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The "biological view" reminds me of twenty years ago when gay people were considered mentally ill. I can only hope the next generation doesn't have to put up wi

The "biological view" reminds me of twenty years ago when gay people were considered mentally ill. I can only hope the next generation doesn't have to put up with this kind of bigotry. Bigotry born out of ignorance and an unwillingness to learn or empathize. You may not realize the damage it causes, the increased suicide risk, but I'm all too aware. What I don't understand about Opal though, is "meh" obviously doesn't respect gender identity, so why would he adopt a CoC that specifically says his project does?! Coraline just seems to be calling out the hypocrisy of agreeing to one thing and then doing something else. Read some of this guy's other tweets, he obviously has no idea what he's talking about "I still fail to see how that kind of invasive surgery on kids can b cherished." It's ludicrous, the age old "But think of the children!" We probably agree more than this comment would lead you to believe. I don't understand why we can't just be nice to each other. Why you can just refrain from going on Twitter and calling an entire group of people (a protected group of people according to your own CoC) delusional. Why can't we all just get along?

lawnchair_larry 8y ago
But it’s not bigotry to believe that there are 2 genders.
- theossuary 8y ago
  This is like saying there are only two types of people, those who are aggressive and those who are passive (Alphas and betas). It completely misses the fact that most (all?) things in nature lie on a spectrum, just like gender. Some people are masculine, some are effeminate. There are effeminate men, and masculine women. There are biological males who see themselves as women socially, or physiologically; and the same is true of some biological females. At the end of the day, it has no impact on you how others express themselves, so who cares? It reminds me of this: http://blog.angry-dad.com/2015/06/psychiatrists-and-hair-dryer-incident.html http://blog.angry-dad.com/2015/06/psychiatrists-and-hair-dry... If calling a somebody "she", and allowing her to do with her body what she wants, improves their quality of life significantly, who cares? Who are you to stand in the way of them making their life worth living? What really surprised me though are the people on HN who normally pride themselves on having informed opinions, talking about this without even reading the wiki page on it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity
  - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
    No, it isn’t like saying that. I don’t know why you are making a case for calling somebody a he or she in accordance with their preference or suggesting I’m getting in the way of anything. That is not inconsistent with the belief that there are 2 genders, and I did not say I have a problem with respecting anyone’s preference to be called one or the other. I didn’t even say I personally believe that there are 2 genders. I simply said that believing there are 2 genders is not bigotry.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- beat 8y ago
  But it is bigotry to use the combination of believing in two genders and authority in a given situation to cause harm to those who aren't easily categorized by said belief.
  - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
    It can be, but there is often broad disagreement on this topic over what is harm and what direction that harm flows.
    - beat 8y ago
      "Broad disagreement" doesn't mean "Both sides are equally right and the truth is somewhere in the middle". Sometimes, people are just plain wrong.
      - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
        Ain’t that the truth.
nickpsecurity 8y ago
re Opal thread. Yeah, reading meh's comments was like chatterbots from the late 90's or something. This person had no people skills or was trolling. Although I lost it, someone gave me article by meh that indicated he knew of these radicals, knew they'd hit the project eventually, and was basically trolling them. He's probably an asshole. Barely relevant, though, given he made them show true colors by just saying (paraphrased) "we'll only discuss what's relevant to the project, not people's differences." That would be OK if avoiding discrimination was goal. It wasn't. That's because Coraline's group want forced compliance with their views at any cost to target. They showed they'll hit hard and stoop super-low. Those same people also trash folks in their outgroups all the time on Twitter and forums: they have no intention of being nice to us since disagreement = attacks so their attacks they see as self-defense. Warped. re trans folks. It's more like cultural appropriation to me than calling gay people mentally ill. The two genders were defined in terms of biology (or tradition or religion), they match people well as models, psychology (i.e. life experiences) got added to them, and many people have these beliefs. And then a vocal minority in gender politics said the terms created by religion, biology, etc should have their meaning changed in the minds of all those people since an even rarer group of people disagrees with what those peoples' words should mean. They also want this done to not offend minority members or include them. Yet, a huge chunk of people that disagree with this change are minority members. So, I think rejection of them trying to redefine these words makes sense. I also call them out on not really caring about or protecting minority members if they'll censor and/or damage millions of them to force their beliefs on them. From there, trans people and others supporting their position told me about things like brain studies showing they were different and they have existed in various cultures. However, as I suspected, at least one brain study someone gave me said the trans people were different than men or women. As in, their own evidence refuted that they were like that gender. Given origins and evidence, my position rejected that trans people were their claimed gender. To me, trans people are a different type of person: an exception to existing categories needing new terms to note that and their preference. So, I'd say "not a woman, but a trans woman." Given I only have three pronouns, I did redefine the pronouns to include them where. Ex: she equals biological woman or trans woman. If not pronouns, I'd note the difference due to the biological and psychological situation with trans woman often being different than biological women. I support your get along position. I worked to block CoC's elsewhere with one forum having trans people, including a moderator. The debates got tough (esp for them I'd guess). They went with free speech long as civil disagreement with votes able to drop stuff to bottom, but not censor or ban. Results are almost everyone that disagreed are all still there, occasionally teaching each other things or helping each other out. We made it work. That's like we do it in the South for folks trying to tolerate each other's differences, esp in workplace. If Coraline was right, all that would implode or something. They're wrong: we can be civil to each other without analyzing, policing, and dominating on every thought or action. The baseline can be a lower bar with each person doing their part balancing tolerance of what can offend and respecting others boundaries.

lawnchair_larry 8y ago

But it’s not bigotry to believe that there are 2 genders.

theossuary 8y ago
This is like saying there are only two types of people, those who are aggressive and those who are passive (Alphas and betas). It completely misses the fact that most (all?) things in nature lie on a spectrum, just like gender. Some people are masculine, some are effeminate. There are effeminate men, and masculine women. There are biological males who see themselves as women socially, or physiologically; and the same is true of some biological females. At the end of the day, it has no impact on you how others express themselves, so who cares? It reminds me of this: http://blog.angry-dad.com/2015/06/psychiatrists-and-hair-dryer-incident.html http://blog.angry-dad.com/2015/06/psychiatrists-and-hair-dry... If calling a somebody "she", and allowing her to do with her body what she wants, improves their quality of life significantly, who cares? Who are you to stand in the way of them making their life worth living? What really surprised me though are the people on HN who normally pride themselves on having informed opinions, talking about this without even reading the wiki page on it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  No, it isn’t like saying that. I don’t know why you are making a case for calling somebody a he or she in accordance with their preference or suggesting I’m getting in the way of anything. That is not inconsistent with the belief that there are 2 genders, and I did not say I have a problem with respecting anyone’s preference to be called one or the other. I didn’t even say I personally believe that there are 2 genders. I simply said that believing there are 2 genders is not bigotry.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
beat 8y ago
But it is bigotry to use the combination of believing in two genders and authority in a given situation to cause harm to those who aren't easily categorized by said belief.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  It can be, but there is often broad disagreement on this topic over what is harm and what direction that harm flows.
  - beat 8y ago
    "Broad disagreement" doesn't mean "Both sides are equally right and the truth is somewhere in the middle". Sometimes, people are just plain wrong.
    - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
      Ain’t that the truth.

nickpsecurity 8y ago

re Opal thread. Yeah, reading meh's comments was like chatterbots from the late 90's or something. This person had no people skills or was trolling. Although I lost it, someone gave me article by meh that indicated he knew of these radicals, knew they'd hit the project eventually, and was basically trolling them. He's probably an asshole. Barely relevant, though, given he made them show true colors by just saying (paraphrased) "we'll only discuss what's relevant to the project, not people's differences." That would be OK if avoiding discrimination was goal. It wasn't. That's because Coraline's group want forced compliance with their views at any cost to target. They showed they'll hit hard and stoop super-low. Those same people also trash folks in their outgroups all the time on Twitter and forums: they have no intention of being nice to us since disagreement = attacks so their attacks they see as self-defense. Warped. re trans folks. It's more like cultural appropriation to me than calling gay people mentally ill. The two genders were defined in terms of biology (or tradition or religion), they match people well as models, psychology (i.e. life experiences) got added to them, and many people have these beliefs. And then a vocal minority in gender politics said the terms created by religion, biology, etc should have their meaning changed in the minds of all those people since an even rarer group of people disagrees with what those peoples' words should mean. They also want this done to not offend minority members or include them. Yet, a huge chunk of people that disagree with this change are minority members. So, I think rejection of them trying to redefine these words makes sense. I also call them out on not really caring about or protecting minority members if they'll censor and/or damage millions of them to force their beliefs on them. From there, trans people and others supporting their position told me about things like brain studies showing they were different and they have existed in various cultures. However, as I suspected, at least one brain study someone gave me said the trans people were different than men or women. As in, their own evidence refuted that they were like that gender. Given origins and evidence, my position rejected that trans people were their claimed gender. To me, trans people are a different type of person: an exception to existing categories needing new terms to note that and their preference. So, I'd say "not a woman, but a trans woman." Given I only have three pronouns, I did redefine the pronouns to include them where. Ex: she equals biological woman or trans woman. If not pronouns, I'd note the difference due to the biological and psychological situation with trans woman often being different than biological women. I support your get along position. I worked to block CoC's elsewhere with one forum having trans people, including a moderator. The debates got tough (esp for them I'd guess). They went with free speech long as civil disagreement with votes able to drop stuff to bottom, but not censor or ban. Results are almost everyone that disagreed are all still there, occasionally teaching each other things or helping each other out. We made it work. That's like we do it in the South for folks trying to tolerate each other's differences, esp in workplace. If Coraline was right, all that would implode or something. They're wrong: we can be civil to each other without analyzing, policing, and dominating on every thought or action. The baseline can be a lower bar with each person doing their part balancing tolerance of what can offend and respecting others boundaries.