
- Mz 9y ago
  why are bathrooms segregated (hetero/cis M/F) in the first place? I think a much better question would be "Why aren't they all private?" If you create individual bathrooms with lockable doors, you just label it "rest room" and you don't need to assign a gender or make a private matter a public issue. Why should trans individuals have to deal with the question of which bathroom they "belong" in? What's next? Questioning which bathroom gay people belong in? Making private individual bathrooms the norm would also eliminate many other issues. The line to the women's room tends to be longer than to the men's because using a urinal takes less time and the use of urinals is more space efficient, so a men's bathroom sometimes has more toilets plus urinals than a women's bathroom has toilets. This has caused some people to decry this as yet another form of sexism that they would like redressed. Meanwhile, the men's room can have a long wait if you need to have a bowel movement. Lots of urinals is great if everyone just needs to pee, but problematic if that is not the case. Small public men's rooms often have only one toilet, the rest urinals. What if two men are traveling together and both need the actual toilet? Historically, men's bathrooms tended to not have changing tables, reinforcing the expectation that only women change diapers. Individual bathrooms also eliminates that issue. The list of problems it would solve is no doubt much longer, but you get the idea.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    > a much better question would be "Why aren't they all private?" I think that just skips the original question by assuming the answer. Why is there no convention for privacy from other members of the same gender? You have to consider the economy of providing totally private bathroom facilities too. > Why should trans individuals have to deal with the question of which bathroom they "belong" in? Because everyone does. > This has caused some people to decry If those people have good arguments, let's hear them. > The list of problems it would solve But are we forcing establishments to provide these facilities? It's easy for Google to spend another million on individual cubicles to impress its employees; not all small businesses will find it so easy or rewarding..
    - Mz 9y ago
      Many small businesses already go this route. Any place that only provides one or two toilets fairly often already has it set up as gender neutral, individual restrooms. Cost would only be an issue for establishments that need to provide multiple toilets. The burden could be eased by grandfathering in existing establishments and applying the new rule to new construction and major renovations. > This has caused some people to decry If those people have good arguments, let's hear them. So, you are open to hearing these arguments, but out of hand dismissing my solutions. > Why should trans individuals have to deal with the question of which bathroom they "belong" in? Because everyone does. But it isn't some big burden for most people the way it is for trans people. Trans people are a little bit like platypuses: they defy our established categories and don't readily fit our little boxes. That fact will never really change. But it doesn't have to be some big problem wrt bathroom use if we just have more private restrooms in public spaces. I was homeless for nearly six years. I got off the street earlier this month. Private bathrooms allowed me to do things like brush my teeth without being thrown out. There is very much a classist double standard in what is socially acceptable use of a public bathroom. Traveler brushing their teeth in a public bathroom? Totes fine. Homeless person doing the same thing? Excellent excuse to ban them from the premises. Muslim washing their shoes and feet before praying in the hallway on a college campus? Totes fine. Homeless person washing their shoes or feet in the same bathroom? Misuse of the facilities and we need to ask you to leave. There are lots of ways in which public bathrooms are burdensome for anyone who does not readily fit in with whatever the social norms happen to be. Some of the groups for whom it is burdensome lack the means to make their problem part of the public debate. Other than me occasionally commenting on it in public forums, I am not aware of anyone advocating for the rights of homeless people where it comes to public bathroom use. There are old TV shows where, for example, cross dressers have to decide which bathroom to use. If someone is successfully passing for female socially and not trying to sleep with me, I gives a damn what bits are between their legs and I don't see why we need a public debate about their bits and bathrooms. There is an available robust solution that could make it a non issue. Why is there no convention for privacy from other members of the same gender? Most people are not actually comfortable pooping or dealing with their period, etc, in a public toilet with other people around. There are some people who cannot make themselves poop in public. In private homes where we share bathroom facilities with our closest people, such as blood relatives or a spouse, the convention is that bathrooms are private and the door gets closed. Most folks don't want to use the toilet with witnesses, even when those witnesses are their most intimate friends and family. So, I really fail to see why anyone would give push back on this idea. Most people do not actually like using public bathrooms to begin with and public facilities create undue friction for the most marginalized people, like homeless people and trans people. If private bathrooms were the default, we wouldn't even be having a public, nationwide debate about which bathroom trans people should be using. That wouldn't solve all their problems by any stretch of the imagination, but it would remove one burden from their life that is excessive and that unnecessarily sets them apart from other people. If you think it is not excessive, try spending the day just not using the toilet at all. Most people use the toilet multiple times per day and cannot hold it for eight or ten hours straight. Unless they work from home and basically live as shut ins who get all groceries delivered, etc, this will be a nightmarishly large problem on an ongoing basis.
- cocokitty 9y ago
  Women in Victorian England campaigned for their own bathrooms because they wanted a safe and private place to do their business. Originally there would be a single public bathroom with no gender marking, but what that really meant was that they were men's bathrooms, and women would wait to go at home. This was a pretty big damper on their ability to participate in the public sphere because it limited how much time they could physically spend in public. Gendered bathrooms followed later in other countries for similar reasons. They exist for the same reason that trains in Japan have women-only cars, why there is a women-only rideshare app, etc. https://www.livescience.com/54692-why-bathrooms-are-gender-segregated.html https://www.livescience.com/54692-why-bathrooms-are-gender-s... http://theconversation.com/how-did-public-bathrooms-get-to-be-separated-by-sex-in-the-first-place-59575 http://theconversation.com/how-did-public-bathrooms-get-to-b... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime
_jal 9y ago
It is a real difference. > Thus, this "girl" wasn't a girl at all. Biologically and scientifically speaking, he was a boy with an undeveloped penis. Actually, scientifically speaking, a different developmental path than the one to which you are accustomed happened. There are real differences that conflict with a desire held by some that people fit in neat categories that do not exist as the clean, platonic ideal they want it to be. I think "we" should accept the reality that gender is not binary rather than using the political process to harass people who are living proof of that fact.
- judah 9y ago
  >> "Actually, scientifically speaking, a different developmental path than the one to which you are accustomed happened." His delayed sexual development doesn't change the scientific reality that he had, and still has, male hormones and male chromosomes. Biologically, he is a male.
  - _jal 9y ago
    > Biologically, he is a male. So is this woman: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MedicalMysteries/story?id=5465752&page=1 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MedicalMysteries/story?id=54657...
    - judah 9y ago
      As your article states, that woman has a condition called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or AIS, producing a person with a vagina but with XY chromosomes. That isn't normal & healthy development, any more than blindness is normal & healthy. Rather, AIS is a medical condition, a syndrome that causes suffering.
      - _jal 9y ago
        I think you're making my point for me. You appear to be more interested in categorization and distinguishing what is and what isn't normal and healthy than simply acknowledging that gender is not binary, whatever medical category might be applicable to a particular person. People exist who do not fit into either-or gender boxes. It is just reality.
KirinDave 9y ago
> Thus, this "girl" wasn't a girl at all. Biologically and scientifically speaking, he was a boy with an undeveloped penis. The thing is, many of these young people had a strong sensation of being a "boy" despite societal pressure otherwise. This notion of an internal representation of gender identity is backed by science, and this isn't even the only example. So there is no argument here that these people are anything but boys with a different developmental path. But is suspect most could have told you that, despite what a non-invasive examination of their body would tell a biological essential-ists. > Where we differ with leftists is how to view the transgender phenomenon. Yeah, conservatives want to make it illegal or at least economically infeasible to be transgender. The irony here being that this type of developmental path would rock many conservatives in America to their very core if it happened in their family.
- judah 9y ago
  >> "This notion of an internal representation of gender identity is backed by science" My claim, backed by science, is that this child was a biological male: he had male hormones and male chromosomes. His delayed development didn't change that scientific reality.
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    > My claim, backed by science, is that this child was a biological male: This is actually a nice way to reinforce my prior statement, so thanks. You're claiming someone was "biologically male" but hey that person didn't even express a penis until age 7-12. They're not even really intersex people, it's just the traditional definition of "biologically male" is comically incapable of dealing with this. What's more, before that change most (there is other documentation of this) of the people you would have lectured about being biologically female felt a very strong affinity to the male identity. By happy coincidence, their hormonal cycle gifted them with anatomy they felt more comfortable with. > he had male hormones and male chromosomes Well, he specifically lacked some hormones, but... Look, trans advocates for the most part don't disagree that a trans man and a person born to the traditional definition of men are exactly the same. They're obviously not precisely the same. What trans people want is an opportunity to be trans people without violence, discrimination, and fearmongering. Trans activists tend to object to the biological essentialism argument not because it is founded on an observation of scientific facts about DNA (which, btw, a lot of people get wrong). They object to it because it's often used to justify acts of violence or discrimination by appealing to defending a biological norm that needs no guardians.
belorn 9y ago
Politics in this context is heavily influenced for the need to simplify concepts into more binary states. The problem is that nature isn't binary. For example, something is a "disorder" has historical been used as a bit more value neutral word for variance, but the more it is used the more it has become synonymous with disease. Similar for "medical condition". For example, we don't call left handed people to have some form of mental disorder, as that would imply today that there is some form of problem rather than simple variance. It also don't match at all those people who are ambidexterity. If we found a genetic marker for handedness, it would likely also not be called a genetic disorder. If the variance cause additional problem, then the additional problems would be the disorder and the handedness a simple side effect. One could argue that gender is more important than handedness, but then we enter values and believes into the mix and that would definitely be political in nature.
freeflight 9y ago
> Where we differ with leftists is how to view the transgender phenomenon. To be fair: There ain't unified views on this on any side, I consider myself a pretty "leftist", never voted conservative in my life, yet I take great issue to the way the political left has picked up identity politics like it did. At times it feels like they are demanding an unlimited right to "self define", spawning cultural oddities like "headmates" in the social media sphere, which basically normalize mental illness as something that shouldn't be treated but merely seen as being "different". People identify as a pansexual muffin collectives and society is supposed to accept that "identity" with all seriousness, complete with "feeling" insulted when people don't use the "proper" made up pronouns to address them. Yes, that's an example from the rather extreme end of this issue, but they do exist and to me they exemplify where this kind of "everything is made up, I am whatever I wish I am" thinking will ultimately lead.
- chc 9y ago
  Regardless of what you think of people identifying as muffins(??), it's pretty unreasonable to equate such a flight of fancy with transgender people. There's a growing pile of evidence (such as the OP) that mental perception of gender is at least partly biologically based and independent of outward presentation, and twin studies suggest that whatever causes identification as transgender similarly has a biological basis (identical twins are more likely to both be transgender than fraternal twins are). So it doesn't seem like transgender people are saying "everything is made up" — they're probably accurately describing a real phenomenon.
  - freeflight 9y ago
    > Regardless of what you think of people identifying as muffins(??), it's pretty unreasonable to equate such a flight of fancy with transgender people. It's not me doing that equation, that equation happened when you pick up the banner of "identity politics" and all kinds of weird folks rally under it to celebrate how weird they are. [0] > There's a growing pile of evidence (such as the OP) that mental perception of gender is at least partly biologically based and independent of outward presentation The OP, while being mostly anecdotal, is pretty much evidence that this whole "gender is 100% a social construct!" idea can't be the full story. These biological boys were misgendered by society, as a result society educated and treated them like girls, yet the boy from the story turned out to be.. a boy and feeling just like that. If anything it's evidence for the exact opposite of "gender is a social construct". > So it doesn't seem like transgender people are saying "everything is made up" — they're probably accurately describing a real phenomenon. Actual transgender people, with mismatching biological gender and brain chemistry, most likely are nowhere near as prevalent as some circles pretend. While it is an issue that society should come to a resolution about how to deal with, I fail to see why it became one of the cornerstones of a whole political movement. It seems like in doing so, the left has gotten a lot of bycatch in the form of mentally ill people suddenly having a justification for why they are not "mentally ill" but rather it's society's fault for not accepting them for their mental illness. This might sound harsh, but I'm saying this as somebody with mental health issues himself who knows very well how difficult it can be to "fit in" and the doubts about if one should actually aspire to "fit in" or instead simply declare one owns "oddness" as a character trait and run with it. It's not easy and imho everybody has to deal with this to a certain degree, regardless of how "normal" or "odd" they are, it's simply part of the experience of living as an individual in any society. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSMEtfqAdmM&list=PLjBnqlVZLi4HqsBl5sOvjdcME3baYHcc1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSMEtfqAdmM&list=PLjBnqlVZLi...

by judah 9y ago

Chris2048 9y ago

There is also the issue of language policing, which confuses the issue; As a political device, some demand trans-women be called women, which confuses discussion of the issue. There are times that I think this might be the aim - to shut down rational discussion so only the emotive appeal remains. A whole other issue is segregated bathrooms; I have yet to see people get past the label-flinging stage to ask the fundamental question: why are bathrooms segregated (hetero/cis M/F) in the first place?

Mz 9y ago
why are bathrooms segregated (hetero/cis M/F) in the first place? I think a much better question would be "Why aren't they all private?" If you create individual bathrooms with lockable doors, you just label it "rest room" and you don't need to assign a gender or make a private matter a public issue. Why should trans individuals have to deal with the question of which bathroom they "belong" in? What's next? Questioning which bathroom gay people belong in? Making private individual bathrooms the norm would also eliminate many other issues. The line to the women's room tends to be longer than to the men's because using a urinal takes less time and the use of urinals is more space efficient, so a men's bathroom sometimes has more toilets plus urinals than a women's bathroom has toilets. This has caused some people to decry this as yet another form of sexism that they would like redressed. Meanwhile, the men's room can have a long wait if you need to have a bowel movement. Lots of urinals is great if everyone just needs to pee, but problematic if that is not the case. Small public men's rooms often have only one toilet, the rest urinals. What if two men are traveling together and both need the actual toilet? Historically, men's bathrooms tended to not have changing tables, reinforcing the expectation that only women change diapers. Individual bathrooms also eliminates that issue. The list of problems it would solve is no doubt much longer, but you get the idea.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > a much better question would be "Why aren't they all private?" I think that just skips the original question by assuming the answer. Why is there no convention for privacy from other members of the same gender? You have to consider the economy of providing totally private bathroom facilities too. > Why should trans individuals have to deal with the question of which bathroom they "belong" in? Because everyone does. > This has caused some people to decry If those people have good arguments, let's hear them. > The list of problems it would solve But are we forcing establishments to provide these facilities? It's easy for Google to spend another million on individual cubicles to impress its employees; not all small businesses will find it so easy or rewarding..
  - Mz 9y ago
    Many small businesses already go this route. Any place that only provides one or two toilets fairly often already has it set up as gender neutral, individual restrooms. Cost would only be an issue for establishments that need to provide multiple toilets. The burden could be eased by grandfathering in existing establishments and applying the new rule to new construction and major renovations. > This has caused some people to decry If those people have good arguments, let's hear them. So, you are open to hearing these arguments, but out of hand dismissing my solutions. > Why should trans individuals have to deal with the question of which bathroom they "belong" in? Because everyone does. But it isn't some big burden for most people the way it is for trans people. Trans people are a little bit like platypuses: they defy our established categories and don't readily fit our little boxes. That fact will never really change. But it doesn't have to be some big problem wrt bathroom use if we just have more private restrooms in public spaces. I was homeless for nearly six years. I got off the street earlier this month. Private bathrooms allowed me to do things like brush my teeth without being thrown out. There is very much a classist double standard in what is socially acceptable use of a public bathroom. Traveler brushing their teeth in a public bathroom? Totes fine. Homeless person doing the same thing? Excellent excuse to ban them from the premises. Muslim washing their shoes and feet before praying in the hallway on a college campus? Totes fine. Homeless person washing their shoes or feet in the same bathroom? Misuse of the facilities and we need to ask you to leave. There are lots of ways in which public bathrooms are burdensome for anyone who does not readily fit in with whatever the social norms happen to be. Some of the groups for whom it is burdensome lack the means to make their problem part of the public debate. Other than me occasionally commenting on it in public forums, I am not aware of anyone advocating for the rights of homeless people where it comes to public bathroom use. There are old TV shows where, for example, cross dressers have to decide which bathroom to use. If someone is successfully passing for female socially and not trying to sleep with me, I gives a damn what bits are between their legs and I don't see why we need a public debate about their bits and bathrooms. There is an available robust solution that could make it a non issue. Why is there no convention for privacy from other members of the same gender? Most people are not actually comfortable pooping or dealing with their period, etc, in a public toilet with other people around. There are some people who cannot make themselves poop in public. In private homes where we share bathroom facilities with our closest people, such as blood relatives or a spouse, the convention is that bathrooms are private and the door gets closed. Most folks don't want to use the toilet with witnesses, even when those witnesses are their most intimate friends and family. So, I really fail to see why anyone would give push back on this idea. Most people do not actually like using public bathrooms to begin with and public facilities create undue friction for the most marginalized people, like homeless people and trans people. If private bathrooms were the default, we wouldn't even be having a public, nationwide debate about which bathroom trans people should be using. That wouldn't solve all their problems by any stretch of the imagination, but it would remove one burden from their life that is excessive and that unnecessarily sets them apart from other people. If you think it is not excessive, try spending the day just not using the toilet at all. Most people use the toilet multiple times per day and cannot hold it for eight or ten hours straight. Unless they work from home and basically live as shut ins who get all groceries delivered, etc, this will be a nightmarishly large problem on an ongoing basis.
cocokitty 9y ago
Women in Victorian England campaigned for their own bathrooms because they wanted a safe and private place to do their business. Originally there would be a single public bathroom with no gender marking, but what that really meant was that they were men's bathrooms, and women would wait to go at home. This was a pretty big damper on their ability to participate in the public sphere because it limited how much time they could physically spend in public. Gendered bathrooms followed later in other countries for similar reasons. They exist for the same reason that trains in Japan have women-only cars, why there is a women-only rideshare app, etc. https://www.livescience.com/54692-why-bathrooms-are-gender-segregated.html https://www.livescience.com/54692-why-bathrooms-are-gender-s... http://theconversation.com/how-did-public-bathrooms-get-to-be-separated-by-sex-in-the-first-place-59575 http://theconversation.com/how-did-public-bathrooms-get-to-b... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime

_jal 9y ago

It is a real difference. > Thus, this "girl" wasn't a girl at all. Biologically and scientifically speaking, he was a boy with an undeveloped penis. Actually, scientifically speaking, a different developmental path than the one to which you are accustomed happened. There are real differences that conflict with a desire held by some that people fit in neat categories that do not exist as the clean, platonic ideal they want it to be. I think "we" should accept the reality that gender is not binary rather than using the political process to harass people who are living proof of that fact.

judah 9y ago
>> "Actually, scientifically speaking, a different developmental path than the one to which you are accustomed happened." His delayed sexual development doesn't change the scientific reality that he had, and still has, male hormones and male chromosomes. Biologically, he is a male.
- _jal 9y ago
  > Biologically, he is a male. So is this woman: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MedicalMysteries/story?id=5465752&page=1 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MedicalMysteries/story?id=54657...
  - judah 9y ago
    As your article states, that woman has a condition called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or AIS, producing a person with a vagina but with XY chromosomes. That isn't normal & healthy development, any more than blindness is normal & healthy. Rather, AIS is a medical condition, a syndrome that causes suffering.
    - _jal 9y ago
      I think you're making my point for me. You appear to be more interested in categorization and distinguishing what is and what isn't normal and healthy than simply acknowledging that gender is not binary, whatever medical category might be applicable to a particular person. People exist who do not fit into either-or gender boxes. It is just reality.

KirinDave 9y ago

> Thus, this "girl" wasn't a girl at all. Biologically and scientifically speaking, he was a boy with an undeveloped penis. The thing is, many of these young people had a strong sensation of being a "boy" despite societal pressure otherwise. This notion of an internal representation of gender identity is backed by science, and this isn't even the only example. So there is no argument here that these people are anything but boys with a different developmental path. But is suspect most could have told you that, despite what a non-invasive examination of their body would tell a biological essential-ists. > Where we differ with leftists is how to view the transgender phenomenon. Yeah, conservatives want to make it illegal or at least economically infeasible to be transgender. The irony here being that this type of developmental path would rock many conservatives in America to their very core if it happened in their family.

judah 9y ago
>> "This notion of an internal representation of gender identity is backed by science" My claim, backed by science, is that this child was a biological male: he had male hormones and male chromosomes. His delayed development didn't change that scientific reality.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  > My claim, backed by science, is that this child was a biological male: This is actually a nice way to reinforce my prior statement, so thanks. You're claiming someone was "biologically male" but hey that person didn't even express a penis until age 7-12. They're not even really intersex people, it's just the traditional definition of "biologically male" is comically incapable of dealing with this. What's more, before that change most (there is other documentation of this) of the people you would have lectured about being biologically female felt a very strong affinity to the male identity. By happy coincidence, their hormonal cycle gifted them with anatomy they felt more comfortable with. > he had male hormones and male chromosomes Well, he specifically lacked some hormones, but... Look, trans advocates for the most part don't disagree that a trans man and a person born to the traditional definition of men are exactly the same. They're obviously not precisely the same. What trans people want is an opportunity to be trans people without violence, discrimination, and fearmongering. Trans activists tend to object to the biological essentialism argument not because it is founded on an observation of scientific facts about DNA (which, btw, a lot of people get wrong). They object to it because it's often used to justify acts of violence or discrimination by appealing to defending a biological norm that needs no guardians.

belorn 9y ago

Politics in this context is heavily influenced for the need to simplify concepts into more binary states. The problem is that nature isn't binary. For example, something is a "disorder" has historical been used as a bit more value neutral word for variance, but the more it is used the more it has become synonymous with disease. Similar for "medical condition". For example, we don't call left handed people to have some form of mental disorder, as that would imply today that there is some form of problem rather than simple variance. It also don't match at all those people who are ambidexterity. If we found a genetic marker for handedness, it would likely also not be called a genetic disorder. If the variance cause additional problem, then the additional problems would be the disorder and the handedness a simple side effect. One could argue that gender is more important than handedness, but then we enter values and believes into the mix and that would definitely be political in nature.

freeflight 9y ago

> Where we differ with leftists is how to view the transgender phenomenon. To be fair: There ain't unified views on this on any side, I consider myself a pretty "leftist", never voted conservative in my life, yet I take great issue to the way the political left has picked up identity politics like it did. At times it feels like they are demanding an unlimited right to "self define", spawning cultural oddities like "headmates" in the social media sphere, which basically normalize mental illness as something that shouldn't be treated but merely seen as being "different". People identify as a pansexual muffin collectives and society is supposed to accept that "identity" with all seriousness, complete with "feeling" insulted when people don't use the "proper" made up pronouns to address them. Yes, that's an example from the rather extreme end of this issue, but they do exist and to me they exemplify where this kind of "everything is made up, I am whatever I wish I am" thinking will ultimately lead.

chc 9y ago
Regardless of what you think of people identifying as muffins(??), it's pretty unreasonable to equate such a flight of fancy with transgender people. There's a growing pile of evidence (such as the OP) that mental perception of gender is at least partly biologically based and independent of outward presentation, and twin studies suggest that whatever causes identification as transgender similarly has a biological basis (identical twins are more likely to both be transgender than fraternal twins are). So it doesn't seem like transgender people are saying "everything is made up" — they're probably accurately describing a real phenomenon.
- freeflight 9y ago
  > Regardless of what you think of people identifying as muffins(??), it's pretty unreasonable to equate such a flight of fancy with transgender people. It's not me doing that equation, that equation happened when you pick up the banner of "identity politics" and all kinds of weird folks rally under it to celebrate how weird they are. [0] > There's a growing pile of evidence (such as the OP) that mental perception of gender is at least partly biologically based and independent of outward presentation The OP, while being mostly anecdotal, is pretty much evidence that this whole "gender is 100% a social construct!" idea can't be the full story. These biological boys were misgendered by society, as a result society educated and treated them like girls, yet the boy from the story turned out to be.. a boy and feeling just like that. If anything it's evidence for the exact opposite of "gender is a social construct". > So it doesn't seem like transgender people are saying "everything is made up" — they're probably accurately describing a real phenomenon. Actual transgender people, with mismatching biological gender and brain chemistry, most likely are nowhere near as prevalent as some circles pretend. While it is an issue that society should come to a resolution about how to deal with, I fail to see why it became one of the cornerstones of a whole political movement. It seems like in doing so, the left has gotten a lot of bycatch in the form of mentally ill people suddenly having a justification for why they are not "mentally ill" but rather it's society's fault for not accepting them for their mental illness. This might sound harsh, but I'm saying this as somebody with mental health issues himself who knows very well how difficult it can be to "fit in" and the doubts about if one should actually aspire to "fit in" or instead simply declare one owns "oddness" as a character trait and run with it. It's not easy and imho everybody has to deal with this to a certain degree, regardless of how "normal" or "odd" they are, it's simply part of the experience of living as an individual in any society. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSMEtfqAdmM&list=PLjBnqlVZLi4HqsBl5sOvjdcME3baYHcc1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSMEtfqAdmM&list=PLjBnqlVZLi...