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> * The primary criticism against safe spaces is that they are an excuse to censor dissenting opinions. A common example is that people opposed to sex-reassignm

> * The primary criticism against safe spaces is that they are an excuse to censor dissenting opinions. A common example is that people opposed to sex-reassignment surgery are not allowed into discussions about transgenderism* What a strange example! What is the "dissenting opinion" about sex-reassignment surgery and transgenderism? Is it not for individuals to decided? Why would this even be an issue in the public space. If you're not transgender, does it impact you in any way?

DamnYuppie 7y ago
For myself I am not against the procedure. I am against allowing children to do so without the consent of their parent. We don't let children drink, drive, or hold employment until certain ages. Yet is is completely fine for them to have life altering changes done to their bodies at very young ages.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  "For myself I am not against the procedure. I am against allowing children to do so without the consent of their parent. We don't let children drink, drive, or hold employment until certain ages. Yet is is completely fine for them to have life altering changes done to their bodies at very young ages." Can you cite numbers on where and how often this is occurring?
- MrDrone 7y ago
  Can you cite examples of this occurring with any sort of regularity in America? The most I've ever heard of are doctors prescribing puberty blockers - which actually preserves their ability to choose later. Even this is seen as an extreme step and typically only done with multiple doctors signing off. There are appear to be rare outliers and technicalities, but these are single digit exceptions rather than representative of some new norm. https://www.quora.com/What-age-can-children-have-sexual-reassignment-surgery https://www.quora.com/What-age-can-children-have-sexual-reas... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oregon-teen-sex-change-law/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oregon-teen-sex-change-law...
- YinglingLight 7y ago
  Hell the parents are the ones pushing for it.
crisdux 7y ago
We are off topic but I'd like to answer your question. It's increasingly become an issue in the public space because local governments are increasingly getting involved with this issue. Dissidents may believe that governmental power is being misused to further a harmful ideology and to push unproven and ill-advised treatments on children.
- tptacek 7y ago
  This is about as charitable an interpretation as the one suggesting marriage equality would be a harbinger of bestiality. You can always connect some set of dots from a policy you don't like to some lurid, horrible outcome; there's a well-known rhetorical fallacy that captures this directly.
  - crisdux 7y ago
    Your comment is a good example of the critique at the top of this thread. You start with the worst possible interpretation of my comment, use a metaphor about bestiality and immediately dismiss my comment as a fallacy.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      I understand why you'd read it that way and I'm sorry if I worded it carelessly, but I didn't make the "bestiality" thing up and wasn't implying that you were making that comparison. Those really were dots that people, including senior policymakers, connected. Something you might want to read up on is "the parade of horribles", which is what you're essentially invoking when you suggest that any government protection for trans people is a slippery slope to "unproven and ill-advised treatment for children". I think you'll find that the mainstream public policy about trans people is whether they should have access to facilities or recourse to anti-discrimination laws when they're fired from jobs. You'll have to address those policy debates on the merits, without appeals to some hypothetical future horror.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
ganzuul 7y ago
I think some people have some kind of misfunctional sympathetic link with what they see, so that they feel about other people's bodies like they do about their own. Others seem to rely so heavily on heuristics in their interactions with other people that they are not able to deal with outliers from their perceived norm. Others yet have not realized their mental image of another person is not an actual being, but a reflection of themselves created by their mirror neurons where the blanks are filled in based on past experience. I suppose the study of the humanities is supposed to lead us out of this dark and terrifying labyrinth of misconceptions.

DamnYuppie 7y ago

For myself I am not against the procedure. I am against allowing children to do so without the consent of their parent. We don't let children drink, drive, or hold employment until certain ages. Yet is is completely fine for them to have life altering changes done to their bodies at very young ages.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
"For myself I am not against the procedure. I am against allowing children to do so without the consent of their parent. We don't let children drink, drive, or hold employment until certain ages. Yet is is completely fine for them to have life altering changes done to their bodies at very young ages." Can you cite numbers on where and how often this is occurring?
MrDrone 7y ago
Can you cite examples of this occurring with any sort of regularity in America? The most I've ever heard of are doctors prescribing puberty blockers - which actually preserves their ability to choose later. Even this is seen as an extreme step and typically only done with multiple doctors signing off. There are appear to be rare outliers and technicalities, but these are single digit exceptions rather than representative of some new norm. https://www.quora.com/What-age-can-children-have-sexual-reassignment-surgery https://www.quora.com/What-age-can-children-have-sexual-reas... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oregon-teen-sex-change-law/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oregon-teen-sex-change-law...
YinglingLight 7y ago
Hell the parents are the ones pushing for it.

crisdux 7y ago

We are off topic but I'd like to answer your question. It's increasingly become an issue in the public space because local governments are increasingly getting involved with this issue. Dissidents may believe that governmental power is being misused to further a harmful ideology and to push unproven and ill-advised treatments on children.

tptacek 7y ago
This is about as charitable an interpretation as the one suggesting marriage equality would be a harbinger of bestiality. You can always connect some set of dots from a policy you don't like to some lurid, horrible outcome; there's a well-known rhetorical fallacy that captures this directly.
- crisdux 7y ago
  Your comment is a good example of the critique at the top of this thread. You start with the worst possible interpretation of my comment, use a metaphor about bestiality and immediately dismiss my comment as a fallacy.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    I understand why you'd read it that way and I'm sorry if I worded it carelessly, but I didn't make the "bestiality" thing up and wasn't implying that you were making that comparison. Those really were dots that people, including senior policymakers, connected. Something you might want to read up on is "the parade of horribles", which is what you're essentially invoking when you suggest that any government protection for trans people is a slippery slope to "unproven and ill-advised treatment for children". I think you'll find that the mainstream public policy about trans people is whether they should have access to facilities or recourse to anti-discrimination laws when they're fired from jobs. You'll have to address those policy debates on the merits, without appeals to some hypothetical future horror.
    - DuskStar 7y ago

ganzuul 7y ago

I think some people have some kind of misfunctional sympathetic link with what they see, so that they feel about other people's bodies like they do about their own. Others seem to rely so heavily on heuristics in their interactions with other people that they are not able to deal with outliers from their perceived norm. Others yet have not realized their mental image of another person is not an actual being, but a reflection of themselves created by their mirror neurons where the blanks are filled in based on past experience. I suppose the study of the humanities is supposed to lead us out of this dark and terrifying labyrinth of misconceptions.