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What is his “nonsense”? It’s reasonable to not allow people to cross their biological gender league. He’s seen how biological males have absolutely destroyed in

What is his “nonsense”? It’s reasonable to not allow people to cross their biological gender league. He’s seen how biological males have absolutely destroyed in biological female leagues.

claudeganon 7y ago
He kept repeating that trans women were “confused gay men” on the basis of one very shoddy Swedish research paper, as if that was somehow authoritative.
- ralusek 7y ago
  That was in regards to using puberty blockers on children, I believe. The study stated that many children that believe themselves to be trans ended up simply being gay, and that this lack of certainty (as well as the fact that we don't think of children as rational consenting entities for most things) makes the issue of using puberty blockers controversial. I could be wrong, but I am almost positive that this is what was being argued.
  - rpmisms 7y ago
    That matches with what I remember, and I don't understand why that's a controversial thought here. Changing gender is a big deal, it can wait a few years so you're sure.
    - resters 7y ago
      That’s not what it was. The guy was venting about how irritating he finds trans people.
      - rpmisms 7y ago
        That's also a valid view, even if it's insensitive. You can be annoyed by whomever you like.
        resters 7y ago
        Right. My comment was just that I found it to be low quality content. It was like something you might overhear from a table of not-so-bright senior citizens at a Denny’s.
        rpmisms 7y ago
        And you're welcome to that opinion, just as he's welcome to his. That's kind of the point here. Opinions are valid, even if they're stupid.
        carapace 7y ago
        (I don't want to wade in here really, but I have to take exception to your statement: Stupid opinions are not valid.)
        hnbroseph 7y ago
        perhaps it's a category error to apply the notion of 'validity' to opinions.
        rpmisms 7y ago
        Stupidity and validity being decided by whom? If you believe someone's opinion is stupid, you may not consider it valid, but that changes nothing about the actual opinion. Remember, Newton had a series of "stupid, invalid" opinions about physics and astronomy, and now look at us.
        carapace 7y ago
        (rpmisms and hnbroseph both make excellent points! I want to add that "Stupid opinions are not valid." is, of course, just my own stupid opinion, eh? Combine that statement with "Opinions are valid, even if they're stupid." and you have a logical self-referential paradox, eh?)
        resters 7y ago
        I was responding to a comment that introduced the transphobic comments, simply to attest that I had heard the episode and that the skinny guy who is on that episode with Rogan was venting/ranting in a way that I found very dumb. Rogan himself was holding back from joining in, and I think some of the commenters here mistook my comment as critiquing Rogan for being transphobic, which I did not observe. It was the skinny guy (whose name I don't know).
      - z3ncyberpunk 7y ago
        Uh thats exactly what it was about... For 20 minutes Mr flamboyant Adam tried to spout bullshit about how it should be perfectly acceptable to give children, who don't even know themselves or bodies, incredibly powerful psychoactive drugs that drastically alter their behavior
        gfdgsgaagrhstrs 7y ago
        > Mr flamboyant Adam Love some homophobia in my HN. Fuck you.
      - artiste 7y ago
        Except he's actually had trans people like Eddie Izzard on and they got on just fine, so this is obviously wrong. He takes issue with trans females competing in female sports.
        dhimes 7y ago
        And it's not like he's alone in this- the authoritative bodies charged with protecting the sports are starting to think the same thing.
    - danbolt 7y ago
      A big issue is that the longer you wait, there longer your body has permanent effects from puberty. Someone who is ultimately right in their convictions about themselves then has to wait longer through something irreversible. I think the purported advantage of puberty blockers is that they help “waiting a few years so you’re sure” while taking the path that’s the lesser of evils.
    - pgcj_poster 7y ago
      If you're trans and going through puberty, "a few years" can literally ruin your life.
      - bmurphy1976 7y ago
        But how do any of us know we are making the right call here? This is one of those wickedly complex problems where there is no right answer. It just sucks for everybody involved, nearly every decision you make can have a horrific outcome and the effects are permanent. You can't be that surprised that in a situation like this, most people would tend to be very conservative (not republican conservative, but careful, do no harm, don't rock the boat kind of conservative).
        pgcj_poster 7y ago
        No, puberty blockers don't cause any permanent body changes: that's the whole point. They delay the decision. You can still go through a male or female puberty once you're older. Most people are "conservative" on this issue because they have no idea what they're talking about, just like every almost every other issue related to trans people.
        rpmisms 7y ago
        I don't want to wade in, but puberty blockers do have long-term effects, so they're not just a cureall.
      - rpmisms 7y ago
        Or you can transition once you've reached an age where your body is not in a constant state of flux. When I was young, I intensely wanted to be female. As I got older, it turned out to be a result of curiosity. If I was young today, I'd be far more likely to be going through some hormone regimen because of a childish curiosity.
        pgcj_poster 7y ago
        That "constant state of flux" is what makes your body into a prison that you have to inhabit the rest of your life. Every single trans person I've met desperately wishes that they had transitioned earlier. I transitioned relatively early, and I'm still intensely jealous of trans teens who are getting proper treatment today. My older friends who've transitioned in their late 20s-40s regard their lives as being hopelessly ruined. And some of them repressed their trans feeling for a while, only to have them come back later with vengeance. But you never hear about those people in these arguments. My mom said something similar about "curiosity" to try and convince me that I couldn't be trans. As it turns out, what she meant was "when I was your age, I wanted to cut my hair short." Likewise, pretty much every story I've heard like this turns out to be either obvious lies meant to discredit trans people, or something that would have been easily sorted out by a psychologist. Eg. I've heard of gay people wishing they were another gender so that they wouldn't get bullied for their orientation. No decent professional would mistake that for genuine dysphoria. But even supposing that your psychologist was incompetent, you still would have socially transitioned in some capacity before you ever started hormones. This almost certainly would have let you know if transitioning was really right for you. And even if it didn't, and you went all the way to starting estrogen, you could always stop if you didn't like what it was doing. Estrogen works very slowly. I've been on it for three years, and I know cis men whose boobs are bigger than mine. If I changed my mind, I could easily start living as a man again. It's absolutely unfair to impose life-ruining misery on trans teens because of the off-chance that it might do a fraction of the same harm to a cis person.
  - pgcj_poster 7y ago
    The purpose of puberty blockers is to delay body changes until the teenager (not "child") is ready to decide. They don't cause permanent changes like actual hormone therapy, and trans teenagers can always go through a "natural" puberty later if they change their mind. On the contrary, denying a trans teenager puberty blockers causes permanent changes to the body that are likely to cause massive distress and take many years of therapy, training, and surgeries to correct. Many trans people regard having gone through puberty as literally having ruined their lives.
cygx 7y ago
His views on the topic lack nuance. First, you need to determine that the presence of male-to-female trans athletes is indeed a significant problem in a given discipline. Then, we as a society have to decide whether or not we want to do something about it, which is not necessarily a given. For example, are you aware that the top 30 male marathon runners are all from Kenya and Ethiopia? It sucks for Europeans that we apparently just can't compete at the highest level, but most people would probably argue that this is just the way it is. Finally, the actions that should be taken will depend on the sport in question. Case in point: Rogan talks a lot about fighting. But in that particular case, we already discriminate by weight. So it might be possible to make things more fair by giving a weight penalty to male-to-female fighters that want to compete in the women's league.
- meschi 7y ago
  The whole point of female leagues is, that females don't become overpowered by males. So the decision you are talking about is already made. If one starts to introduce biologically males back into the female league one could arguably instead remove the female league and introduce a unisex one. This would be more coherent with your reasoning in my eyes.
  - cygx 7y ago
    The decision about female leagues was made at a time when transsexuality wasn't socially acceptable and hence did not factor into it. My point is, there are options to explore besides an outright ban. For example, a trans woman that goes through HRT will lose some of the advantages of her birth sex. However, she might still enjoy the advantage of the male frame, hence my suggestion of an additional penalty. A unisex league as you suggested could also be a posibility, and one could think about introducing not only weight classes, but testosterone classes as well.
    - sjwright 7y ago
      But again, the female leagues were established because of the physical differences between men and women. Yes, some trans people who undergo some medical interventions have some of their physical sporting attributes brought closer into line with the opposite sex, but it’s not all attributes and it’s not all athletes. It’s exceedingly complicated. The reality is that female leagues was a cultural hack that worked well enough in the 20th century. But in a world where we recognise that neither sex not gender fit neatly into binary categories, it is impractical to assume that we can fit people into two sporting categories.

What is his “nonsense”? It’s reasonable to not allow people to cross their biological gender league. He’s seen how biological males have absolutely destroyed in biological female leagues.

claudeganon 7y ago

He kept repeating that trans women were “confused gay men” on the basis of one very shoddy Swedish research paper, as if that was somehow authoritative.

ralusek 7y ago
That was in regards to using puberty blockers on children, I believe. The study stated that many children that believe themselves to be trans ended up simply being gay, and that this lack of certainty (as well as the fact that we don't think of children as rational consenting entities for most things) makes the issue of using puberty blockers controversial. I could be wrong, but I am almost positive that this is what was being argued.
- rpmisms 7y ago
  That matches with what I remember, and I don't understand why that's a controversial thought here. Changing gender is a big deal, it can wait a few years so you're sure.
  - resters 7y ago
    That’s not what it was. The guy was venting about how irritating he finds trans people.
    - rpmisms 7y ago
      That's also a valid view, even if it's insensitive. You can be annoyed by whomever you like.
      - resters 7y ago
        Right. My comment was just that I found it to be low quality content. It was like something you might overhear from a table of not-so-bright senior citizens at a Denny’s.
        rpmisms 7y ago
        And you're welcome to that opinion, just as he's welcome to his. That's kind of the point here. Opinions are valid, even if they're stupid.
        carapace 7y ago
        (I don't want to wade in here really, but I have to take exception to your statement: Stupid opinions are not valid.)
        hnbroseph 7y ago
        perhaps it's a category error to apply the notion of 'validity' to opinions.
        rpmisms 7y ago
        Stupidity and validity being decided by whom? If you believe someone's opinion is stupid, you may not consider it valid, but that changes nothing about the actual opinion. Remember, Newton had a series of "stupid, invalid" opinions about physics and astronomy, and now look at us.
        carapace 7y ago
        (rpmisms and hnbroseph both make excellent points! I want to add that "Stupid opinions are not valid." is, of course, just my own stupid opinion, eh? Combine that statement with "Opinions are valid, even if they're stupid." and you have a logical self-referential paradox, eh?)
        resters 7y ago
        I was responding to a comment that introduced the transphobic comments, simply to attest that I had heard the episode and that the skinny guy who is on that episode with Rogan was venting/ranting in a way that I found very dumb. Rogan himself was holding back from joining in, and I think some of the commenters here mistook my comment as critiquing Rogan for being transphobic, which I did not observe. It was the skinny guy (whose name I don't know).
    - z3ncyberpunk 7y ago
      Uh thats exactly what it was about... For 20 minutes Mr flamboyant Adam tried to spout bullshit about how it should be perfectly acceptable to give children, who don't even know themselves or bodies, incredibly powerful psychoactive drugs that drastically alter their behavior
      - gfdgsgaagrhstrs 7y ago
        > Mr flamboyant Adam Love some homophobia in my HN. Fuck you.
    - artiste 7y ago
      Except he's actually had trans people like Eddie Izzard on and they got on just fine, so this is obviously wrong. He takes issue with trans females competing in female sports.
      - dhimes 7y ago
        And it's not like he's alone in this- the authoritative bodies charged with protecting the sports are starting to think the same thing.
  - danbolt 7y ago
    A big issue is that the longer you wait, there longer your body has permanent effects from puberty. Someone who is ultimately right in their convictions about themselves then has to wait longer through something irreversible. I think the purported advantage of puberty blockers is that they help “waiting a few years so you’re sure” while taking the path that’s the lesser of evils.
  - pgcj_poster 7y ago
    If you're trans and going through puberty, "a few years" can literally ruin your life.
    - bmurphy1976 7y ago
      But how do any of us know we are making the right call here? This is one of those wickedly complex problems where there is no right answer. It just sucks for everybody involved, nearly every decision you make can have a horrific outcome and the effects are permanent. You can't be that surprised that in a situation like this, most people would tend to be very conservative (not republican conservative, but careful, do no harm, don't rock the boat kind of conservative).
      - pgcj_poster 7y ago
        No, puberty blockers don't cause any permanent body changes: that's the whole point. They delay the decision. You can still go through a male or female puberty once you're older. Most people are "conservative" on this issue because they have no idea what they're talking about, just like every almost every other issue related to trans people.
        rpmisms 7y ago
        I don't want to wade in, but puberty blockers do have long-term effects, so they're not just a cureall.
    - rpmisms 7y ago
      Or you can transition once you've reached an age where your body is not in a constant state of flux. When I was young, I intensely wanted to be female. As I got older, it turned out to be a result of curiosity. If I was young today, I'd be far more likely to be going through some hormone regimen because of a childish curiosity.
      - pgcj_poster 7y ago
        That "constant state of flux" is what makes your body into a prison that you have to inhabit the rest of your life. Every single trans person I've met desperately wishes that they had transitioned earlier. I transitioned relatively early, and I'm still intensely jealous of trans teens who are getting proper treatment today. My older friends who've transitioned in their late 20s-40s regard their lives as being hopelessly ruined. And some of them repressed their trans feeling for a while, only to have them come back later with vengeance. But you never hear about those people in these arguments. My mom said something similar about "curiosity" to try and convince me that I couldn't be trans. As it turns out, what she meant was "when I was your age, I wanted to cut my hair short." Likewise, pretty much every story I've heard like this turns out to be either obvious lies meant to discredit trans people, or something that would have been easily sorted out by a psychologist. Eg. I've heard of gay people wishing they were another gender so that they wouldn't get bullied for their orientation. No decent professional would mistake that for genuine dysphoria. But even supposing that your psychologist was incompetent, you still would have socially transitioned in some capacity before you ever started hormones. This almost certainly would have let you know if transitioning was really right for you. And even if it didn't, and you went all the way to starting estrogen, you could always stop if you didn't like what it was doing. Estrogen works very slowly. I've been on it for three years, and I know cis men whose boobs are bigger than mine. If I changed my mind, I could easily start living as a man again. It's absolutely unfair to impose life-ruining misery on trans teens because of the off-chance that it might do a fraction of the same harm to a cis person.
- pgcj_poster 7y ago
  The purpose of puberty blockers is to delay body changes until the teenager (not "child") is ready to decide. They don't cause permanent changes like actual hormone therapy, and trans teenagers can always go through a "natural" puberty later if they change their mind. On the contrary, denying a trans teenager puberty blockers causes permanent changes to the body that are likely to cause massive distress and take many years of therapy, training, and surgeries to correct. Many trans people regard having gone through puberty as literally having ruined their lives.

cygx 7y ago

His views on the topic lack nuance. First, you need to determine that the presence of male-to-female trans athletes is indeed a significant problem in a given discipline. Then, we as a society have to decide whether or not we want to do something about it, which is not necessarily a given. For example, are you aware that the top 30 male marathon runners are all from Kenya and Ethiopia? It sucks for Europeans that we apparently just can't compete at the highest level, but most people would probably argue that this is just the way it is. Finally, the actions that should be taken will depend on the sport in question. Case in point: Rogan talks a lot about fighting. But in that particular case, we already discriminate by weight. So it might be possible to make things more fair by giving a weight penalty to male-to-female fighters that want to compete in the women's league.

meschi 7y ago
The whole point of female leagues is, that females don't become overpowered by males. So the decision you are talking about is already made. If one starts to introduce biologically males back into the female league one could arguably instead remove the female league and introduce a unisex one. This would be more coherent with your reasoning in my eyes.
- cygx 7y ago
  The decision about female leagues was made at a time when transsexuality wasn't socially acceptable and hence did not factor into it. My point is, there are options to explore besides an outright ban. For example, a trans woman that goes through HRT will lose some of the advantages of her birth sex. However, she might still enjoy the advantage of the male frame, hence my suggestion of an additional penalty. A unisex league as you suggested could also be a posibility, and one could think about introducing not only weight classes, but testosterone classes as well.
  - sjwright 7y ago
    But again, the female leagues were established because of the physical differences between men and women. Yes, some trans people who undergo some medical interventions have some of their physical sporting attributes brought closer into line with the opposite sex, but it’s not all attributes and it’s not all athletes. It’s exceedingly complicated. The reality is that female leagues was a cultural hack that worked well enough in the 20th century. But in a world where we recognise that neither sex not gender fit neatly into binary categories, it is impractical to assume that we can fit people into two sporting categories.