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Meh, that's a little hysterical. The incidents you mention are outliers. They're newsworthy precisely because they're aberrations from the norm. The pendulum will swing back a bit.

I'm not genuinely worried that I'll ever be arrested, sued, fined, imprisoned, or otherwise sanctioned by the state because I use the wrong pronoun. You shouldn't be either.
I think you really should be. This hysteria started in Canada about 3 years ago. Jordan Peterson became a household name exactly because of it. I think it's getting way more mainstream than you'd think. Also, the Democrats' support for transgender activism makes one really wonder what will happen if they win the presidency.

I think there is a radical element in the trans movement, and that they are pushing things way too far.

Btw, I am totally fine with calling a patient however s/he wants me to. I am there to serve their needs. But, at a society level, it's a completely different issue.

In my post, I specifically mentioned the issue with fairly segregating athletes into male and female categories. That's a problem that will work out fine.
Sorry, but it won't. Testosterone in a body means a completely different muscle mass. So you can't have a trans person compete as the opposite sex. It's simply not fair.
"The whole bathroom situation" is one of the most ridiculous bits of hyperventilating hysteria that has crapped itself into mainstream political discussion in the last decade. It's just such a non-issue.
It's a non-issue just because the number of trans people is minuscule. I personally don't care if a trans "female" uses a urinal next to me, or a "male" uses a toilet in the male section. But I am a physician, and my tolerance level is higher by degrees of magnitude than the general population's. I think a lot of people would be opposed to having somebody use a toilet that doesn't represent their current external genitalia. To me, the latter is what defines a person's gender, not whatever they currently identify as. If you have a penis, you're a male, please don't go to places that specialize in females (e.g. the Brazilian wax scandal from Canada).

You say "many children are having their lives unreversibly [sic] altered by parental interference and parental desires" ... oh my god, stop the presses. You mean bad parenting can have negative impacts on their kids?!? Whoa. Let me catch my breath. Moms choose not to vaccinate their kids. Dads choose to commit crimes and go to jail and leave their kids fatherless. Moms don't make their kids brush their teeth. Dads yell at their kids and tell them they're stupid. Moms teach their kids to be racist. Dads teach their kids to hate, pity, be contemptuous of, or "not agree morally" with gay people.

Is there an element of bad parenting involved with some of these younger transgender kids? Probably. Do we need to get the state involved? Well, maybe for the antivax *****s - there's a public health concern there. But the rest of it? The state can't make bad parents good parents.

Do you think it might be possible that one of the reasons for high suicide rates among transgender people is the way people like you treat them and speak of them?

And here we go with the real issue. You "don't agree morally" with gayness. You don't agree with it, but you've courageously conceded that fight as a losing one. You still speak ill of gay persons' moral fiber and strength of character, but you've moved your active resistance to a different line on the battlefield. You also don't agree morally with trans people, but you think they need to be stopped. For a whole long list of contrived reasons.

I think there is a mistake to put LGB and T together. At our current level of scientific knowledge, the issues are

I don't agree with people like you, who think you've got some business telling other people what they should or should not, or can or cannot, do with their bodies.

They're not hurting you. They're not tearing the delicate fabric of society that keeps you alive and breathing - they're really not. You're going to be fine. If you see one in the "wrong" bathroom with you, you can still go pee in the stall. It's OK. You don't need to protect them from themselves, and you damn sure don't need to protect the rest of us from them.

Let them be free - and yes, some will use that freedom to mess up their lives. That's what free people do ... the dirty little secret of freedom is that you're on your own. Don't talk down to them. Don't impugn their morals. Don't be a dick to them.

Why is that so hard for you?
We probably agree 100% about aaaall these things, so nothing to add. 🙂
 
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Why should this thread die you ask?

Some people are saying things like this....

Yeah, THAT is the harshest thing said in this thread lol. If you wanna say shut it down cause people are calling others racist and telling them to go read Mein Kampf then maybe you have a point. Calling someone smug for bashing my education, despite him being the one who completely missed the point of my post isn’t so bad my friend.


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Here are the important details of the James Younger verdict (FULL RULING)

Did you watch the video? You have a 3 year old telling his Dad that "mom tells me I'm a girl." Whether or not the dad lied to the mom about his military training etc is kind of irrelevant.

Is it a major change to dress a 3 year old up like a girl all the time, call him Luna, and insist that all his peers and teachers treat hims as a girl? I'm sorry, ped psych involved or not, I don't know how anyone can take anything a 3 year old says seriously enough to significantly alter this path of his life.



I'm saying that its undeniable that transgenders commit suicide at an insane rate (almost like there's something psychologically wrong there....?), and if, like this mother, you support/push/help/whatever you want to call it, this child down the path of transitioning, we know that there's a 40-50% chance of suicide. And, no, you are incorrect about the suicide rate going down significantly after transition. That's just false. Sorry.

"The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people—extending over 30 years and conducted in Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered—documents their lifelong mental unrest. Ten to 15 years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to 20 times that of comparable peers.

McHugh points to the reality that because sex change is physically impossible, it frequently does not provide the long-term wholeness and happiness that people seek.

Indeed, the best scientific research supports McHugh’s caution and concern.
Here’s how The Guardian summarized the results of a review of “more than 100 follow-up studies of post-operative transsexuals” by Birmingham University’s Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility:



“There is huge uncertainty over whether changing someone’s sex is a good or a bad thing,” said Chris Hyde, the director of the facility. Even if doctors are careful to perform these procedures only on “appropriate patients,” Hyde continued, “there’s still a large number of people who have the surgery but remain traumatized—often to the point of committing suicide.”

Of particular concern are the people these studies “lost track of.” As The Guardian noted, “the results of many gender reassignment studies are unsound because researchers lost track of more than half of the participants.” Indeed, “Dr. Hyde said the high drop-out rate could reflect high levels of dissatisfaction or even suicide among post-operative transsexuals.”

Hyde concluded: “The bottom line is that although it’s clear that some people do well with gender reassignment surgery, the available research does little to reassure about how many patients do badly and, if so, how badly.”

The facility conducted its review back in 2004, so perhaps things have changed in the past decade?

Not so. In 2014, a new review of the scientific literature was done by Hayes, Inc., a research and consulting firm that evaluates the safety and health outcomes of medical technologies. Hayes found that the evidence on long-term results of sex reassignment was too sparse to support meaningful conclusions and gave these studies its lowest rating for quality:



The Obama administration came to similar conclusions. In 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revisited the question of whether sex reassignment surgery would have to be covered by Medicare plans. Despite receiving a request that its coverage be mandated, it refused, on the ground that we lack evidence that it benefits patients.

Here’s how the June 2016 “Proposed Decision Memo for Gender Dysphoria and Gender Reassignment Surgery” put it:



The final August 2016 memo was even more blunt. It pointed out:



That “lost to follow-up,” remember, could be pointing to people who committed suicide.

And when it comes to the best studies, there is no evidence of “clinically significant changes” after sex reassignment:



In a discussion of the largest and most robust study—the study from Sweden that McHugh mentioned in the quote above—the Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pointed out the 19-times-greater likelihood for death by suicide, and a host of other poor outcomes:



I get really tired of having to explain that Swedish study to people who obviously didn't actually read it.

If you look at the breakdown by year you see that suicide attempts are not statistically different from the norm for anyone who had surgery post-1988. There weren't enough completed suicides to be able to break it down like that. But the same number of suicide attempts as the general population seems like a pretty good marker to me.

Why don't you go read some of the 40+ studies at the Cornell website I posted then come back.
 
I defer to true experts (not the pseudoscientists which change DSM based on economic or political interests), but, I don't like at all the idea of society or the state playing police with parents, to "protect" a child. Also, unless somebody or something convinces me otherwise in the future, I doubt that a child has any idea of his/her sexuality until puberty. Just because s/he likes certain toys or clothes or names,it's not gender dysphoria. I strongly doubt that it can exist before puberty, simply because kids don't make a difference between boys and girls, except what they are taught socially. The other sex is just an interesting animal with different genitals.

Going from here, I would personally sue any "educator" who tries to influence my child either way, and make sure s/he loses his/her license to destroy more families. Society needs to STOP protecting children from their parents. A large majority of parents love their children much more than any stranger would, so it's absolutely disgusting to see parents accused of various "offenses" for not conforming with the "four feet good, two feet bad" societal norms. I've just read recently about a mother who was cited for child endangerment for leaving her 12 year-old daughter, with a cellphone, in her car, for 10 minutes while she stopped buying some bread. I mean it's downright idiotic. And then society complains that we get immature whiny 18 year-olds.

So I am strongly against society interfering with how parents raise their "transgender" children, until we get more DATA, not just PC theories.
So 2 things first.

One, sexuality =/= gender. Sexuality is who you want to bang. Gender is what you are. Second, there is evidence that some kids do know they are the wrong gender at a very early age. Not all of them certainly, but the ones who at a young age consistently think they are the other gender and maintain that view for years don't tend to ever change. They're also the ones who, without a solid support system, are the ones who end up killing themselves.

That said, outside of gross abuse I do agree that we need to leave families alone.
 
So 2 things first.

One, sexuality =/= gender. Sexuality is who you want to bang. Gender is what you are. Second, there is evidence that some kids do know they are the wrong gender at a very early age. Not all of them certainly, but the ones who at a young age consistently think they are the other gender and maintain that view for years don't tend to ever change. They're also the ones who, without a solid support system, are the ones who end up killing themselves.

That said, outside of gross abuse I do agree that we need to leave families alone.
I knew I wasn't educated enough. 🙂

Thank you.
 
You seem pretty ho-hum about peoples rights of free speech being interfered with.

Context matters. I think you and I would agree that government should have minimal authority over speech. Some civilized countries have laws that criminalize hate speech. Present-day Germany prohibits the use of communist and Nazi symbols. I'm neither a communist or a Nazi, but I think that law is probably harmful to Germany. In the context of Germany's history ... maybe it's understandable, a small thing.

Using a transgender person's not-preferred pronoun may be rude or unkind, but it's not "hate speech" or discrimination in and of itself. But it could be, and there's a place for some government action there, sometimes. Context matters.

Criminal discrimination that warrants action by the state isn't just about being mean and making people feel bad. There has to be actual harm. On the street, derogatory comments and harassment not associated with physical threats or violence are probably just mean. In a workplace, the same derogatory comments and harassment can impact that person's ability to earn a living, get promoted, etc.

Any time context matters, there are gray areas, and gray areas open up room for bad enforcement, bad court decisions, bad outcomes.

These bad outcomes don't necessarily mean the state should never ever intervene.


And you say that sports problem will "work out fine"? Ok, that seems to be founded in little fact, as the increase of boys/men dominating girls/women in sports competition has increased dramatically in the last 10 years,

I kind of find it hard to believe this is a widespread problem, as the Venn diagram overlap between male-to-female transgender people and elite athletes is a small sliver of humanity. But I don't really watch womens sports, so maybe it really is. Maybe high school girls' track teams are getting overrun by guys who identify as girls. It seems unlikely.

I know the International Olympic Committee has struggled with even how to DEFINE the issue, to the point of barring women with abnormally but naturally high testosterone levels from competing. I don't even know where the boundary between acceptable natural gifts and unacceptable natural gifts lies.


And finally, your assertion is that the real problem with my argument against the efficacy and safety and biological rationale for transitioning children is the fact that I don't agree morally with homosexuality? LOL. That's, well, I don't really know what that is...

Do you disagree morally with anyone in this world? I'm sure you do. I think most everyone in the world would disagree with the morality of some other person/group of people in this wold on one issue or another. And in your mind that invalidates their opinion on other topics? That's pretty poor logic man.

Oh, sure, I disagree morally with lots of people. I'm conversing with one right now. 🙂

The difference between you and me (one of them, anyway) is that you want the state to take your side and prevent other people from doing things that don't harm you, and I don't. I'm a libertarian who values individual freedom when that freedom doesn't harm others, and you're a republican who values individual freedom, but especially your freedoms even at the expense of other peoples' freedoms.


What are your thoughts on a person with BIID who wants a doctor to amputate their leg? Will the doctor comply because the person identifies as an amputee? How then is that different from a person who wants a mastectomy cause they identify as a man? You may scoff, but thats a valid question. How do these two patients differ? How is one a pyschiatric disorder and the other trying to be pushed as just another normal biological state?

This is actually a reasonably thought provoking question.

My thoughts on that are simple. It's not me, it's not my patient, and it's not my problem. Whether the guy gets his leg chopped off at his request or not, or the woman-who-identifies-as-a-man gets a breast chopped off, doesn't impact my life in the slightest bit. I'd let the guy's surgeon, psychiatrist, and whoever else was involved in his care treat him in whatever way they all agree on, and butt right the hell out.

On an institutional level, I would agree with policies that require either patient to undergo some kind of multidisciplinary review, not too different from a tumor board, to increase the probability that the patient gets the most appropriate care, because optimal care isn't always obvious. And then I'd let the professionals who have made a career out of specializing in these issues do what they think is best, consistent with the patient's wishes. I would not allow any patient to compel any physician to provide treatment that physician felt was inappropriate (or even morally objectionable).
 
I think you really should be. This hysteria started in Canada about 3 years ago. Jordan Peterson became a household name exactly because of it. I think it's getting way more mainstream than you'd think. Also, the Democrats' support for transgender activism makes one really wonder what will happen if they win the presidency.

I think there is a radical element in the trans movement, and that they are pushing things way too far.

Btw, I am totally fine with calling a patient however s/he wants me to. I am there to serve their needs. But, at a society level, it's a completely different issue.
I'll concede that maybe I just haven't been exposed enough to these abuses to take them as seriously as I should.

I still struggle to come up with a scenario in which a transgender person might harm me. Even in the worst possible scenario - assume transgender people really are just crazy loopy schizophrenics with a completely distorted grasp of reality - how exactly do they harm me if society lets them alter their bodies, dress outside of social norms, and have sexytime that is icky? A trans girl wins a track & field event?

I guess I just don't perceive any of this as a threat to my well being.
 
I'll concede that maybe I just haven't been exposed enough to these abuses to take them as seriously as I should.

I still struggle to come up with a scenario in which a transgender person might harm me. Even in the worst possible scenario - assume transgender people really are just crazy loopy schizophrenics with a completely distorted grasp of reality - how exactly do they harm me if society lets them alter their bodies, dress outside of social norms, and have sexytime that is icky? A trans girl wins a track & field event?

I guess I just don't perceive any of this as a threat to my well being.
I used to think the same. Then I saw the usual signs when a radical minority tries to dictate to the rest of society, instead of debating nicely and reasonably, and convincing the hearts and minds.

As I said, watch what has happened in Canada and what's happening in the US (e.g. the Democratic LGBT townhall). My social politics didn't get pushed from center-left to center-right just because of the effect of the Moon. 🙂

I lean libertarian (live and let live), like you, so I usually couldn't care less what people do in their bedrooms and with their bodies. UNLESS they try to change my life, or the fabric of the entire society, in what I see as worse.

I am becoming more and more convinced that Trump got elected also as a response to the social excesses on the Left, especially during the Obama administration, and he would be gone next year if the Left were more moderate and reasonable.
 
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I'll concede that maybe I just haven't been exposed enough to these abuses to take them as seriously as I should.

I still struggle to come up with a scenario in which a transgender person might harm me. Even in the worst possible scenario - assume transgender people really are just crazy loopy schizophrenics with a completely distorted grasp of reality - how exactly do they harm me if society lets them alter their bodies, dress outside of social norms, and have sexytime that is icky? A trans girl wins a track & field event?

I guess I just don't perceive any of this as a threat to my well being.

Well, I'll tell you from a parent standpoint, they harm me the first day my daughter is told she has to compete against a biological boy. They harm me the first day my daughter is taught a false reality that your feelings determine your biology. They harm me when my daughter has to share a restroom with or is compelled to give a service (that is meant for a biological woman) to someone like Jessica Yaniv.

And I don't know if you were being facetious earlier about the track thing, but in case you were being genuine....


I mean seriously, if you had a daughter who did track her whole life and she ended up coming in third to two males at the state track meet, you're telling me you wouldn't be upset by that? The sports issue is a becoming a big deal, and that's fine if you don't pay attention to sports, but its a problem. And its not being worried about a sliver of overlapping elite transgender athletes. Most average male athletes can best elite level women athletes. I'm sure some feminists will disagree, but its a simple reality.
 
And I don't know if you were being facetious earlier about the track thing, but in case you were being genuine....


I mean seriously, if you had a daughter who did track her whole life and she ended up coming in third to two males at the state track meet, you're telling me you wouldn't be upset by that? The sports issue is a becoming a big deal, and that's fine if you don't pay attention to sports, but its a problem. And its not being worried about a sliver of overlapping elite transgender athletes. Most average male athletes can best elite level women athletes. I'm sure some feminists will disagree, but its a simple reality.

Yeah, that does sound like a problem. I'm with you on this, that's not right.
 
Well, I'll tell you from a parent standpoint, they harm me the first day my daughter is told she has to compete against a biological boy. They harm me the first day my daughter is taught a false reality that your feelings determine your biology. They harm me when my daughter has to share a restroom with or is compelled to give a service (that is meant for a biological woman) to someone like Jessica Yaniv.

And I don't know if you were being facetious earlier about the track thing, but in case you were being genuine....


I mean seriously, if you had a daughter who did track her whole life and she ended up coming in third to two males at the state track meet, you're telling me you wouldn't be upset by that? The sports issue is a becoming a big deal, and that's fine if you don't pay attention to sports, but its a problem. And its not being worried about a sliver of overlapping elite transgender athletes. Most average male athletes can best elite level women athletes. I'm sure some feminists will disagree, but its a simple reality.
That story is beyond ridiculous. This is what happens when beliefs and feelings are more important than science and facts. This is Dark Ages stuff.
 
Context matters. I think you and I would agree that government should have minimal authority over speech. Some civilized countries have laws that criminalize hate speech. Present-day Germany prohibits the use of communist and Nazi symbols. I'm neither a communist or a Nazi, but I think that law is probably harmful to Germany. In the context of Germany's history ... maybe it's understandable, a small thing.

Using a transgender person's not-preferred pronoun may be rude or unkind, but it's not "hate speech" or discrimination in and of itself. But it could be, and there's a place for some government action there, sometimes. Context matters.

Criminal discrimination that warrants action by the state isn't just about being mean and making people feel bad. There has to be actual harm. On the street, derogatory comments and harassment not associated with physical threats or violence are probably just mean. In a workplace, the same derogatory comments and harassment can impact that person's ability to earn a living, get promoted, etc.

Any time context matters, there are gray areas, and gray areas open up room for bad enforcement, bad court decisions, bad outcomes.

These bad outcomes don't necessarily mean the state should never ever intervene.

Oh, sure, I disagree morally with lots of people. I'm conversing with one right now. 🙂

The difference between you and me (one of them, anyway) is that you want the state to take your side and prevent other people from doing things that don't harm you, and I don't. I'm a libertarian who values individual freedom when that freedom doesn't harm others, and you're a republican who values individual freedom, but especially your freedoms even at the expense of other peoples' freedoms.

I'm advocating for my freedom of speech not to be devalued at the expense of other peoples freedom to think whatever they want. And I'm advocating for the rights of little children to be allowed to grow up free of the influence of extremist parents and radical transgender activist physicians who have no science to back up the life altering treatments that they are giving to young children who are WAY below the age to make any kind of logical decision about their future sexuality/gender/etc.

Also, hate speech is a VERY dangerous topic. I don't personally believe its even a real thing. There's freedom of speech, and there are A-holes who say things other people don't like, but trying to fine any kind of speech as 'hate speech' and trying to have legal implications to that definition is a slippery, dangerous road that we don't want to go down as a society.
 
So 2 things first.

One, sexuality =/= gender. Sexuality is who you want to bang. Gender is what you are. Second, there is evidence that some kids do know they are the wrong gender at a very early age. Not all of them certainly, but the ones who at a young age consistently think they are the other gender and maintain that view for years don't tend to ever change. They're also the ones who, without a solid support system, are the ones who end up killing themselves.

That said, outside of gross abuse I do agree that we need to leave families alone.

Deep questions, getting all ontological here...

So what ARE you? If gender is what you ARE, and gender is determined solely by what you feel at a particular moment, then are you simply your feelings? And when those feelings change over time, is what you ARE changing? What does it even mean to think you are the other gender? Seriously, can you explain that? Can anyone explain that? I've yet to hear anything mildly coherent on what that even means to feel that you aren't the right gender.
 
You ain't seen NOTHING yet. Keep digging.


If you weren't aware of the track story PGG, I'm guessing you haven't heard about Fallon Fox. Why don't you take a few minutes and dig on that and get back with me. I'm personally against men beating the sh@t out of women, but maybe that's just me...
 
and he would be gone next year if the Left were more moderate and reasonable.

Truer words were never spoken.

It reminds me of two of my favorite bible verses "like a dog to it's vomit" and "..were left to kick against the pricks." What great imagery - someone hating these stubborn thorns - they hate it so bad...they just kick at it, and kick at it - doing nothing to the pricks, but only bloodying their own foot.


I mean seriously, if you had a daughter who did track her whole life and she ended up coming in third to two males at the state track meet, you're telling me you wouldn't be upset by that? The sports issue is a becoming a big deal, and that's fine if you don't pay attention to sports, but its a problem. And its not being worried about a sliver of overlapping elite transgender athletes. Most average male athletes can best elite level women athletes. I'm sure some feminists will disagree, but its a simple reality.

I remember reading about a woman who fought Fallon Fox (transgender UFC fighter) who said it was night and day getting hit by a biological woman and Fallon - the latter being so much more powerful.
 
Truer words were never spoken.

It reminds me of two of my favorite bible verses "like a dog to it's vomit" and "..were left to kick against the pricks." What great imagery - someone hating these stubborn thorns - they hate it so bad...they just kick at it, and kick at it - doing nothing to the pricks, but only bloodying their own foot.




I remember reading about a woman who fought Fallon Fox (transgender UFC fighter) who said it was night and day getting hit by a biological woman and Fallon - the latter being so much more powerful.

Of course. Getting fake tits and taking some estrogen for a year doesn’t undo a life time of male biology, testosterone, muscle structure and function, and training. It’s an utter joke, and it makes my brain hurt to think that there are people out there allegedly devoid of psychiatric problems that think things like this are acceptable.


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It’s funny how some people say a man is a man and a woman is a woman and the sky is blue but also believe there was a guy who was resurrected from death after being buried for 2 days, who walked on water, who’s dad parted the Red Sea.
It wasn't his dad. Get your facts straight. 😛
 
Again we have a reaction to something that shouldn't happen. E.g. the state trying to regulate "conversion therapy", as if it were lobotomy. It's not. The state has to stay out of family business, as long as there are no crimes committed (kidnapping, violence etc.).

Words are not violence, they are not child abuse. Yes, they can lead to depression etc., but, guess what? The same happens in any bad relationship between a heterosexual cis gender child and a parent. It's not the government's role to police families and raise children.
 
It’s funny how some people say a man is a man and a woman is a woman and the sky is blue but also believe there was a guy who was resurrected from death after being buried for 2 days, who walked on water, who’s dad parted the Red Sea.

Haha. Such a poignant and clever post. [emoji849]

Come get me when people try to compel you to claim Jesus is your God. I’ll help you fight against them.


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Haha. Such a poignant and clever post. [emoji849]

Come get me when people try to compel you to claim Jesus is your God. I’ll help you fight against them.


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they don’t come for rational adults so much. Children with undeveloped higher order thinking skills are much better targets.
 
they don’t come for rational adults so much. Children with undeveloped higher order thinking skills are much better targets.

What are ya talking about? Everyone knows that even a 3 year old has fully developed skills of higher level rationalization and is fully capable of making life altering, irreversible decisions. Duh.


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So since I really don't ever want to use google again because of the crap they pulled with Tulsi Gabbard, I have to look to other sources. Yahoo.com sucks as a search engine - so does bing. Although bing is my home page because the daily pictures they have each day are stunning.

Any suggestions on a good search engine? I used to use metacrawler.


(it will take some doing for me to wean from email, search, scholar.google, etc)
 
So since I really don't ever want to use google again because of the crap they pulled with Tulsi Gabbard, I have to look to other sources. Yahoo.com sucks as a search engine - so does bing. Although bing is my home page because the daily pictures they have each day are stunning.

Any suggestions on a good search engine? I used to use metacrawler.


(it will take some doing for me to wean from email, search, scholar.google, etc)
www.Startpage.com (uses Google anonymously)
www.DuckDuckGo.com

If you don't like GMail, www.Outlook.com may be a good alternative.
 
I'm not all that far away from your feelings here, though I've reached completely different conclusions.

I have no trouble conceptualizing homosexuality as normal. Women who like women, I totally that get that (I like them too). Men who like men, eh, feels a little icky to me, but so what. The notion that a man who's not me might want to have sex with another man who's not me is something that intuitively I can understand, even if the mechanics of it make my lizard brain recoil a little.

Gender dysphoria, people who identify as other than their anatomic sex, all of the shades of ambiguity associated with transgender people, I really don't have the same kind of easy "yeah that's normal" response. The lizard brain objects, and the cortex has to work harder to not object.

But it doesn't matter. At all. They don't need my enthusiasm, encouragement, or even understanding. They just need me to not be a dick to them about it. Beyond that, my cortex can suppress my lizard brain well enough to understand that fighting on their side is good for freedom loving society as a whole. So I support them and want to see them succeed.

As much as I don't really understand how these people tick, what I understand even less is why other people get so worked up about it.




So what if it's "normal" or not? If you are going to insist that it's just a bunch of psychopathology, what of it? Even if it is a medical condition, shouldn't their management of that condition be between them and their doctor? Shouldn't we respect their autonomy and not get in the way if they choose to decline "treatment" you think is appropriate? Or if the treatment they do choose to undergo happens to be gender reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, or a wardrobe change?

It's not OK to discriminate against people for any reason, whether the differentiating factor is a hard biological fact like skin color, a completely voluntary choice, a psychiatric condition, or a more specifically quantifiable medical problem.

If someone who's anatomically male tells you he would like to be referred to as she, so what?


There is one area where some elements of the LGBTQ movement are going over the line, however, and you point it out:



If the day comes when using a person's non-preferred pronoun carries legal consequences as hate speech, and the state gets involved, that's a problem.

To this I might add a person who's undergone male-to-female gender reassignment probably shouldn't be permitted to compete as a female in serious sporting events.

I'm not sure I can really come up with any other objectively identifiable problems that any of this presents to me, as a not-LGBTQ bystander.
Great post. Well said.
 
So what if it's "normal" or not? If you are going to insist that it's just a bunch of psychopathology, what of it? Even if it is a medical condition, shouldn't their management of that condition be between them and their doctor? Shouldn't we respect their autonomy and not get in the way if they choose to decline "treatment" you think is appropriate? Or if the treatment they do choose to undergo happens to be gender reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, or a wardrobe change?

It's not OK to discriminate against people for any reason, whether the differentiating factor is a hard biological fact like skin color, a completely voluntary choice, a psychiatric condition, or a more specifically quantifiable medical problem.

If someone who's anatomically male tells you he would like to be referred to as she, so what?

I could make almost an identical argument for the schizophrenic who sees a leprechaun singing "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" on the street corner. But most people recognize the ethical lapse in validating hallucinations or delusions, even if the subject doesn't identify that patronization for what it is. There is absolutely no way to argue that gender dysphoria is not a profoundly pathological state. Without operative "treatment", the patient feels intense antipathy toward the genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics that his/her X or Y chromosomes have evolved over millions of years to produce for the most basic of biological drives - reproduction. With operative "management", one can generally only create a woefully-inaccurate, superficial recreation of what's perceived as masculine or feminine. And that's just what's visible to the layman; never mind the reproductive plumbing, and all other sorts of male-female biological discrepancies. Hell - men and women even tend to have different lung sizes.


There is one area where some elements of the LGBTQ movement are going over the line, however, and you point it out:

If the day comes when using a person's non-preferred pronoun carries legal consequences as hate speech, and the state gets involved, that's a problem.

To this I might add a person who's undergone male-to-female gender reassignment probably shouldn't be permitted to compete as a female in serious sporting events.

I'm not sure I can really come up with any other objectively identifiable problems that any of this presents to me, as a not-LGBTQ bystander.

Bolded already happens in Canada. That's how Jordan Peterson became famous.

Millennials are more likely to support bans on "hate speech" than other generations. The country is in trouble.
 
So since I really don't ever want to use google again because of the crap they pulled with Tulsi Gabbard, I have to look to other sources. Yahoo.com sucks as a search engine - so does bing. Although bing is my home page because the daily pictures they have each day are stunning.

Any suggestions on a good search engine? I used to use metacrawler.


(it will take some doing for me to wean from email, search, scholar.google, etc)
Out of the loop about this. What happened.
 
Deep questions, getting all ontological here...

So what ARE you? If gender is what you ARE, and gender is determined solely by what you feel at a particular moment, then are you simply your feelings? And when those feelings change over time, is what you ARE changing? What does it even mean to think you are the other gender? Seriously, can you explain that? Can anyone explain that? I've yet to hear anything mildly coherent on what that even means to feel that you aren't the right gender.

I have yet to hear a coherent argument that supports the existence of god, yet I have to be nice to the billions of people who do think there is a god. It seems like a wacky thing for someone to believe in and sometimes I even have to play along. In the end, so long as I am not forced to worship something that doesn’t exist, I don’t care.

That’s how I look at the transgender thing. I think it’s weird (like religion), I don’t understand it (like religion), but I respect someone’s wishes to want to be a different gender. I don’t think it’s the massive, widespread problem that right-wing media makes it out to be because it’s a strangely convenient topic to rile up a base. I also don’t think transgender athletes competing against women is a massive problem, but since gender transitioning is supposedly an epidemic, it’ll have to be something we sort out with fairness rules in sports.
 
I have yet to hear a coherent argument that supports the existence of god, yet I have to be nice to the billions of people who do think there is a god. It seems like a wacky thing for someone to believe in and sometimes I even have to play along. In the end, so long as I am not forced to worship something that doesn’t exist, I don’t care.

That’s how I look at the transgender thing. I think it’s weird (like religion), I don’t understand it (like religion), but I respect someone’s wishes to want to be a different gender. I don’t think it’s the massive, widespread problem that right-wing media makes it out to be because it’s a strangely convenient topic to rile up a base. I also don’t think transgender athletes competing against women is a massive problem, but since gender transitioning is supposedly an epidemic, it’ll have to be something we sort out with fairness rules in sports.

there IS no coherent argument for the existence of god. If there were, it would be the only argument you would ever hear instead of the cosmological argument, Pascal’s wager, etc.

The problem isn’t that you have to play along, the problem is that they don’t. They’re more than happy to judge or discriminate against you, but god forbid you ever say ‘Really?’ if you hear what someone believes.
 
I have yet to hear a coherent argument that supports the existence of god, yet I have to be nice to the billions of people who do think there is a god. It seems like a wacky thing for someone to believe in and sometimes I even have to play along. In the end, so long as I am not forced to worship something that doesn’t exist, I don’t care.

That’s how I look at the transgender thing. I think it’s weird (like religion), I don’t understand it (like religion), but I respect someone’s wishes to want to be a different gender. I don’t think it’s the massive, widespread problem that right-wing media makes it out to be because it’s a strangely convenient topic to rile up a base. I also don’t think transgender athletes competing against women is a massive problem, but since gender transitioning is supposedly an epidemic, it’ll have to be something we sort out with fairness rules in sports.

No one is compelling you to behave according to their religious beliefs. Transgenders are trying to force the world to bend the knee to how they feel and their truth. Big difference.




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there IS no coherent argument for the existence of god. If there were, it would be the only argument you would ever hear instead of the cosmological argument, Pascal’s wager, etc.

The problem isn’t that you have to play along, the problem is that they don’t. They’re more than happy to judge or discriminate against you, but god forbid you ever say ‘Really?’ if you hear what someone believes.

You can say “Really?” all you want to my beliefs, or most other Christians. If it’s an honest curiosity, more than glad to talk about anything. If it’s “really?! How could you possibly believe that?!” And you just want to mock, that’s fine. Won’t bother me at all. But unlike the alphabet people, I won’t try to change education and science and politics to force you into some kind of reality based on my feelings about God.


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10 million views in less than a week - that's impressive.

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this was on the comment section of the video - great line.

"Who goes to jail when you break the law? You do.
Who goes to jail when you catch the government breaking the law? Still you."


That was a great interview, and aside from Snowden really pushing his new book, I like what he has to say (though I am curious about his book). He sacrificed a lot to do what he did. I never understood why there was not more outrage over what Snowden revealed. With outrage being so fashionable these days, why did we do a collective shrug when we were given first hand evidence that the government was completely ignoring the fourth amendment? Did social media condition us to think that privacy was not important?

I like Joe Rogan. I think he has good conversations with interesting people. He had Alex Jones on a few months back and I came away from that interview with maybe the tiniest bit of sympathy for that lunatic. I never thought that would be possible.
 
No one is compelling you to behave according to their religious beliefs. Transgenders are trying to force the world to bend the knee to how they feel and their truth. Big difference.




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No one is compelling you to change your gender. You are just being asked to respect people who want to. Big difference.
 
You can say “Really?” all you want to my beliefs, or most other Christians. If it’s an honest curiosity, more than glad to talk about anything. If it’s “really?! How could you possibly believe that?!” And you just want to mock, that’s fine. Won’t bother me at all. But unlike the alphabet people, I won’t try to change education and science and politics to force you into some kind of reality based on my feelings about God.


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I would never mock you to your face for believing in god because that’s rude and disrespectful. I would wait til you left the room to mock you.

All the creationists trying to get schools to teach about Noah’s ark instead of Darwin would not agree with you on trying to change education and science.
 
You can say “Really?” all you want to my beliefs, or most other Christians. If it’s an honest curiosity, more than glad to talk about anything. If it’s “really?! How could you possibly believe that?!” And you just want to mock, that’s fine. Won’t bother me at all. But unlike the alphabet people, I won’t try to change education and science and politics to force you into some kind of ‘reality’ based on my feelings about God.


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No, that’s not all we are being asked to do. Read the rest of the thread.


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I guess I just don’t believe the thesis that transgender people pushing for more rights is infringing on my rights in any way. Again, I don’t really understand transgenderism, but their push for respect and rights doesn’t seem to be adversely affecting me. I doubt it will.
 
I guess I just don’t believe the thesis that transgender people pushing for more rights is infringing on my rights in any way. Again, I don’t really understand transgenderism, but their push for respect and rights doesn’t seem to be adversely affecting me. I doubt it will.

That’s fine if you feel that way. I hope it never does adversely affect you. I hope I never have to deal with any of the nonsense on a personal level, and more importantly, I hope my kids don’t. But I HIGHLY doubt that will be the case over the next 30- 40 years.

It’s not always what is immediately apparent as a threat now. You also have to take a somewhat visionary look at how things are developing and how court precedents are being set.


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Getting back on topic, we see how much the coal miners got gaslighted by Trump but technically they were screwed regardless.

Trump's actions have actually hurt farmers bigly. Anyone thinking they'll save his ass at the polls next year? Pretty sure they'd rather have jobs and markets to sell to than welfare and bailouts from Trump

 
Getting back on topic, we see how much the coal miners got gaslighted by Trump but technically they were screwed regardless.

Trump's actions have actually hurt farmers bigly. Anyone thinking they'll save his ass at the polls next year? Pretty sure they'd rather have jobs and markets to sell to than welfare and bailouts from Trump


I posted a similar article a few pages ago about a community that was screwed by Trump’s trade war and domestic policies but they still love and support him. Trump largely serves as an emblem for one side of our national culture war. It really isn’t about him.
 
I posted a similar article a few pages ago about a community that was screwed by Trump’s trade war and domestic policies but they still love and support him. Trump largely serves as an emblem for one side of our national culture war. It really isn’t about him.
Sure but I guess the question becomes how much pain can his base tolerate before they finally show it at the ballot box. I think we shall see.
 
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