The Reality of Sex and the Lie of “Gender Self-Identity”

[Jimbo]

That is true. And I’m for trying to help transgendered individuals out as much as possible. They are a true at risk community with horrendous levels of suicide.

That said, I strongly disagree with how we are handling things now. Tolerance doesn’t mean celebration. Nor does it mean we throw out generations of recognition of the biological differences in sex. Further, we haven’t done NEARLY enough research to determine A) What the causes of gender dysphoria are and B) what the proper actions are.

In our current climate, where courts are considering removing a child from parents for not starting transition therapy; you have four year olds in Australia beginning transitions, you have a trans woman in Canada suing a waxing studio under human rights violations; trans athletes…etc. I think we stand an excellent chance of creating far more issues than we solve.

But if you say 'Hey, lets study this as a disease, and look to the best way of treating the individuals to prevent them from committing suicide while protecting others rights as well…

you’re a bigot. A ‘transphobe’. This isn’t wise. It isn’t scientific. And it isn’t the best way to help people.

 

[Jimbo]

We need to accept people will do what’s best for them if we guide them with compassion.

I’ve known addicts. I strongly disagree with this statement.

 

[qui_est_ce]

My son is dating a woman whose preferred pronoun is “they.” She does not identify as either a female or a male. It’s very confusing, because when he is talking about her, he refers to her as “they.” This has lead to misunderstandings about such things as how many people are coming to dinner. He says I should refer to her as “they” out of respect. Of course she isn’t around when we are talking about “they” so I don’t see how I am disrespecting her when I say “her.”

At the local Panera Bread Co., the workers have their preferred pronouns listed on their ID’s.

To me it’s ridiculous and arbitrary.

 

[PaulinVA]

At the local Panera Bread Co., the workers have their preferred pronouns listed on their ID’s.

To me it’s ridiculous and arbitrary.

What’s funny is that in an attempt to be welcoming to the 1%, many more people are alienated and/or caused to feel uncomfortable.

 

[qui_est_ce]

qui_est_ce:

At the local Panera Bread Co., the workers have their preferred pronouns listed on their ID’s.

To me it’s ridiculous and arbitrary.

What’s funny is that in an attempt to be welcoming to the 1%, many more people are alienated and/or caused to feel uncomfortable.

Well, when I talk to them I say “you” so I don’t understand this need to flaunt your otherness. How would they do it in France? All the nouns are either feminine or masculine!

 

[Rau]

I said “mind”, not brain

The only treatment for the “mind” is having a chat, and perhaps hypnotherapy. Mental illnesses are treated medicinally by drugs acting on the brain. So I wonder what distinction you are trying to make?

the brain has not got the power to alter a person’s biological and genetic identity.

Strawman. No one is suggesting it does. Why do you misrepresent?

 

[PetraG]

We need to accept people will do what’s best for them if we guide them with compassion.

To clarify: You were replying to @Anrakyr, not me.

To chime in with my take: No, we know from personal experience that while compassion from others is helpful it is neither sufficient nor even strictly necessary for people to do what is best for themselves.

Dealing with addicts teaches us that we have to accept that people will do what they will do regardless of what we do. Rarely are other people’s decisions under our control. It is even more rare that they ought to be. We usually have an influence on others–albeit not necessarily the influence we might have intended–but their decisions are ultimately their decisions. Like it or not, that is the way life is.

Having said that, in our society the government (and therefore the citizenry, to some extent) has jurisdiction over what sorts of treatments are within the standard of care for physicians and other health care providers. Some states have a Wild West attitude towards this, but even those states don’t totally abdicate their duty to oversee the practice of medicine. Patients cannot have whatever procedures they want for whatever reasons they want, nor can doctors or therapists do whatever they see fit. That just is not how medicine works in this country.

Maybe but the same could be said for marriage, certain jobs, facial reconstruction surgery. Change is inevitable but that doesn’t mean it should be taken lightly. We need to accept people will do what’s best for them if we guide them with compassion.

We don’t allow polygamy or child marriage and our states definitely have professional standards of care that do not allow physicians or surgeons or therapists to just do whatever they want if they hope to keep their professional licenses…and they’re not allowed to practice without a license!

So no, we don’t really accept that people will do what’s best for themselves or others, with or without compassion. We pretty much presume that because society will bear some of the burden when people make poor decisions, society has a legitimate duty and right to regulate some areas of personal decision-making. This is one of the legitimate and necessary functions of government; I don’t expect us to become utterly libertarian in our governing philosophy any time soon.

 

[KMC]

The problem is not that people experiencing gender dysphoria need our compassion and assistance, they do. The problem is not about adults experiencing gender dysphoria being able to irreversibly mutilate themselves…they can do what they want. The issues I see are about people who support irreversible surgeries to fix a mental health problem, forcing other people to deny reality.

I see this manifesting itself in two ways: 1) Adults who allow a child the decision to irreversibly mutilate their body, when we don’t let that child choose to take an aspirin, vote, smoke, etc. They are actually forcing their dangerous world view on a child, and are guilty of child abuse. 2) Requiring people to pretend, for example, that someone who 5 minutes ago was a man, is now somehow a woman, and is open to all of the programs open to women (sporting competitions come to mind, scholarships, etc).

 

[Inquiry]

Yes, it is the parents’ duty to shepherd children until the age when they can fully decide for themselves. Any irreversible action that can reasonably wait until the age of consent, should. Hacking bits off of them without grave reason, even if you think they’d agree once they are grown, is child abuse.

I’ll add to your list that forcing teenage girls to shower with someone who is biologically male is also abuse. And vice versa.

 

[JMMJ]

Mutilating ones body in an attempt at happiness seems extreme.

Seems subjective to me, and to the person in that situation.

A friend’s family member was dying from melanoma and had a few months left. The melanoma had spread to her arm and was so painful she chose to have it amputated. I don’t see much difference, truthfully.

 

[PetraG]

Seems subjective to me, and to the person in that situation.

A friend’s family member was dying from melanoma and had a few months left. The melanoma had spread to her arm and was so painful she chose to have it amputated. I don’t see much difference, truthfully.

There are some people who advocate for physician-assisted suicide, using similar reasoning.
Yes, there are procedures that can be used for pain relief that would not otherwise be legitimate procedures.
No, not every procedure that aims at pain relief, even for serious pain, is automatically legitimate.

It is very hard to tell how effective the surgically-supported “identity-implant” route is, partly because those doing the treatment lose track of so many of their patients. You can’t have a 50% drop-out rate and say that you know you have an effective treatment. It is also complicated by a good deal of comorbidity with other issues.

In other words, we’re not talking about denying a demonstrated treatment with a very high success rate and a very low incidence of serious or even fatal side-effects. We don’t know that. What I think we’re seeing is political pressure to look past that absence of supporting evidence in order to permanently establish a treatment that isn’t even established as a broadly effective medical treatment. The push seems to be to establish an unproven medical treatment not as just a health care right but as a civil right. That effort to make this a civil rights issue has already made assessing the medical results even more difficult.

I do think this is the first step in establishing legally- and surgically-supported “identity implant” as a health care necessity. I think that is a seriously bad idea.

 

[Annie]

sexual identity is merely categorizing where you stand and what you like.

What do you mean by where you stand?

And one’s “gender identity” is determined by what one likes? So I like cars, that makes me a man? Rosey Grier (NFL defensive lineman) liked knitting, so he’s a woman?

Women have spent 50+ years trying to loosen the mores of sexual identity, many more of breaking barriers which kept women from “men’s” occupations, and now suddenly we have gender which is determined by those very things?

This to me is one aspect of the issue which is so weird. Chefs, clothing designers, etc, male. Computer engineers, race car drivers, etc, women.

Who out there cares what people like to the extent that it causes problems for anyone to the point that they need to reinvent themselves as members of tge opposite sex?

Considering this:

I don’t know any trans-women who claim to be biological and genetic females.

[Note: let me say that I think the OP os about the transgender idea and its effects on society, and I too am talking about the transgender idea, not about what individuals are doing or saying, but where the “movement” is pushing us.]

And the fact that many biological men/transwomen do want to be accepted as women, or they want their “gender identity” to provide a ticket for entrance into the women’s world.

So they acknowledge that they are not women, but require that everyone act as if they were?

If a transman becomes pregnant, the news is: Man becomes pregnant! We are told that men can have periods too, and that “cisgender” people who do not want to date recent entrants into the preferred “gender” are transphobic, and on and on.

And of course the transwoman who sweeps the weight-lifting contest and so on.

 

[Anrakyr]

What do you mean by where you stand?

And one’s “gender identity” is determined by what one likes? So I like cars, that makes me a man? Rosey Grier (NFL defensive lineman) liked knitting, so he’s a woman?

No,
If you are a man and like women you are a cis gender straight man.
If you are a women who transitioned to a man but like women you’d be a trans straight man.

So on and so forth.
There are descriptions too for other sexual identities the church would support though likely never use. Example someone completely sexless or attracted to the social qualities of the person, not the physical.

And the fact that many biological men/transwomen do want to be accepted as women, or they want their “gender identity” to provide a ticket for entrance into the women’s world.

So?

And of course the transwoman who sweeps the weight-lifting contest and so on.

That’s another issue.

 

[Rau]

I see this manifesting itself in two ways: 1) Adults who allow a child the decision to irreversibly mutilate their body, when we don’t let that child choose to take an aspirin, vote, smoke, etc. They are actually forcing their dangerous world view on a child, and are guilty of child abuse.

They may not be forcing anything on the child, but their decision to allow such a course of action, or the child to take such decisions, is certainly highly questionable.

1. Requiring people to pretend, for example, that someone who 5 minutes ago was a man, is now somehow a woman, and is open to all of the programs open to women (sporting competitions come to mind, scholarships, etc).

It’s not so much “pretending” as “deeming”, but it amounts to pretty much the same thing I suppose. There are certainly substantive and practical issues here.

 

[Rau]

I’ll add to your list that forcing teenage girls to shower with someone who is biologically male is also abuse. And vice versa.

Has this actually ever happened? Or does the one who’s undergone the “transition” use an individual facility.

 

[Inquiry]

I don’t know if it has happened yet, but there have been lawsuits to get rid of barriers or time shares and allow unrestricted locker room access.

 

[Annie]

Has this actually ever happened? Or does the one who’s undergone the “transition” use an individual facility.

Judges are ruling that TG students are to use facilities of their gender identity and this does not violate the constitutional rights of students who are biologically that sex.

So, yes, it seems that it is happening.

 

[Anrakyr]

North America is pretty unique in the idea of separate gender facilities. Most of Europe just has “bathrooms” long before the TG issue became a concern.

We should follow suit.

 

[KMC]

It’s not so much “pretending” as “deeming”, but it amounts to pretty much the same thing I suppose. There are certainly substantive and practical issues here.

I don’t know. Some people I have spoken too make no differentiation between an XX woman, and a transsexual XY “woman”. One woman I spoke with was aghast that I would differentiate between the two.

 

[Jimbo]

Apologies for the miss placed reply.