Treatments for trans children and politics, world-wide

[Ran]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

This is possibly the wildest thing in the thread. 

I don't know a single person in the UK who would say that. 

You need to get out of your ivory tower and meet the (checks Rolodex) Jeremy Clarksons of the world...

I admit, I was being tongue in cheek with that one. We here in Sweden appreciate and hail our fellow reasonably-well-functioning socialized medicine brethren. 

Edited May 3 by Ran

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

8 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

@Matrim Fox Cauthon, I'll admit this your response isn't what I expected, and I appreciate the effort you took to write this. I'll reply.

These feel like social concerns, and as I stated upthread I never feel the need for science to tell me why I should be a decent person.

Maybe you don't, but I do think that some people do. More importantly, I think that there are people who are weaponizing science in order to dehumanize trans people and justify not being decent people. 

 

8 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I think there are explanations for these things to be found that lie outside the belief of sex as spectrum, or even sex as binary.  But I am curious--can you cite some specific "evolutionary changes and adaptations in humans' that are explained by sex as spectrum that are not well explained by a binary approach?

I cannot. I enjoy evolutionary zoology as a long-time childhood interest, but I'm not a scientist. It's just something that I would potentially be curious about and consider when looking at human evolution because sometimes certain genes can get selected, altered, or magnified through these sort of odd cases. I'm not well-versed in human genetics or its intersection with the complexities of biological sex to cite a case. It's possible that a geneticist could tell you where and how these sort of unconventional cases could trigger changes in human traits. But sometimes scientists be like, "somehow Palpatine has returned" and humans have somehow gained this trait somewhen. 

[TrackerNeil]

21 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

Maybe you don't, but I do think that some people do. More importantly, I think that there are people who are weaponizing science in order to dehumanize trans people and justify not being decent people. 

I don't disagree with that, although I think that people who want to harm others need not settle upon science as an excuse--there are a world of other reasons. People have said that gays were corrupting morality, or that Jews were secretly controlling everybody's money, neither of which are scientific observations. In short, if one wants to be a terrible person, one excuse will do as well as any other.

I appreciate your reply. I think I understand your thinking better than I did previously.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

I don't disagree with that, although I think that people who want to harm others need not settle upon science as an excuse--there are a world of other reasons. People have said that gays were corrupting morality, or that Jews were secretly controlling everybody's money, neither of which are scientific observations. In short, if one wants to be a terrible person, one excuse will do as well as any other.

I appreciate your reply. I think I understand your thinking better than I did previously.

The Veronica Ivy argument is a poor one.  I think it's pretty easy to cherry pick bad arguments though, from random people with opposing views. 

Both sides of this discussion twist the science to social concerns.  Colin Wright, who you mentioned up thread, considers it child abuse to refer to a child by anything other than their birth gender.  I think that's twisting science for social concerns- because whether or not sex is binary, gender pretty clearly is not.  

People can argue about at what age a person could want to transition, but he's gone a step further and is saying that merely referring to a child by their preferred pronouns is child abuse.

 

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

The Veronica Ivy argument is a poor one.  I think it's pretty easy to cherry pick bad arguments though, from random people with opposing views. 

Both sides of this discussion twist the science to social concerns.  Colin Wright, who you mentioned up thread, considers it child abuse to refer to a child by anything other than their birth gender.  I think that's twisting science for social concerns- because whether or not sex is binary, gender pretty clearly is not.  

People can argue about at what age a person could want to transition, but he's gone a step further and is saying that merely referring to a child by their preferred pronouns is child abuse.

 

Do you have the example of him saying that? If he did I would disagree with him, it’s hyperbole to say referring to a child by anything other than your birth gender is child abuse

What I could find off Google is this:

He seems to be referring to medically transitioning children. 

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

So for me, the value of seeing sex-as-spectrum is explaining why and how so many people, whether they realize it or not, do not necessarily conform to the social binaries that we have constructed in society around sex and gender nor should they necessarily be expected to conform to those binaries.

Absolutely.  Growing up all the possible futures I was imagining for myself were condemned and ridiculed because "girls can't do that!"*  While, oddly, I was doing all kinds of work on the farm that society, including the one in which I was living, and my parents and family, defined as men's work.  But when he found it convenient and saved him money, o my, you betcha I was out there in the fields on the tractor plowing, seeding, etc. or on the roof pounding in shingles, while doing all the girl's work too.  I didn't get paid for doing the men's work, though my brother did.  I didn't get paid for doing the girl's work either because one doesn't pay for girl's work.

* The only future a girl had, of course, was getting married, cooking, cleaning, keeping quiet and having babies and caring for children, gardening etc..  A very few 'special' ones could be primary school teachers, or an organist in church. Neither of which paid enough to live on.  Or be a hair dresser.

Edited May 3 by Zorral

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

people who want to harm others need not settle upon science as an excuse-

These are the same sorts who are attacking science in general to discredit what we've learned through it, which supports the so-called 'woke' agenda.  Just as they are now condemned antisemitism while still claiming George Soros controls the world.  No one with any sense has ever not noticed that these people don't make sense, and that they don't make sense on purpose.  To keep everyone confused to advance whatever of their own agenda, which of course is hate --oppress, suppress and even rid the world of everybody except themselves.

I.e. they are NOT good faith or humble questioners at all.  They are the 'umble of Uriah Heep, who is one of the most slimy villains in UK literature.

Edited May 3 by Zorral

[TrackerNeil]

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

Both sides of this discussion twist the science to social concerns.  Colin Wright, who you mentioned up thread, considers it child abuse to refer to a child by anything other than their birth gender.  I think that's twisting science for social concerns- because whether or not sex is binary, gender pretty clearly is not.  

Although I agree with Wright on many things, I disagree in this. I don't think that anything about biological sex requires us to use or not use this or that pronoun. He's absolutist about that. I understand whence that absolutism comes, but I don't ascribe to it.

I have never heard Wright say, however, that science requires us to agree with that view. (I have heard him speak many times and I read his Substack and I've never seen anything like that.) My best guess is that he'd agree that he's expressing a personal opinion and not a scientific one. However, he occasionally does Q-and-A sessions, so I could ask him, see what he says.

Edited May 3 by TrackerNeil

[Conflicting Thought]

13 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 Sure, that's true. But I think we can all agree that no-one is transitioning to be a creep? Like even the most sceptical people here aren't saying that. It's a wildly transphobic view to hold and while people definitely hold it I don't think

 

You gave them the benefit of the doubt, and they answered, so can we stop pretending now that there are no transphobes in this thread? 

People here are sooo worried about being called transphobe " not me!" They say, while actually discussing if trans women are real women, like are you fucking with me?

Reminds me of  the oh so well meajing liberals, more outraged of being called racists than actuañly question their  racists belives and actions. How can you call yourself not a transphobe and spend this entire threads ( and others) defending transphobe talking points, dehumanizing transpeople, some of whom participate and read these threads, questioning there very sense of being.

You guys are cowards, just get on with it, say what you want to say up front.  Cuz You really dont give a fuck about transpeople, you want them to know they could never ever be "real" women, cuz the you would not spend the last 4 or something pages discussing fucking gametes or some shit like that.

What was the possitive thing about the nhs policy again? 

Some of you are transphobic and misoginysts and need to deal with that asap.

Edited May 3 by Conflicting Thought

[Ran]

12 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

while actually discussing if trans women are real women

Not a single person has said any of this.

What's happening is that you are staking a pretty maximalist position on the issue of trans rights  and when you find people want at least some nuance about the facts of the matter, such as that there are many varieties of trans individuals -- without a single person in this thread, near as I can tell, actually questioning this reality, nor that the vast majority of trans-identified people are genuinely trans -- and that this has an effect on how people try to figure out policy, you launch this jeremiad against what you essentially take to be heresy.

You don't know what's in the hearts of anyone but your own, and if you think excoriating and haranguing people for failing to accept every detail of your framing and views and use of language makes you a good person, maybe you don't actually know your own heart, either.

The absurdity in all this is that there's another site I post on where over the years the main author and many of his commentators have turned into Bill Maher-style anti-woke scolds and I'm among the few arguing with them about how they've lost the plot on various topics, including spending way too much time trying to convince one of the cranks to understand Judith Butler on gender as culturally constructed and performative. (Why am I still there? I've been reading the main author of the site since I was a teenager, when he was a cool west coast reporter with a bunch of anecdotes and stories about people and things I was interested in, and sometimes he still writes the sort of things that I appreciated back then; all too often he's just grumping about political stuff these days, alas, which is no doubt part of why his readership has dwindled and changed into a weird collection of cranks, trolls, and long-time fans wincing on occasion about why he's wasting his time on culture war grumbling)

Such is life.

 

Edited May 4 by Ran

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Do you have the example of him saying that? If he did I would disagree with him, it’s hyperbole to say referring to a child by anything other than your birth gender is child abuse

What I could find off Google is this:

He seems to be referring to medically transitioning children. 

I'll dig through Twitter later if I can get into my old acct, but yeah, I believe it was around that time and on Twitter that I saw that.  The tweet I'm thinking of specifically mentioned that using the preferred pronouns was abuse.

[Ran]

Fuck the "groomer" bullshit, BTW. Disgusting.

[DMC]

18 minutes ago, Ran said:

The absurdity in all this is that there's another site I post on where over the years the main author and many of his commentators have over the years turned into Bill Mahr-style anti-woke scolds

I still watch Maher if only because I used to sneak downstairs after bedtime to watch Politically Incorrect in the 90s.  Hard to stop when it’s been a habit that long.  

[polishgenius]

14 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

2. No, but I believe some people who aren't trans believe that. 

 

To go back to this (as a response to my claim that trans people know full well 'biological sex' is important)- sure, probably true, but making it into a huge, nationwide (international even) subject of discussion (and mockery, in many places) is ultimately whacking trans people for something cis people have done. Even from people not intending it maliciously at all. 

 

12 hours ago, Ran said:

Veronica Ivy was interviewed by Trevor Noah and put forward the argument that she was biologically female through what seemed a decidedly tenuous argument. I have no qualifications to determine what she thinks this means in relation to her personal healthcare requirements, and Noah didn't really follow up on it, so you'd have to ask her. And she's someone who has been a public figure and advocate, so ...

 

If her argument is as TrackerNeil presented it, then while it might not be a super helpful response to the debate (I don't think every trans person has an obligation to be super-helpful all the time but I haven't seen the interview so I don't know exactly what she was aiming for), then surely presenting it as an answer to a medical/scientific position is... well, not accurate? It seems like all she really said there is 'trans women are women' in a more flippant way. 

 

 

@Conflicting Thought I'm sorry mate but all you're achieving with that post is antagonising people (not necessarily just the people engaging in the topic directly, either, lurkers too) whose resulting anger is not necessarily or mostly going to be directed at you. I disagree - in some cases pretty viscerally- with a great deal of the posting in this topic and sometimes I just want to cut the fuck loose but there's a reason people are trying to engage in the first place. 

Like, seriously, at least two people in this topic have credited past discussions on here for helping influence them away from ignorant or hateful views and change their minds. And I'm not saying a sharp word never helps either, because it surely can do, but you appear to be deliberately trying to entrench people in viewpoints opposite to yours? And if it's not on purpose it's still a likely result of a substantial chunk of your post. Please, please don't.

 

I don't want to say stop calling people out or anything, but I just don't see how that post in this instance is helping. Or rather, I think it's potentially harming. 

Edited May 3 by polishgenius

[Lord Varys]

The 'sex as a spectrum' debate is pretty easy, I think, as it is quite clear that regardless which factors determine sex in humans (or even all mammals) in detail, the sexes in questions are either female or male. Conceptually there is no third sex for us (although it might be fun if there were).

All intersex conditions also seem to fit in either the male or female continuum and it actually makes little sense to conflate intersex conditions (and rights) with the trans issue which really don't revolve around sex (so much) as it falls to the individual intersex person's view of things whether they (want to) feel or identify more as male, female, or in-between.

On the sex levels all trans men should be female, just as all trans women would be male. What changes certain physical aspects on a physiological level would be various medical treatments, surgeries, etc. not how one feels or identifies on a personal level. That is if we reduce things to sex or pin it down on sex then being a trans woman is actually part of 'the male spectrum', just as being a cis man would be part of that spectrum. And vice versa with trans men.

It seems quite clear that a lot of the transition aspects of self-id could be done away with if were to slowly abolish or erode gendered naming habits, meaning trans people could keep whatever names they have because they can refer to both women and men. You don't have to reinvent yourself if what you are and feel like is always a permitted and accepted part of what you could possibly be.

While I think that the prison debate regarding trans people is kind of silly, it is only so due to the fact that there is a valid reason in certain or many countries not to be living in close quarters with a bunch of other criminal men. I think if I had to go to prison I'd prefer to be imprisoned with a bunch of women - not so much because I want to rape or molest or harass them but simply because I'd think the risk of being raped, molested, or harassed myself there would be much smaller. (Although I actually might be wrong there. Never much thought about going to prison.)

In that sense the idea is very much valid that people would self-id as female if that were allow them to be not be sent into a prison full of men. I myself would likely be one of them, especially if all I had to do was to change some official papers.

Also, of course, informally it is easier to push yourself into, say, a group specifically for women if you can just identify as one. That is even more the case if we go with the concept of non binary or agender. Who would go on say they are sure they are 'absolutely cis'?

The idea that safe spaces would be or are invaded by trans people kind of feels weird to me as, especially, public toilets are not and never have been conceived as 'safe spaces'. It is (or should be) convention that you don't enter the opposite sex's public toilet/bathroom, not a matter of the law that you are not allowed to do so (although there might be countries which made such laws). And the whole thing is more about modesty and shame less so about safety.

[TrackerNeil]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

Fuck the "groomer" bullshit, BTW. Disgusting.

Partricularly coming from gay people. For years and years we were suspected of either molesting children or trying to make them gay, or sometimes both. I guess Gays Against Groomers never got that lesson in history class.

[Jace, Extat]

8 hours ago, Ran said:

jeremiad

 

...

Long live the King.

[Heartofice]

The Groomer people were idiots. I think it shows the way discourse can go, especially on the internet and absolutely highlights many of the bad faith individuals on one side. 
 

In terms of messaging, I think there might have been a conversation to be had about how appropriate or sexualised some content being put in front of kids was, but you can have that conversation without going around calling people groomers. I think actually putting it in those terms just revolted a lot of people and I remember quite a bit of backlash to it, even on the right. 

[TrueMetis]

Been stewing on the "biological sex is about large or small gametes" thing for a few days, I can't really put into words how much I do not accept that as a method of categorization, but I'm gonna try.

 

If we accept large and small gametes as the biological definition of man and women, then we've accepted that sex is non-binary because some number of people don't produce gametes at all and never have. Now the normal TERF talking point to respond to this is to talk about what gametes you were "meant" to have, as though biology has intention. Fortunately, we've basically decided to skip this nonsense because people here have already dismissed using genetics, which is good because genetics laughs in the face of your attempts to categorize it. Similarly we can skip past secondary sex characteristics, because we know there are exception there too. Except we got a problem, cause no one actually uses your gametes to determine your sex, and I don't just mean that it's a super new definition, and not just because the actually discovery of sperm and egg was pretty recent, but because it's not practical. Nobody is actually walking up to people and being like "what gametes do you have?" because that would be nuts. In reality we do just use secondary sex characteristics and attempting to argue for gametes is nuts, Caster Semenya is a woman, she did not stop being a woman because it turns out she has internal testes rather than ovaries and may or may not (I don't know, none of my goddamn business) produce sperm, or eggs, or neither.

[Ran]

I think the sticking point is "well, there are exceptions". Yes. They are incredibly rare and they aren't actually much of an issue. We know the biological sex of an infant with 99.8% accuracy before they are even born. It gets to 99.95% afterwards. Sex is binary -- there is no third gamete for the body to plan for, and the lack of gamete production is considered a disorder of sexual development, not some sort of natural third-sex.

Quote

If we accept large and small gametes as the biological definition of man and women, then we've accepted that sex is non-binary because some number of people don't produce gametes at all and never have. 

 

Sex is binary -- you are either male or you are female. There is no third sex. Intersex individuals are mostly all very clearly male or female as well. A vanishingly small number are less obvious and may not be discovered until puberty when their difference of sexual development makes it plain and leads to further testing.  People who are born without ovaries or testes are very rare, and in general we still know their sex because we can see their sexual characteristics. Girls born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome still have external genitalia and ovaries and fallopian tubes, but they lack or have a very underdeveloped uterus. Boys born with anorchia have a penis and scrotum, but no testes. The "body plan" is there, it's science, not some radical talking point.

And if you are referring to conditions where people may have testes or ovaries but they are non-functioning, well.... uh, they have ovaries and testes, the things that produce large and small gametes, so again, we know their sex. 

Quote

except we got a problem, cause no one actually uses your gametes to determine your sex

We basically do in most cases because an ultrasound inspection of a fetus will show external genitalia (which are there for reproductive purposes, which  in turn are there for reasons of biological sex) that correctly indicates sex 99.8% of the time while they're in the womb, and when out of the womb visual inspection gets you to 99.95% accuracy. The remaining 1 in 2000 are still either male or female, it just takes more time figure out and may require PCR testing, or may be you think they're one sex and then only realize they are another when their DSD makes itself plain around puberty.

Quote

In reality we do just use secondary sex characteristics and attempting to argue for gametes is nuts, Caster Semenya is a woman, she did not stop being a woman because it turns out she has internal testes rather than ovaries and may or may not (I don't know, none of my goddamn business) produce sperm, or eggs, or neither.

Caster Semanya is a woman, absolutely, 100%.

She is also, according to reports, a biological male who has no uterus or ovaries but does have internal testes which produce testosterone which androgenized her.  Caster Semanya and her wife have two children through IVF, and donor sperm has never been mentioned, so it seems likely that  the sperm was taken from her body using medical techniques.

Woman=gender, male=sex. There are many genders, there are only two biological sexes in our species.

 

Edited May 5 by Ran