4 ms·

> 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 prett

> 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...
  - chc 9y ago
    As far as I can tell, nobody in this thread "picked up the banner of identity politics," and I can't find anyone arguing that "gender is 100% a social construct" either. Those seem to have been brought up exclusively as an out-of-left-field criticism of transgender people. What I'm saying is, at least in the context of this thread, it seems like a straw man argument that associates the idea "transgender people are real" with other ideas that literally nobody here is claiming. I agree there probably aren't that many transgender people, but the best estimates I've seen suggest that there are probably a little over a million in the US. It is a tiny fraction of the US population — less than half a percent — but on the other hand, cities with that many people are considered a pretty big deal. It seems like an issue worth considering — not the cornerstone of a political movement, sure, but I don't think it is the cornerstone of one, unless you're considering "trans rights" as a political movement of its own (in which case, that's kind of tautological).
    - freeflight 9y ago
      > As far as I can tell, nobody in this thread "picked up the banner of identity politics," and I can't find anyone arguing that "gender is 100% a social construct" either. Those seem to have been brought up exclusively as an out-of-left-field criticism of transgender people. Where did I criticize "transgender people"? I merely pointed out how identity politics, which is not just about transgender people but covers a whole field of people, has been pretty much been the sole focus of "leftist social politics". Probably because there ain't actually that much left it could pick up to rally behind, which in itself is already a success. Nothing of what I said was intended as a direct reply to people making claims here, but rather as a discussion of the general phenomena which does include the claim of "gender is a social construct" but also includes plenty of people who normalize mental illness in the course of said discussion. Look, my goal is not to make people who don't fit the mold "undesirable", this isn't an especially easy topic to discuss because there are no clear-cut answers and it can be very touchy for some people. Somewhere in there, there is a very valid issue hidden of how do we deal with mental health issues. Do we consider them part of the course and accept people living with them affecting everybody around them? Do we consider them "broken" and "not compatible with society" and try to change their personality? These issues seep into the general issues of psychology and sociology not being very hard sciences, so science can't give us any clear answers about what to do. In that regard, I find it disingenuous how the left, with the help of gender studies, tries to construct a consensus that ain't there and most likely won't be there for the foreseeable future.
Chaebixi 9y ago
> At times it feels like they are demanding an unlimited right to "self define" I think it's a bit more extreme than that. It's not just they want to be able to self-define, but they also want to command others to accept those definitions. There are really two kinds of personal identity: the identity you apply to yourself and the identity that another person applies to you. They aren't the same, and are unlikely to align if the self-applied identity is unconventional.
- freeflight 9y ago
  I don't think self-perception and outside-perception align very often for anybody, mostly because we are incapable of perceiving ourselves without bias and we can't control other people's subjective impressions of us. In a way, their behavior could be interpreted as "revolting against categorizing humans by inventing ridiculous new categories", which might be a nobel and idealistic cause (as categories are often the source of prejudice) but it's also unrealistic because it denies certain biological realities of which none are subjective in any way.
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    > I don't think self-perception and outside-perception align very often for anybody Yeah, that's true, but for more conventional identities the possible misalignments are not as extreme and basic.

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...
- chc 9y ago
  As far as I can tell, nobody in this thread "picked up the banner of identity politics," and I can't find anyone arguing that "gender is 100% a social construct" either. Those seem to have been brought up exclusively as an out-of-left-field criticism of transgender people. What I'm saying is, at least in the context of this thread, it seems like a straw man argument that associates the idea "transgender people are real" with other ideas that literally nobody here is claiming. I agree there probably aren't that many transgender people, but the best estimates I've seen suggest that there are probably a little over a million in the US. It is a tiny fraction of the US population — less than half a percent — but on the other hand, cities with that many people are considered a pretty big deal. It seems like an issue worth considering — not the cornerstone of a political movement, sure, but I don't think it is the cornerstone of one, unless you're considering "trans rights" as a political movement of its own (in which case, that's kind of tautological).
  - freeflight 9y ago
    > As far as I can tell, nobody in this thread "picked up the banner of identity politics," and I can't find anyone arguing that "gender is 100% a social construct" either. Those seem to have been brought up exclusively as an out-of-left-field criticism of transgender people. Where did I criticize "transgender people"? I merely pointed out how identity politics, which is not just about transgender people but covers a whole field of people, has been pretty much been the sole focus of "leftist social politics". Probably because there ain't actually that much left it could pick up to rally behind, which in itself is already a success. Nothing of what I said was intended as a direct reply to people making claims here, but rather as a discussion of the general phenomena which does include the claim of "gender is a social construct" but also includes plenty of people who normalize mental illness in the course of said discussion. Look, my goal is not to make people who don't fit the mold "undesirable", this isn't an especially easy topic to discuss because there are no clear-cut answers and it can be very touchy for some people. Somewhere in there, there is a very valid issue hidden of how do we deal with mental health issues. Do we consider them part of the course and accept people living with them affecting everybody around them? Do we consider them "broken" and "not compatible with society" and try to change their personality? These issues seep into the general issues of psychology and sociology not being very hard sciences, so science can't give us any clear answers about what to do. In that regard, I find it disingenuous how the left, with the help of gender studies, tries to construct a consensus that ain't there and most likely won't be there for the foreseeable future.

Chaebixi 9y ago

> At times it feels like they are demanding an unlimited right to "self define" I think it's a bit more extreme than that. It's not just they want to be able to self-define, but they also want to command others to accept those definitions. There are really two kinds of personal identity: the identity you apply to yourself and the identity that another person applies to you. They aren't the same, and are unlikely to align if the self-applied identity is unconventional.

freeflight 9y ago
I don't think self-perception and outside-perception align very often for anybody, mostly because we are incapable of perceiving ourselves without bias and we can't control other people's subjective impressions of us. In a way, their behavior could be interpreted as "revolting against categorizing humans by inventing ridiculous new categories", which might be a nobel and idealistic cause (as categories are often the source of prejudice) but it's also unrealistic because it denies certain biological realities of which none are subjective in any way.
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > I don't think self-perception and outside-perception align very often for anybody Yeah, that's true, but for more conventional identities the possible misalignments are not as extreme and basic.