Why You Should Have Your Eye On Florida

[Phoenixmgs]

There's also a whole thing where there are acceptable directions for these things to go. So, for example if I said I'd rather be in the Logan Square (majority Hispanic, about a third non-Hispanic white, about 6% black) neighborhood in Chicago than in West Garfield Park (95% black, about 2% Hispanic, about 2% non-Hispanic white) it might not be a race thing and more related to West Garfield Park having 41 times the homicide rate. This is of course still racist and unacceptable because it connects a negative outcome (lots of murders) to a race you aren't supposed to connect negative outcomes to (large majority black neighborhoods). Weirdly, this way of thinking only works when the group targeted is not an acceptable group to target, once you're aiming at an acceptable target is ceases to be any kind of -ism or -phobia.

How is that still racist? You don't have to associate negatives to a race if you don't want to. Much like you don't have to view Chinese negatively because you don't like their government.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I mean, there's a reason a lot of anti-trans people want to keep conversion torture therapy around.

And quite often it's not because they think it'll work- they just want to punish others in the hopes that their own wrongdoings aren't noticed.

 

[tstorm823]

Firstly, it's hardly "provocation" when you went first, and hardest.

Secondly, the only thing I've described in unflattering terms is your hostility. You've been using it for opponents' sense of identity. There's a sea of difference.

Just a reminder, the comment that brought you in here was me directly quoting another user.

I'm seeing a lot of references to biology, but where is the consideration of neurology? If the brain says "female" while the body says "male" who's to say which is right? Especially with modern science which allows us to align the body with the brain, but not the other way around.

When the brain says "female", how does it say that?

I do not particularly need to define the roles of men and women in society: it's merely a tedious task that accomplishes little except to distract and digress. That gender may be a social construction does not mean that it does not exist. (If you did want to argue that case, you may as well not believe in this conversation because language too is a social construction.)

I repeat: is it your contention that gender does not exist, only biological sex?

You do not want to define gender roles, because with potentially the exception of strictly reproductive functions, you don't believe such roles should strictly exist.

Does gender exist, as a social construction? Sure. Gender, the idea of breaking some things down along lines associated with the sexual dichotomy, exists. Society treats certain behavior as male or female behavior, certain clothing as male or female clothing, certain imagery to be male or female, so on and so forth. I don't think that's a particularly good thing, even worse than stereotyping others is people actually deliberately adhering to the stereotypes. But sure, gender exists, and things can be gendered. I do not believe people have genders. I do not believe any person to ever exist falls strictly into society's associations with male, female, or anything in between. Real people cannot be categorized like that. Real people do not exist as a discreet set of attributes. The idea of gender as something a person has is not only an imaginary concept, it is an imaginary concept made to describe a non-existent phenomenon.

 

[Agema]

You do not want to define gender roles, because with potentially the exception of strictly reproductive functions, you don't believe such roles should strictly exist.

I think what you mean is that I do not want to define what I think gender roles should be in some sort of idealised society. The issue is perhaps more that I have little wish to dictate to people what I think should be free for them to choose. I am strongly opposed to assumed gender roles that are harmful to things like free, fair and equal political, economic and social participation, health, and opposed to bullying and harassment of people who fail to meet assumed gender roles.

Does gender exist, as a social construction? Sure.

Right, fine.

I do not believe people have genders.

Er, okay. I see your reason for that, but I don't think it's a good one.

For instance, on exactly the same basis neither you nor anyone else can be strictly categorised into any societal stereotype, so no-one has a political description. And yet you call yourself and other people conservative, liberal, etc: it's an inconsistency. The other issue is that irrespective of what you think, what matters is what other people think, and their identification matters. If gender exists, so people's perception of it exists, and so whether they are the wrong gender. This goes even down to the level of their body in the form of gender dysphoria.

 

[tstorm823]

Er, okay. I see your reason for that, but I don't think it's a good one.

For instance, on exactly the same basis neither you nor anyone else can be strictly categorised into any societal stereotype, so no-one has a political description. And yet you call yourself and other people conservative, liberal, etc: it's an inconsistency. The other issue is that irrespective of what you think, what matters is what other people think, and their identification matters. If gender exists, so people's perception of it exists, and so whether they are the wrong gender. This goes even down to the level of their body in the form of gender dysphoria.

I would have the same criticism if someone suggested that they were born conservative and had no choice in the matter. Political affiliation lies somewhere between a product of upbringing and personal choice, it is also not an immutable characteristic that people have.

Like, if a transwoman is a man who prefers to present in female ways, that's transvestitism, that requires no philosophical claims about a true, inner self. If you want to assign yourself a gender the way people assign themselves a political title, fine, go for it. That's a behavior, that's a choice, that's not a characteristic you have, and it decidedly does not require teaching children that their bodies might be wrong for them, which is where this all becomes a problem.

 

[Silvanus]

Just a reminder, the comment that brought you in here was me directly quoting another user.

Just a reminder, that other user wasn't describing your position. He was describing a strawman position you ascribed to your opponents. Then you used the same description, but applying it directly to your opponents. We already went over this.

Does gender exist, as a social construction? Sure. Gender, the idea of breaking some things down along lines associated with the sexual dichotomy, exists. Society treats certain behavior as male or female behavior, certain clothing as male or female clothing, certain imagery to be male or female, so on and so forth. I don't think that's a particularly good thing, even worse than stereotyping others is people actually deliberately adhering to the stereotypes. But sure, gender exists, and things can be gendered. I do not believe people have genders. I do not believe any person to ever exist falls strictly into society's associations with male, female, or anything in between. Real people cannot be categorized like that. Real people do not exist as a discreet set of attributes. The idea of gender as something a person has is not only an imaginary concept, it is an imaginary concept made to describe a non-existent phenomenon.

OK, so here's a question: if gender does not exist (outside of stereotypical behaviours, fundamentally unconnected to sex), then why must people be stuck with the body they were born with? If they're much happier with the morphological characteristics of the other sex, why not let them change? After all, in that conception, there's no "inner self" that the body must match. It may as well be however the person wants, and we know that reported happiness and life satisfaction increase after transition.

Why say (on the one hand) gender doesn't exist and biological sex is the only "true" characteristic, and simultaneously say people who would prefer to alter their morphology may not do so? Those two ideas don't track; it goes back to pointless restriction.

 

[tstorm823]

OK, so here's a question: if gender does not exist (outside of stereotypical behaviours, fundamentally unconnected to sex), then why must people be stuck with the body they were born with? If they're much happier with the morphological characteristics of the other sex, why not let them change? After all, in that conception, there's no "inner self" that the body must match. It may as well be however the person wants, and we know that reported happiness and life satisfaction increase after transition.

Why say (on the one hand) gender doesn't exist and biological sex is the only "true" characteristic, and simultaneously say people who would prefer to alter their morphology may not do so? Those two ideas don't track; it goes back to pointless restriction.

I'm not interested in stopping people (adults) from changing their bodies, whether that makes them happy or not. Your logic is correct here, by my viewpoint an individual is fully and correctly themselves regardless of how they are or how they may change. The thing I take issue with is not the actions, but the beliefs underpinning them. There have been transvestites for basically human history and transsexuals for as long as medical science has allowed it, and they do them, sure. It is completely reasonable to desire to be something you aren't, and no matter what I think of someone's desires, people get to pursue their desires so long as they're not hurting anyone else. But that is not transgenderism. Transgenderism is not "I want to be a woman, let me change", it's "I am a woman, and my body is wrong". That's a different thing, and I don't think it is a coincidence that a segment of the population that believes they were born in the wrong body also commit suicide in high numbers.

 

[Silvanus]

I'm not interested in stopping people (adults) from changing their bodies, whether that makes them happy or not.

Ok, but you did say you wanted kids to go through an onerous, difficult-to-reverse bodily change (puberty) rather than having access to hormonal blockers, which are fully reversible and allow the person to make the "permanent" decisions later.

So you clearly do have a preference for people to stay as their birth sex. You're willing to make their situation significantly less comfortable in order to make it more difficult to change morphology.

Your logic is correct here, by my viewpoint an individual is fully and correctly themselves regardless of how they are or how they may change. The thing I take issue with is not the actions, but the beliefs underpinning them. There have been transvestites for basically human history and transsexuals for as long as medical science has allowed it, and they do them, sure. It is completely reasonable to desire to be something you aren't, and no matter what I think of someone's desires, people get to pursue their desires so long as they're not hurting anyone else. But that is not transgenderism. Transgenderism is not "I want to be a woman, let me change", it's "I am a woman, and my body is wrong". That's a different thing, and I don't think it is a coincidence that a segment of the population that believes they were born in the wrong body also commit suicide in high numbers.

OK, fine. So long as you also acknowledge that you're at odds with almost all of society on this (the concept of the self aside from the body, and the concept of gender, have also existed for millenia), and at odds with the psychiatric community, which recognises gender dysphoria as real.

 

[tstorm823]

Ok, but you did say you wanted kids to go through an onerous, difficult-to-reverse bodily change (puberty) rather than having access to hormonal blockers, which are fully reversible and allow the person to make the "permanent" decisions later.

That's just science fiction. Time does not stop, no treatment is reversible.

OK, fine. So long as you also acknowledge that you're at odds with almost all of society on this (the concept of the self aside from the body, and the concept of gender, have also existed for millenia), and at odds with the psychiatric community, which recognises gender dysphoria as real.

I don't see it as a negative to be at odds with the psychiatric community. The term "gender identity" was coined by John Money. I'm content to be at odds with John Money.

 

[Silvanus]

That's just science fiction. Time does not stop, no treatment is reversible.

There are obviously degrees. Its far more easily reversed than puberty. You're happy to commit people to the much-less-easily-reversed path because it aligns with your idea of how people should be, and you want it to be difficult to diverge from that.

I don't see it as a negative to be at odds with the psychiatric community. The term "gender identity" was coined by John Money. I'm content to be at odds with John Money.

That term, yes. Gender distinct from biological sex has existed and been recognised for millenia.

And it's not necessarily a negative to disagree with the experts and researchers-- they're the ones with vastly more experience and knowledge, but you're entitled to your opinion.

It's certainly an absurdity to advocate that public policy should disregard the views of both experts and the community in question, and follow a fringe standard that you espouse-- one that you push for while expressing personal contempt for the people in question, which indicates your judgement is prejudiced anyway.

 

[tstorm823]

There are obviously degrees. Its far more easily reversed than puberty. You're happy to commit people to the much-less-easily-reversed path because it aligns with your idea of how people should be, and you want it to be difficult to diverge from that.

Time is not reversible. Even if we indulge the fantasy that drugging children with hormones has no adverse effects and if you stop by age 20 they'll be physically what they would have been otherwise, you cannot give back the years where they missed experiencing puberty with their peers. Time is not reversible, all decisions have permanence.

It's certainly an absurdity to advocate that public policy should disregard the views of both experts and the community in question, and follow a fringe standard that you espouse-- one that you push for while expressing personal contempt for the people in question, which indicates your judgement is prejudiced anyway.

You would never make this argument in a situation where you found yourself in disagreement with the status quo. "If the experts disagree with me, I shouldn't even state my opinion. That'd be absurd."

 

[Bedinsis]

Time is not reversible. Even if we indulge the fantasy that drugging children with hormones has no adverse effects and if you stop by age 20 they'll be physically what they would have been otherwise, you cannot give back the years where they missed experiencing puberty with their peers. Time is not reversible, all decisions have permanence.

This very argument is often used by trans people to argue for them being allowed to change their sex while a minor, to not miss out on their young years in their right body.

 

[Silvanus]

Time is not reversible. Even if we indulge the fantasy that drugging children with hormones has no adverse effects and if you stop by age 20 they'll be physically what they would have been otherwise, you cannot give back the years where they missed experiencing puberty with their peers. Time is not reversible, all decisions have permanence.

Degrees. You are still wanting them to go through a certain time-consuming hormonal process. The only difference is that yours is (almost always) triggered without outside involvement, and is also more permanent.

You would never make this argument in a situation where you found yourself in disagreement with the status quo. "If the experts disagree with me, I shouldn't even state my opinion. That'd be absurd."

This shows complete ignorance of positions I've taken throughout my entire time here. I'm frequently at odds with the "status quo"; I'm a political outlier on numerous topics, on which I comment frequently.

But if it came to a psychological/scientific question, or a question considering a group of people to which I do not belong, I wouldn't be so monumentally arrogant as to claim my position trumps the perspectives of both the community in question and the expert community. Not unless I had overwhelming evidence for it. Just reckoning I know better than them ain't it.

 

[Agema]

This very argument is often used by trans people to argue for them being allowed to change their sex while a minor, to not miss out on their young years in their right body.

The issue is simply that patients have to be aware of the consequences of their decisions for informed choice.

I think for male to female transition, puberty blockers can cause significant prolems for later vaginoplasty, but that's a choice people can make. I would suggest in general terms there also needs to be a lot of care when expecting minors to make decisions with long term consequences, although of course that is not unique to transgender issues.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Love how t brought up John Money like literally anybody supports John Money. Straight up "Hitler was vegetarian and loved dogs, I see you do too" argumentation.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I'm not interested in stopping people (adults) from changing their bodies, whether that makes them happy or not. Your logic is correct here, by my viewpoint an individual is fully and correctly themselves regardless of how they are or how they may change. The thing I take issue with is not the actions, but the beliefs underpinning them. There have been transvestites for basically human history and transsexuals for as long as medical science has allowed it, and they do them, sure. It is completely reasonable to desire to be something you aren't, and no matter what I think of someone's desires, people get to pursue their desires so long as they're not hurting anyone else. But that is not transgenderism. Transgenderism is not "I want to be a woman, let me change", it's "I am a woman, and my body is wrong". That's a different thing, and I don't think it is a coincidence that a segment of the population that believes they were born in the wrong body also commit suicide in high numbers.

Lmao, you actually expect people to think you'd be okay with "I want to be a woman, let me change"?

How gullible do you think we are? Here, if you *actually* gave a shit about the trans suicide rate:

New Study Shows Transgender People Who Receive Gender-Affirming Surgery are Significantly Less Likely to Experience Psychological Distress or Suicidal Ideation - Fenway Health

BOSTON, April 28, 2021—A new study published today in JAMA Surgery found that gender-affirming surgery is associated with improved mental health outcomes

fenwayhealth.org

 

[tstorm823]

Love how t brought up John Money like literally anybody supports John Money. Straight up "Hitler was vegetarian and loved dogs, I see you do too" argumentation.

Using the terms of John Money is not comparable to being vegetarian like Hitler, it'd be comparable to using the term "final solution" unironically.

How gullible do you think we are?

New Study Shows Transgender People Who Receive Gender-Affirming Surgery are Significantly Less Likely to Experience Psychological Distress or Suicidal Ideation - Fenway Health

BOSTON, April 28, 2021—A new study published today in JAMA Surgery found that gender-affirming surgery is associated with improved mental health outcomes

fenwayhealth.org

Pretty gullible. Your article spends a lot of time telling you that other studies did not find that relationship, and also this one is pulled from a survey conducted by a trans advocacy group, and even that group in their own report made no attempt to find a causal relationship between care and suicidal thoughts. Why would they not do that if their data showed a correlation? Because there's a bunch other variables in between. If you are impoverished, unemployed, and homeless, that will make you more likely to think about suicide and less likely to have medically transitioned. And a big one, in their data set, if you are younger, you are more likely to consider suicide, in the same sort of proportions that is true among the general population.

So then we have to ask, did they actually correct for all those other variables? Eeyup:

Association Between Gender-Affirming Surgeries and Mental Health Outcomes

This study evaluates associations between gender-affirming surgeries and mental health outcomes, including psychological distress, substance use, and suicide risk.

jamanetwork.com

" Compared with the control group, the exposure group had higher percentages of respondents who were older, employed, more educated, endorsed family rejection, reported having health insurance, and reported higher household income."

"After Bonferroni correction, there was no statistically significant association between gender-affirming surgeries and past-year suicide attempts"

Hmmm....

But if it came to a psychological/scientific question, or a question considering a group of people to which I do not belong, I wouldn't be so monumentally arrogant as to claim my position trumps the perspectives of both the community in question and the expert community. Not unless I had overwhelming evidence for it. Just reckoning I know better than them ain't it.

I highly doubt you have ever in your life thought "I don't agree with the experts on this, so I'm just never going to say anything about it."

This very argument is often used by trans people to argue for them being allowed to change their sex while a minor, to not miss out on their young years in their right body.

Right. It's a wash.

 

[Bedinsis]

So then we have to ask, did they actually correct for all those other variables? Eeyup:

Association Between Gender-Affirming Surgeries and Mental Health Outcomes

This study evaluates associations between gender-affirming surgeries and mental health outcomes, including psychological distress, substance use, and suicide risk.

jamanetwork.com

" Compared with the control group, the exposure group had higher percentages of respondents who were older, employed, more educated, endorsed family rejection, reported having health insurance, and reported higher household income."

"After Bonferroni correction, there was no statistically significant association between gender-affirming surgeries and past-year suicide attempts"

Hmmm....

They did however find a statistically significant reduction in the ideation of suicide, of considering suicide. I wish I could see how many of the subjects had responded that they had done a suicide attempt, since I am currently speculating that suicide attempts are (hopefully) rare enough that deriving a statistically significant result was an impossibility. It stands to reason that ideation gets much higher numbers since it's hard to attempt suicide without having first thought about committing suicide.

Right. It's a wash.

Merriam Webster suggest that idiom means "used to say that something is equal and that one side does not have an advantage". In other words, are you suggesting that both your argument and my counter were pointless?

 

[Silvanus]

I highly doubt you have ever in your life thought "I don't agree with the experts on this, so I'm just never going to say anything about it."

That's not what I'm expecting of you or anyone. But if a layperson is at odds with the expert community on a question, then that layperson should probably look into why rather than blindly insisting.

Especially when that question concerns a group of people that layperson has no experience of, and those that actually do have direct experience are also telling them they're mistaken.

Right. It's a wash.

So you're... conceding that the argument you used could be equally applied from the other side? That it counters your position just as well as it supports it?

Cool, I guess.

 

[tstorm823]

They did however find a statistically significant reduction in the ideation of suicide, of considering suicide. I wish I could see how many of the subjects had responded that they had done a suicide attempt, since I am currently speculating that suicide attempts are (hopefully) rare enough that deriving a statistically significant result was an impossibility. It stands to reason that ideation gets much higher numbers since it's hard to attempt suicide without having first thought about committing suicide.

Honestly, I'm surprised they even reached the point of finding statistically insignificant results considering what they did to the sample. For reasons that are not quite clear to me, they decided to only include people at least 2 years into treatment, and then compared to just people who said they wanted treatment but hadn't gotten it. That means even after correcting for other variables, they were still necessarily comparing people who had only just started considering transition to people several years into an ongoing process. The original questionaire had questions for both current age and age when the respondents first considered their gender atypical or when they first considered themselves trans, so we could deduce how long they may have wanted treatment. That would be an interesting variable to try to correct for, and get a like to like comparison of people who considered themselves trans for 4 years and got treatment against those who felt the same for the same amount of time and didn't get treatment. I would not be particularly surprised if that suicidal ideation fell off over time independent of treatment.

Merriam Webster suggest that idiom means "used to say that something is equal and that one side does not have an advantage". In other words, are you suggesting that both your argument and my counter were pointless?

I'm saying that the argument of the permanence of the decision is equally valid regardless of what you do. If you block puberty for years, you will never be the person you would have been otherwise. That statement is true in both directions..

That's not what I'm expecting of you or anyone. But if a layperson is at odds with the expert community on a question, then that layperson should probably look into why rather than blindly insisting.

Just to be clear, I'm currently delving quite deep into research that was presented to me. And due credit: I went into the US Transgender Survey, performed by the National Center for Transgender Equality, with heavy skepticism and a critical eye, and I have no complaints. Polls are difficult things to avoid bias in, but reading through the questionnaire they put together, they kept the questions objective and neutral even in a study that is inherently deeply personal. They largely reported their data transparently without overlaying their interpretations, outside of areas like family support systems where the correlation with negative outcomes is too obvious to ignore. It is, best as I can tell personally, darn good work. And then another group came in and p-hacked the hell out of the data to reach the conclusion that would inspire articles about the positive mental health effects of sex change surgeries.

So you're... conceding that the argument you used could be equally applied from the other side? That it counters your position just as well as it supports it?

Cool, I guess.

That is not a concession, that is my point. You've taken the position that one option is permanent and the other is reversible, and neither option is reversible. Decision permanence can be argued either direction, hence, it's a wash. Even if we pretend that employing literally the same procedure as the chemical castration (pioneered by John Money for use with pedophiles) actually has no long term effects, the years of what their life would have been are gone permanently, along with all the formative experiences that would have been.