Why You Should Have Your Eye On Florida

[Silvanus]

To be fair, we've been pretty far from even establishing my position.

"Gender identity" is a combination of two imagined things. Both gender and identity come from the human mind exclusively. Which is not to say that they aren't real just because they are imagined: sports are imagined, recipes are imagined, nations are imagined. Lots of important, real things come out of the human imagination. Human sexual dichotomy is not one of them. There are categories, male and female, which may not contain every single human between them, but are physically required categories for humans to exist and reproduce. We cannot reimagine sex, reality will assert itself.

Gender and identity are things society has invented, and can choose to reimagine. Gender is the collection of things we societally associate with masculinity and femininity (or anything in between), but most of those are semi-arbitrary and highly relative to time and place. Identity is those characteristics by which we associate people into groups and/or distinguish between them, and those things are also semi-arbitrary and highly relative to time and place. The very concept of gender identity is the avoidable societal decision to distinguish between groups based on arbitrary markers of masculinity and femininity.

I'm going to group people out here for a second so that I can speak specifically. There are people with severe body dysmorphia related to their sex organs. That is incredibly rare, and I'm not talking about them. There is also the Tumblr crowd with fake identities, which is depressingly common, but I also don't want to talk about them. I want to talk about just the people whose gender identities don't match their biological sex. I am not unsympathetic to them, their suffering is real, the causes are real. But the suffering does not stem from a medical problem, it stems from a societal problem, a society that has latched gender markers onto things needlessly and tied them conceptually to sex such that people who do not often match up with those markers are constantly being signaled to that their existence is wrong. That's where the inability to accept oneself comes from. That's where the suicidality comes from.

I don't think a transgender individual is wrong about who they are and ought to conform to societal standards. I think the problem with transitioning is the societal standards. I have no problem with masculine women or feminine men, that does not make them less of a man or woman. I think it's a horrible thing that people are conditioned to not be able to live as they are, based on arbitrary standards, and so often choose suicide to escape it. But transitions are themselves a parallel to suicide. Obviously preferable out of the two, but it's still killing the person they are in a certain sense. Hence concepts like "deadnaming", the individual may be alive, but that pretransition identity is dead now.

On an individual level, I can't fault an individual's personal decisions. Societal problems are not within the power of any one person to fix, a trans person cannot rewrite society alone, but they can present themselves as they choose for themselves. What I do fault, however, is rhetoric that reinforces rather than challenges the modern notion of gender identities. I am still quite fond of the phrase "gender is a social construct", and I wish we could get back to that point of understanding, because treating transgenderism as a medical issue broadly is choosing to lock in the current gender paradigm that causes so much pain in the first place. A medical professional telling a troubled youth being hurt by society that the problem is entirely within their body and we just need to block their hormones for a while seems to me both insane and heinous.

Thank you for putting time into the reply. In short, you're "gender-critical". Would that be fair to say?

And a few questions: How do you account for the observable differences in brain structure & chemistry between people whose gender identity is at odds with their biological sex?

How do you account for the fact that therapies aimed at convincing trans kids to just "accept" their biological sex simply don't work, whereas approaches that change the physical sexual characteristics to match the gender identity do work?

See, to me, this sounds a lot like the advocates of gay "conversion therapy". Supposed authority figures decide that since heterosexuality is "physically required" (to borrow your phrase), therefore deviation must be stopped. And instead of accepting that the gay person feels a certain way and cannot change it, they instead insist on ruinous "therapies" to try to force them to fit into their own binary view.

 

[Agema]

And a few questions: How do you account for the observable differences in brain structure & chemistry between people whose gender identity is at odds with their biological sex?

I have a problem with this.

It is highly controversial whether such differences exist between the brains of (cis-) men and woman: nothing significant has been robustly identified. If we cannot reliably tell "male" brains from "female" brains, then it is necessarily unsound to claim trans people have brains more like their trans gender than their birth sex.

 

[Silvanus]

I have a problem with this.

It is highly controversial whether such differences exist between the brains of (cis-) men and woman: nothing significant has been robustly identified. If we cannot reliably tell "male" brains from "female" brains, then it is necessarily unsound to claim trans people have brains more like their trans gender than their birth sex.

Well see, I was quite careful with how I worded that, for precisely that reason. I didn't say they were more like their identified gender than their birth sex, because as I understand it, that's disputed. I said there were observable differences in those whose gender identity is at odds with their biological sex, which is true, and at the least suggests dysphoria is not something that's just purely societal and can therefore be argued away.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I think that was Nancy Pelosi, in the specific context that the Republican Party needed to be morally strong enough to grow a backbone and impeach Donald Trump.



I disagree. But I think the Democrats have to contend with the fact that the US political system is designed for gridlock, to make it as easy as possible to block laws. This means anything the Republicans really don't want to pass is incredibly hard to pass. Due to this, it's easy to scupper anything progressive by swaying or "bribing" (i.e. donating large campaign funds to) a few conservatives / moderates in the Democratic Party to reject the party line.

And again, the US system makes this relatively easy: votes can often be decided by a few senators, even just one. Thus only a few in each party need to be controlled to be decisive. Plus, senators are incredibly hard to unseat, so are an excellent long-term investment and much effort goes into getting the right people installed.

You're absolutely right that the way to resolve this is widespread institutional reform, which is not going to happen whilst politics is totally dominated by two parties absolutely absorbed into the institutional status quo. However, simultaneously, the US public is too apathetic to do anything about it. Trump appeared to offer a break with the past, but in fact did nothing but create a cult which dreamt of giving him absolute power. The US progressives (AOC, etc.) would also be willing to create institutional change, but are toxic to 75% of the US populace. That might leave a new creation third party... but where is it? The Tea Party might have been closest, but in the end wanted nothing more than to hijack the Republican Party.

Just as some fun reading that I came across recently relevant to this:

Grand corruption as a systemic parasite upon society | Aeon Essays

The official definition of corruption – the abuse of public office for private gain – does little to capture the reality

aeon.co

Biden has said it on at least a few occasions and even before Trump was a politician.

Congress can vote to remove the filibuster. There should be no such thing as voting on the "party line". If something is a bad bill, you shouldn't just have to go along with it because it's better than doing nothing. Getting funding out of campaigns (just having them public funded) would remove feeling like you gotta vote on party lines since the party raised the money to help your election so you feel like you gotta return the favor. To think that every democrat or republican is going to feel the same about every bill is nonsense. Everyone should vote independently and based on if they think they bill is good enough. You definitely don't have that at all. Parties are too tied to money IMO which has turned them sorta into a single entity vs 200+ people that can all think for themselves, it's OK to have a party so people get the gist of what you probably stand for but what we have now is just toxic. Also, most of the time spent for politicians is spent raising money so they're actually working very little on the job they are supposed to be doing.

I don't think parties should be needed, just vote for the person that has the best platform in your opinion, that may be a democrat in this race, a republican in that race, an independent in another race. Especially now with the internet, you can quickly look up everyone's platform in seconds, you don't need to be advertised the candidates to you anymore. The public is... I don't even know anymore, they have the power to do basically anything but think they can't do anything. People got all up in arms about Dave Chappelle making a joke but yet won't do anything about Amazon actually treating people inhumanely. You can simply stop buying shit from Amazon if you actually cared.

 

[Agema]

You can simply stop buying shit from Amazon if you actually cared.

I have. Not totally 100%: I still use it occasionally as a supplier of last resort. And there are still some people who give me Amazon gift vouchers even though I've asked them not to.

But the USA can and should start a new political party. An enormous effort to be sure, but even by the standards of first past the post electoral systems the USA has a paucity of options available. It amazes me that there is so much dissatisfaction with the two main parties and so little concrete action to break their hegemony.

 

[tstorm823]

Thank you for putting time into the reply. In short, you're "gender-critical". Would that be fair to say?

And a few questions: How do you account for the observable differences in brain structure & chemistry between people whose gender identity is at odds with their biological sex?

How do you account for the fact that therapies aimed at convincing trans kids to just "accept" their biological sex simply don't work, whereas approaches that change the physical sexual characteristics to match the gender identity do work?

See, to me, this sounds a lot like the advocates of gay "conversion therapy". Supposed authority figures decide that since heterosexuality is "physically required" (to borrow your phrase), therefore deviation must be stopped. And instead of accepting that the gay person feels a certain way and cannot change it, they instead insist on ruinous "therapies" to try to force them to fit into their own binary view.

Ideally, I sidestep all of it. Brain chemistry can be different without being "at odds". Like, there are men in the world with little to no beard, is that at odds with their manhood? I wouldn't say so. And like, when it comes down to it, I guarantee you would never try and tell someone their gender identity based on any measurable characteristic, so I don't think you really disagree there. If we could clearly identify "male" and "female" brain chemistry, and a woman had "male" brain chemistry but still identified entirely as a woman, nobody is going to insist she transition.

I think your view on therapy is a bit too binary. You see the options as either fully affirming gender identity or telling people to stuff down their feelings and act like their biological sex. But like, "I feel I am the opposite gender" isn't a feeling, it's a conclusion. Nobody knows what "a man" or "a woman" feels like. There is no unified male or female experience in reality to know. "I feel I am the opposite gender" must be a collection of feelings associated with gender combined to reach that conclusion, consciously or subconsciously. I feel like the best approach with youth would be an attempt not to invalidate or change their feelings, but to decouple them from stereotypical associates.

 

[Silvanus]

Ideally, I sidestep all of it. Brain chemistry can be different without being "at odds". Like, there are men in the world with little to no beard, is that at odds with their manhood? I wouldn't say so. And like, when it comes down to it, I guarantee you would never try and tell someone their gender identity based on any measurable characteristic, so I don't think you really disagree there. If we could clearly identify "male" and "female" brain chemistry, and a woman had "male" brain chemistry but still identified entirely as a woman, nobody is going to insist she transition.

I think your view on therapy is a bit too binary. You see the options as either fully affirming gender identity or telling people to stuff down their feelings and act like their biological sex. But like, "I feel I am the opposite gender" isn't a feeling, it's a conclusion. Nobody knows what "a man" or "a woman" feels like. There is no unified male or female experience in reality to know. "I feel I am the opposite gender" must be a collection of feelings associated with gender combined to reach that conclusion, consciously or subconsciously. I feel like the best approach with youth would be an attempt not to invalidate or change their feelings, but to decouple them from stereotypical associates.

I feel like genderqueer and trans youth are much more likely to have open-minded or non-stereotypical understandings of gender than people who insist their sex is the final word on it, surely.

You say it's not a "feeling", but a conclusion; and yet the testimony of countless people is that they "felt" long before they "knew". Gender would appear to mean something beyond purely societal associations connected to biology, judging by how seriously it goes wrong when efforts are made to pressure compliance.

 

[tstorm823]

judging by how seriously it goes wrong when efforts are made to pressure compliance.

My question for you here would be "compliance to what?"

 

[Buyetyen]

My question for you here would be "compliance to what?"

Heteronormativity.

 

[tstorm823]

Heteronormativity.

You mean the concept I'm challenging and you're reinforcing?

 

[Silvanus]

My question for you here would be "compliance to what?"

The rigid, binary model of sex.

 

[tstorm823]

The rigid, binary model of sex.

We're not talking about sex, we're talking about gender.

 

[Buyetyen]

You mean the concept I'm challenging and you're reinforcing?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

 

[Silvanus]

We're not talking about sex, we're talking about gender.

We are necessarily talking about both. Gender dysphoria refers specifically to a disconnect between the two. To have a view on trans issues carries implications for both.

In your case, the view that the biological sexual characteristics should not be changed represented a rigid and binary approach to sex.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Actually, in a sense I can definitely see it.

"Gender-critical" beliefs have at their core a belief that regardless of someone's sex, they should be able to act however they wish, including in ways that are not typically/ societally associated with their sex. This is why a lot of transgressive or otherwise progressive thinkers buy into gender-critical ideas, and believe them to be liberating.

Of course, as far as I'm concerned, I consider gender-critical beliefs to be reductive and too often (though not always) arrogant or prescriptive.

 

[Buyetyen]

Actually, in a sense I can definitely see it.

"Gender-critical" beliefs have at their core a belief that regardless of someone's sex, they should be able to act however they wish, including in ways that are not typically/ societally associated with their sex. This is why a lot of transgressive or otherwise progressive thinkers buy into gender-critical ideas, and believe them to be liberating.

Of course, as far as I'm concerned, I consider gender-critical beliefs to be reductive and too often (though not always) arrogant or prescriptive.

You have officially put more thought into this than tstorm pretends to.

 

[tstorm823]

We are necessarily talking about both. Gender dysphoria refers specifically to a disconnect between the two. To have a view on trans issues carries implications for both.

In your case, the view that the biological sexual characteristics should not be changed represented a rigid and binary approach to sex.

The disconnect requires a rigid approach to both gender and sex. For those two things to clash, for medical intervention to be required, depends on a rigid view of both. You have both a rigid view of gender and a rigid view of sex outside of medical intervention. I'm not inclined to stop people (specifically adults) from choosing to pursue a sex change because they want to be a sex that they are not. That is a different thing than being prescribed that as treatment.

You have officially put more thought into this than tstorm pretends to.

Post #99 would be rejected by many colleges as an admissions essay for being too many words.

 

[Silvanus]

The disconnect requires a rigid approach to both gender and sex. For those two things to clash, for medical intervention to be required, depends on a rigid view of both. You have both a rigid view of gender and a rigid view of sex outside of medical intervention. I'm not inclined to stop people (specifically adults) from choosing to pursue a sex change because they want to be a sex that they are not. That is a different thing than being prescribed that as treatment.

Absolutely not, no it doesn't. The only thing it requires one believe about gender is that it's not purely societal/imaginary. And the only thing it requires one believe about sex is that physical sexual characteristics can be medically altered (which is unarguably true). Neither represent a rigid or binary view.

On the other hand, the view that people should be prevented from changing their physical sexual characteristics, even when it is both possible and helpful to the individual, is rigid and binary.

 

[tstorm823]

Absolutely not, no it doesn't. The only thing it requires one believe about gender is that it's not purely societal/imaginary. And the only thing it requires one believe about sex is that physical sexual characteristics can be medically altered (which is unarguably true). Neither represent a rigid or binary view.

On the other hand, the view that people should be prevented from changing their physical sexual characteristics, even when it is both possible and helpful to the individual, is rigid and binary.

Absolutely yes, yes it does. You are very obviously treating gender rigidly, as you are treating it as a biological concept that can't be changed (at least not deliberately), so much so that you'd prefer medical treatments and all of society to treat gender as an anchored point that must be built around. It may not be a binary view, but it's rigid in the same way that racial essentialism is rigid.

And then the very concept of transitioning adopts the rigid sex binary you think you're avoiding. The world has tall women and short men, hairy women and smooth men, low-pitched female voices and high pitched male voices, long haired men and short haired women, flat chested muscular women and flabby men... with the exception of genitals, the outside presentation of sex characteristics is tremendously varied and contains a huge amount of overlap, yet transitioning/presenting/passing all invariably involve pushing the individual toward rigid sexual stereotypes. A trans man goes with short hair and a deeper voice. A trans woman is more likely to shave legs and wear a bra. What are those things if not adherence to the strict sexual binaries you don't think you believe in?

 

[Agema]

Absolutely yes, yes it does. You are very obviously treating gender rigidly, as you are treating it as a biological concept that can't be changed (at least not deliberately), so much so that you'd prefer medical treatments and all of society to treat gender as an anchored point that must be built around. It may not be a binary view, but it's rigid in the same way that racial essentialism is rigid.

Honestly, I don't get that impression from what he's said at all.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Absolutely yes, yes it does. You are very obviously treating gender rigidly, as you are treating it as a biological concept that can't be changed (at least not deliberately), so much so that you'd prefer medical treatments and all of society to treat gender as an anchored point that must be built around. It may not be a binary view, but it's rigid in the same way that racial essentialism is rigid.

And then the very concept of transitioning adopts the rigid sex binary you think you're avoiding. The world has tall women and short men, hairy women and smooth men, low-pitched female voices and high pitched male voices, long haired men and short haired women, flat chested muscular women and flabby men... with the exception of genitals, the outside presentation of sex characteristics is tremendously varied and contains a huge amount of overlap, yet transitioning/presenting/passing all invariably involve pushing the individual toward rigid sexual stereotypes. A trans man goes with short hair and a deeper voice. A trans woman is more likely to shave legs and wear a bra. What are those things if not adherence to the strict sexual binaries you don't think you believe in?

Personal fashion choices. Nobody's "enforcing" any of that.

Well, besides self-appointed bathroom defenders throwing butch lesbians out of bathrooms in the name of protecting women from the evil transes

Edit: See, in your perfect radfem gender neutral world, your point of view makes a lot of sense. We, unfortunately, do not live in that world, and even if we did there'd still be plenty of people wanting voluntary body modifications.

Kinda wild to see you, of all people, making the "so what if that woman has a penis, still a woman" argument though