What is the difference between gender and gender norms?

[stroopwafel]

1) Psychology is the science of how the mind works, and despite the relative difficulties in variability and unknowns, it's still a science.
2) Clinical psychology is the therapeutic application of psychology.
3) Psychiatry is a branch of medicine, rather than science: and that's where giving people drugs to control their behaviours come in (although in some countries clinical psychologists also have prescribing powers).

I'd say psychology is more about the attempt to explain human behavior and psychiatry is more about the attempt to explain psychological pathology. Both aren't really science. Any research done one the subject is constantly refuted and revised with most studies not even being able to be replicated. Psychology is best understood from an intuitive level but from a scientific level(which they have tried for many years now to give it more legitimacy) it's garbage. It's why there are so many hack psychologists as they may understand the 'science' but lack the intuition(and more importantly the life experience). Most studies on psychotropic pharmacological applications are done, no surprise, by the pharmaceutical industry and they are, no surprise, garbage as well. Though it fills their pockets with billions ofcourse which is the point.

I'd say the only form of psychology that has some scientific merit is evolutionary psychology as it actually tries to contextualize human behavior within the emergence of it's ancestral origin. Human behavior and it's underlying emotional framework as sociometer for adaptation of the (social) environment and the evolutionary pressures from which it originates. A lot can be distilled from that.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Indeed, they are not doing it to "be who they feel they should be" on a cognitive or feelings-based sense. They are just taking medicine to survive from an actual physical illness.

If someone for some reason needs to undergo gender surgery to save their live (some weird complication with someone born a hermaphrodite that requires surgery or something along those lines for example) that's completely different to someone just doing it to feel better about themselves. If there's an actual medical cause like a diagnosis of autoimmune disease that completely changes things.

Well then to use your definitions, if drugs for physical illness are fine then what about drugs for mental illnesses? If someone can take steroids so they can better fight infections, what about taking anti-depressants so they can better fight depression? Where does that fall on your scale of okay things?

I am against treating psychology like a hard science the same way you treat immunology. There's too many unknowns and there's too much over-medication or pathologization of the regular spectrum of human behaviors like with medicating willful children. Thanks to mistaking the two for equivalent.

A lot of these things often have unknown sideffects or a shopping list worth of them. I've even heard of anti-depressants making someone more suicidal when it's the opposite thing of what they should be doing.


In the context of this topic, I think the suggested cure is worse than the disease basically, on top of causing the societal ill of forcing people to live the lie of pretending it is not. Mass delusions are not good.

Cool, but not really the parameters of what we were talking about. Do you think someone taking drugs to help deal with their depression is somehow less of a person?

That's an odd question, since I never said anyone was less of a person to begin with, so obviously the answer is no.

People don't take anti-depressants to be "more of a person" like how people take testosterone to be "more like a man". That's an ass-pull if I've ever seen one lol. Unlike with being a man which has measured traits, being a person is not a scientifically defined thing that you can add or remove things from. It's a philosophical definition, completely divorced from these issues.

To me, self-aware consciousness is what makes someone a person. (yes I'm all for robot rights in my scifi stories )

It is within the parameters of being a person to be delusional about some things and our job as a society is to point that out and fix it, not to go along with it. It doesn't make you less of a person to need help. Nobody's an island.

I am against treating psychology like a hard science the same way you treat immunology. There's too many unknowns and there's too much over-medication or pathologization of the regular spectrum of human behaviors like with medicating willful children. Thanks to mistaking the two for equivalent.

Firstly, let's be clear on the differences between psychology, clinical psychology and psychiatry:

1) Psychology is the science of how the mind works, and despite the relative difficulties in variability and unknowns, it's still a science.
2) Clinical psychology is the therapeutic application of psychology.
3) Psychiatry is a branch of medicine, rather than science: and that's where giving people drugs to control their behaviours come in (although in some countries clinical psychologists also have prescribing powers).

A lot of these things often have unknown sideffects or a shopping list worth of them. I've even heard of anti-depressants making someone more suicidal when it's the opposite thing of what they should be doing.

This is an old suspicion, generally found unsupported by the evidence. Inasmuch as it may exist, it's because depression (in simple terms) involves both low mood but also low motivation, which to an extent operate through different brain pathways. Antidepressants can affect both pathways, the problem is that they may improve motivation more than mood, particularly in early usage. That motivation increase might include the motivation to carry out suicide, which before they weren't. But that's theory - like I said, it's unproven.

A lot of psychiatric medications - particularly antidepressants and certain stimulants like modafinil - are surely overprescribed. But this isn't really a problem with the field of psychology. It's got roots in society (why are so many people unhappy?) and a lot of it is about healthcare systems: that psychological treatment - which is theoretically the first line treatment - is undersupported in many countries, pressure from drugs companies pushing their wares, pressure on doctors (often from patients themselves), etc.

There is such a thing as aging gracefully. Viagra is like the male equivalent of botox and other beauty surgeries, it's done by people who want to pretend they're still a kid to the point it's unseemly.

We think Viagra (sildenafil as the generic name) and we think about randy Hugh Hefners still trying to get their rocks off at 70, but I'd suggest underneath is a lot of valuable treatment.

Some people may have impotency due to medical conditions (or the drugs they are taking to control medical symptoms), there's no reason they shouldn't have anti-impotence drugs to help them. In terms of age, potency does decline with age and it might seem trivial to the average 20- or 30-something, but actually there's no reason at all older men and their partners should have to do without sex. The partners thing is important, because in many cases it's not just men getting their jollies: a couple might want to have sex to have children. And for many couples, sex may also be important to their relationship, so it's reasonable to help the relationship instead of sneering at them for requiring some pharmacological assistance.

In the context of the post my reply was quoting, it was about medicating people with antidepressants, so that should inform you of which thing of the three items you list I'm referring to.

Your example of the medically impotent person is basically the exception that proved the rule, I'm fine with saying everyone except such cases is the one who I'm deeming unseemly. (same as the hermaphrodite gender surgery being actually useful example I provided earlier)

 

[stroopwafel]

Your example of the medically impotent person is basically the exception that proved the rule, I'm fine with saying everyone except such cases is the one who I'm deeming unseemly. (same as the hermaphrodite gender surgery being actually useful example I provided earlier)

'Medical impotence' doesn't really exist though. Age is a determining factor and something completely natural people just have to accept. In all other cases it's either psychological or physical. In younger people(like for example with obesity) it can be a risk factor for impending heart disease. In people that are in other ways unhealthy it can be vascular sclerosis, nerve damage or an endocrinological disorder. In other words 'impotence' is mostly just a symptom of an underlying health disorder.

For most younger people the reason is psychological though. Maybe they couldn't get it up once(completely normal) and became nervous and then, yeah, they can't get it up next time. Or maybe it's media brainwashing or some standard they think they need to live up to. Or simple insecurity. Lots of reasons that make a physically healthy man unable to relax and, ehm, rise to the occasion.

 

[Agema]

I'd say psychology is more about the attempt to explain human behavior and psychiatry is more about the attempt to explain psychological pathology. Both aren't really science. Any research done one the subject is constantly refuted and revised with most studies not even being able to be replicated. Psychology is best understood from an intuitive level but from a scientific level(which they have tried for many years now to give it more legitimacy) it's garbage. It's why there are so many hack psychologists as they may understand the 'science' but lack the intuition(and more importantly the life experience). Most studies on psychotropic pharmacological applications are done, no surprise, by the pharmaceutical industry and they are, no surprise, garbage as well. Though it fills their pockets with billions ofcourse which is the point.

Okay, just so you know here, I teach pharmacology and neuroscience at a UK medical school; my wife is a practicing clinical psychologist. We would both not agree with that assessment.

I would say if you want to talk about unknown variables and replicability, what you're accusing psychology of is true also of biomedical sciences. If you want to say biomedical sciences aren't science either, you go for it and let's see how far that goes.

https://www.pnas.org/content/115/11/2628
https://hub.jhu.edu/2017/11/07/fixing-replication-crisis-in-science/
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/replication-crisis-biomedicine-what-kind-crisis

Science is a series of accepted processes - in experimental terms, take a sample operating under certain conditions ("control"), and then compare that to a similar "test" group with a change in a set condition, then measure and compare. Empiricism in action. If psychology is following this process - and the vast majority of it is - then it is science. The fact that there are also unknowns at play is to an extent irrelevant. Replicability is usually a process issue (often insufficient n values for statistical security), not a fundamental flaw in the field itself.

In terms of intuituion, the whole point of science is to eliminate intuition. There may be an earthquake, and you can just intuit that there's an angry earth god shaking the ground to punish unbelievers. People's behaviour is manifestly not random - there's a whole load of cause and effect going on. Behaviour is however complex. Any science has had to stumble through incomplete or erroneous theories because the complexity of the system was not fully understood, be it physics, chemistry or anything else. Newtonian physics was wrong about space and time: it doesn't make Newton a charlatan and physics mere mysticism. Science peels back that ignorance, layer by layer. It should always be replacing what has been asserted before if it is making progress. And the less that is known and more complex the system, the faster the turnover is likely to be.

Intuition to some degree may be more applicable to therapy; however that is intuition informed by and builds on a large body of knowledge which has in large part been amassed by scientific study.

I'd say the only form of psychology that has some scientific merit is evolutionary psychology as it actually tries to contextualize human behavior within the emergence of it's ancestral origin. Human behavior and it's underlying emotional framework as sociometer for adaptation of the (social) environment and the evolutionary pressures from which it originates. A lot can be distilled from that.

Evolutionary psychology is a type of theoretical science, very different from the sort of empirical, experimental science (as above).

It's essentially some guy in a room reading evidence of how people behave (gleaned, of course, from the same psychological studies you are dismissing as not being science) and explaining behaviour in terms of effectively unprovable theories about how they think humans should behave according to some unprovable notions about how environment causes behaviour (which if based on anything at all, will be the sorts of psychological studies you're dismissing as not being science).

Thus I have quite a low opinion of evolutionary psychology: from my position as a scientist, it looks like the worst sort of breeding ground for presenting opinion rather than fact.

 

[Agema]

Your example of the medically impotent person is basically the exception that proved the rule, I'm fine with saying everyone except such cases is the one who I'm deeming unseemly. (same as the hermaphrodite gender surgery being actually useful example I provided earlier)

Why is it "unseemly" to have sex when in later life? I just don't really get that.

It seems to me you may as well argue old people shouldn't want to go on hikes if they've got a dicky knee or play pool if their eyesight degrades, despite either being treatable, because they should just grow old gracefully.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Your example of the medically impotent person is basically the exception that proved the rule, I'm fine with saying everyone except such cases is the one who I'm deeming unseemly. (same as the hermaphrodite gender surgery being actually useful example I provided earlier)

Why is it "unseemly" to have sex when in later life? I just don't really get that.

It seems to me you may as well argue old people shouldn't want to go on hikes if they've got a dicky knee or play pool if their eyesight degrades, despite either being treatable, because they should just grow old gracefully.

It's not unseemly to do anything you still can do, I'm talking about refusing to accept that this stage of your life is over, that's unseemly. If a 90 year old can still function as well as a kid, that's awesome. Medicating your way into something you can't do and pretending you can do it when you really can't though, that's unseemly.

Going on hikes at an old age is awesome, being carried on a pagoda up a mountain and pretending you went on a hike when you tell the story to your friends is unseemly.

 

[stroopwafel]

Science is a series of accepted processes - in experimental terms, take a sample operating under certain conditions ("control"), and then compare that to a similar "test" group with a change in a set condition, then measure and compare. Empiricism in action. If psychology is following this process - and the vast majority of it is - then it is science. The fact that there are also unknowns at play is to an extent irrelevant. Replicability is usually a process issue (often insufficient n values for statistical security), not a fundamental flaw in the field itself.

In terms of intuituion, the whole point of science is to eliminate intuition. There may be an earthquake, and you can just intuit that there's an angry earth god shaking the ground to punish unbelievers. People's behaviour is manifestly not random - there's a whole load of cause and effect going on. Behaviour is however complex. Any science has had to stumble through incomplete or erroneous theories because the complexity of the system was not fully understood, be it physics, chemistry or anything else. Newtonian physics was wrong about space and time: it doesn't make Newton a charlatan and physics mere mysticism. Science peels back that ignorance, layer by layer. It should always be replacing what has been asserted before if it is making progress. And the less that is known and more complex the system, the faster the turnover is likely to be.

Intuition to some degree may be more applicable to therapy; however that is intuition informed by and builds on a large body of knowledge which has in large part been amassed by scientific study.

That's the whole contradiction. In psychology you have a hypothesis that is not only value based but also subjectively observer sensitive with it's relative significance dependent on time and circumstance and as such intuitive by nature. It's not some natural objective phenomenon you try to research. Why do you think those that created some of psychology's most fundamental building blocks like 'ego', 'oedipus complex', 'subconsciousness', 'personality types' etc were intuitive thinkers by default? Because psychology is not a hard science that can be measured by math and numbers no matter how hard they try to make psychology more 'scientific' that way. Psychology just like philosophy and sociology belongs to the realm of humanities not science. Intuition will always be more important in understanding those processes than you would in eg physics with determining the speed of light in a vacuum being independent of the motion of all observers. When they try to give psychology 'scientific' legitimacy by enabling a mathematical approach it always falls flat as almost none of the conclusions can be reproduced even under equal conditions with test and control group parameters left intact.

In particular the studies done by the pharmaceutical industry to measure efficacy of their drugs(primarily the psychotropical variant) for therapeutic applications have been proven to be hogwash by independent researchers.

Evolutionary psychology is a type of theoretical science, very different from the sort of empirical, experimental science (as above).

It's essentially some guy in a room reading evidence of how people behave (gleaned, of course, from the same psychological studies you are dismissing as not being science) and explaining behaviour in terms of effectively unprovable theories about how they think humans should behave according to some unprovable notions about how environment causes behaviour (which if based on anything at all, will be the sorts of psychological studies you're dismissing as not being science).

Thus I have quite a low opinion of evolutionary psychology: from my position as a scientist, it looks like the worst sort of breeding ground for presenting opinion rather than fact.

No it doesn't. It's regular psychology that tries to prescribe how humans should behave but it's evolutionary psychology that tries to explore the conditions and selective pressure from which human behavior and emotion originates in the first place. That already gives it more scientific merit.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's not unseemly to do anything you still can do, I'm talking about refusing to accept that this stage of your life is over, that's unseemly. If a 90 year old can still function as well as a kid, that's awesome. Medicating your way into something you can't do and pretending you can do it when you really can't though, that's unseemly.

Going on hikes at an old age is awesome, being carried on a pagoda up a mountain and pretending you went on a hike when you tell the story to your friends is unseemly.

What has that got to do with viagra? It's not something that helps you lie about your sex life better.

 

[happyninja42]

Going on hikes at an old age is awesome, being carried on a pagoda up a mountain and pretending you went on a hike when you tell the story to your friends is unseemly.

That's a terrible analogy, because the person is still doing all the "hiking." For your analogy to make any sense, it would have to involve a team of people in the bedroom, providing manual thrusting assistance on the man using the viagra. And then the man brags about being a stallion who could thrust all night, ignoring the team of people helping him. Which is just stupid, just like this analogy.

But, to make your terrible analogy make more sense, it would be better to say it's like someone who has a disability, using a prosthetic to allow them to continue hiking up the mountain, after they've reached a point where their sole physical, biological capability is no longer enough. They are still the person doing all the grunting and the sweating, they just have some help from science to keep performing.

 

[Silvanus]

Most effective at doing what though?

Improving quality of life, by most measures that have been tested.

I think you completely missed where I was going with this. A prosthetic arm is not an arm, it's a prosthetic arm. It may be way cooler than a regular arm (look at Sekiro, that thing seems to have no motion restrictions at all and also can shoot fire!) but it's never gonna be an arm. Depending on your level of technology or how sci-fi you go about it, it may be better or worse than an arm, but it'll always ultimately be something external to the being that it is attached to. A tool, not a part of them like their normal arm. This is why people with prosthetics still feel phantom pain despite having a new arm now, they still fill the sensation of their missing arm. If your theory was correct there'd be no missing arm to feel the pain of after attaching the prosthetic.

I don't see how this is meaningful to the debate at all. Something being introduced later to an organism-- be it a prosthetic, or a transplanted organ-- does not somehow delegitimise it.

It performs the function it is intended to, and feels right to the user. Ditto a transplanted organ. To quibble that its not a "true" arm-- as if one's state at birth is somehow sacred-- seems meaningless.

Similarly, just cause you took testosterone, you're not magically a man all of a sudden, you just have a mech arm that makes you function like you feel that you should. I'm cool with being accepting about that, I just don't want to deceptively pretend that that's usual or common or that it's the same with the common vernacular usage of "being a man".

Why on earth is "usual or common" relevant?

Testosterone does not "magically" do anything; it amends body morphology to be more in line with the individual's sense of self. It's the gender identity people are asking others to respect, not a chemical.

 

[Worgen]

Since some people seem to be pretty confused about this: This is what it means to be a man. Hope that clears everything up.

No this is what it means to be a man. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjYjUdMsf00]

 

[Saelune]

Your example of the medically impotent person is basically the exception that proved the rule, I'm fine with saying everyone except such cases is the one who I'm deeming unseemly. (same as the hermaphrodite gender surgery being actually useful example I provided earlier)

Why is it "unseemly" to have sex when in later life? I just don't really get that.

It seems to me you may as well argue old people shouldn't want to go on hikes if they've got a dicky knee or play pool if their eyesight degrades, despite either being treatable, because they should just grow old gracefully.

It's not unseemly to do anything you still can do, I'm talking about refusing to accept that this stage of your life is over, that's unseemly. If a 90 year old can still function as well as a kid, that's awesome. Medicating your way into something you can't do and pretending you can do it when you really can't though, that's unseemly.

Going on hikes at an old age is awesome, being carried on a pagoda up a mountain and pretending you went on a hike when you tell the story to your friends is unseemly.

You keep saying things that almost sound like you get it, then you make analogies like this, and at this point I think you just want to find an excuse to dislike trans people.

What burden is it on you if trans people are happy?

 

[Kwak]

I'd say psychology is more about the attempt to explain human behavior and psychiatry is more about the attempt to explain psychological pathology. Both aren't really science. Any research done one the subject is constantly refuted and revised with most studies not even being able to be replicated.

That's literally what science is.

 

[happyninja42]

Most effective at doing what though?

Improving quality of life, by most measures that have been tested.

I think you completely missed where I was going with this. A prosthetic arm is not an arm, it's a prosthetic arm. It may be way cooler than a regular arm (look at Sekiro, that thing seems to have no motion restrictions at all and also can shoot fire!) but it's never gonna be an arm. Depending on your level of technology or how sci-fi you go about it, it may be better or worse than an arm, but it'll always ultimately be something external to the being that it is attached to. A tool, not a part of them like their normal arm. This is why people with prosthetics still feel phantom pain despite having a new arm now, they still fill the sensation of their missing arm. If your theory was correct there'd be no missing arm to feel the pain of after attaching the prosthetic.

I don't see how this is meaningful to the debate at all. Something being introduced later to an organism-- be it a prosthetic, or a transplanted organ-- does not somehow delegitimise it.

It performs the function it is intended to, and feels right to the user. Ditto a transplanted organ. To quibble that its not a "true" arm-- as if one's state at birth is somehow sacred-- seems meaningless.

Not to mention that the idea of it being a separate thing is simply a limitation of technology. If the tech is developed, to provide full sensory replacement of a limb, how is that not their limb at that point? If it hurts when burned, feels cool when exposed to cold, and all the other sensations, to the point that the human brain doesn't see any distinction, then for all practical purposes it IS their arm now. The whole issue with Phantom Limb is that they are no longer receiving the neural input from the limb. But I've seen articles about treatments that either provide direct neural stimuls via electrodes, or just optically tricking the brain (via mirrors "duplicating" limbs) that help alleviate the PL symptoms. So it's not like it's something beyond the capability to overcome.

I mean shit, this logic of "if it's not your body, it's crap and so are you" means EVERYONE who wears glasses are apparently no longer human, and a shame to themselves or whatever crap idea the guy first posted, because they are using something that isn't of their body to perform in a way above what they can manage on their own biology.

 

[Agema]

That's the whole contradiction. In psychology you have a hypothesis that is not only value based but also subjectively observer sensitive with it's relative significance dependent on time and circumstance and as such intuitive by nature. It's not some natural objective phenomenon you try to research.

And I might point out here, what actually makes this different from other science? What is a cell, or a star, or an alcohol, except what we have chosen to define it as through social constructionism? Are you going to argue that "anger" doesn't really exist, for instance?

From what you are saying here, I think you need to define what you mean by "intuition", because I'm not sure you're using it as I would.

Why do you think those that created some of psychology's most fundamental building blocks like 'ego', 'oedipus complex', 'subconsciousness', 'personality types' etc were intuitive thinkers by default? Because psychology is not a hard science that can be measured by math and numbers no matter how hard they try to make psychology more 'scientific' that way.

I'm not sure what you mean by "intuitive thinker" here. To take Jung, for instance - surely one of the grandfathers of psychology - Jung believed intuition was a form of irrationality, and incompatible with analysis. I doubt for a minute he viewed himself as an intuitive thinker. But I note "hard science"... let's come back to that later.

Psychology just like philosophy and sociology belongs to the realm of humanities not science.

I think you'd describe sociology and psychology as "social sciences"; these are effectively distinct from humanities.

Intuition will always be more important in understanding those processes than you would in eg physics with determining the speed of light in a vacuum being independent of the motion of all observers. When they try to give psychology 'scientific' legitimacy by enabling a mathematical approach it always falls flat as almost none of the conclusions can be reproduced even under equal conditions with test and control group parameters left intact.

I disagree. The difference is that it is harder to maintain exactly the same characteristics between different groups. That's not the same thing as you are stating.

In particular the studies done by the pharmaceutical industry to measure efficacy of their drugs(primarily the psychotropical variant) for therapeutic applications have been proven to be hogwash by independent researchers.

Some clinical trials are good, some are okay, some are bad, and some are fraudulent, like any science. Some are verified by independent researchers, others are not. Let's bear in mind that pharmaceutical companies frequently have a considerable motivation to get their studies right, because they increasingly face the threat of a gigantic lawsuit if they don't. Finally, what you have said has no particular relevance to psychoactive drugs that couldn't be said of plenty of other types of drugs.

No it doesn't. It's regular psychology that tries to prescribe how humans should behave but it's evolutionary psychology that tries to explore the conditions and selective pressure from which human behavior and emotion originates in the first place. That already gives it more scientific merit.

Firstly, I would be absolutely astonished if you are a scientist for you to come out with that. It's like saying astrology is more scientific than tarot because it is based on actual real stars in the sky rather than words on cards.

* * *

I think I do see what you are getting at: I think you're confusing "science" to mean "natural sciences".

 

[Agema]

It's not unseemly to do anything you still can do, I'm talking about refusing to accept that this stage of your life is over, that's unseemly. If a 90 year old can still function as well as a kid, that's awesome. Medicating your way into something you can't do and pretending you can do it when you really can't though, that's unseemly.

Going on hikes at an old age is awesome, being carried on a pagoda up a mountain and pretending you went on a hike when you tell the story to your friends is unseemly.

The comparison would not be that you're being carried up a mountain. The comparison would be that someone sticks a metal pin in your knee to enable you to walk up the mountain yourself.

So apply the same logic: why should you get that knee op? Just accept you are old and should get a disabled parking badge instead of having ambitions to walk places.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Indeed, they are not doing it to "be who they feel they should be" on a cognitive or feelings-based sense. They are just taking medicine to survive from an actual physical illness.

If someone for some reason needs to undergo gender surgery to save their live (some weird complication with someone born a hermaphrodite that requires surgery or something along those lines for example) that's completely different to someone just doing it to feel better about themselves. If there's an actual medical cause like a diagnosis of autoimmune disease that completely changes things.

Well then to use your definitions, if drugs for physical illness are fine then what about drugs for mental illnesses? If someone can take steroids so they can better fight infections, what about taking anti-depressants so they can better fight depression? Where does that fall on your scale of okay things?

I am against treating psychology like a hard science the same way you treat immunology. There's too many unknowns and there's too much over-medication or pathologization of the regular spectrum of human behaviors like with medicating willful children. Thanks to mistaking the two for equivalent.

A lot of these things often have unknown sideffects or a shopping list worth of them. I've even heard of anti-depressants making someone more suicidal when it's the opposite thing of what they should be doing.


In the context of this topic, I think the suggested cure is worse than the disease basically, on top of causing the societal ill of forcing people to live the lie of pretending it is not. Mass delusions are not good.

Cool, but not really the parameters of what we were talking about. Do you think someone taking drugs to help deal with their depression is somehow less of a person?

That's an odd question, since I never said anyone was less of a person to begin with, so obviously the answer is no.

Actually you did. Thats why I've been posing you these questions. Your original statement determined that if you needed chemicals to be a man, you were not a man. Your assertion is, therefore, that needing drugs to be a thing means you are clearly not that thing. That is the crux of the argument you are putting forward. And yet when I start testing that argument, you start finding it distasteful. Somewhat telling, no?

People don't take anti-depressants to be "more of a person" like how people take testosterone to be "more like a man". That's an ass-pull if I've ever seen one lol. Unlike with being a man which has measured traits, being a person is not a scientifically defined thing that you can add or remove things from. It's a philosophical definition, completely divorced from these issues.

To me, self-aware consciousness is what makes someone a person. (yes I'm all for robot rights in my scifi stories )

Honestly I'd say "being a man" is far more a nebulous question than being a person, especially given your simple definition of being a person. I'm going to have to point out that you say there's measured traits but don't actually list any.

It is within the parameters of being a person to be delusional about some things and our job as a society is to point that out and fix it, not to go along with it. It doesn't make you less of a person to need help. Nobody's an island.

But what exactly makes trans folk delusional as opposed to the people needing help you say it is society's job to then help?

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Indeed, they are not doing it to "be who they feel they should be" on a cognitive or feelings-based sense. They are just taking medicine to survive from an actual physical illness.

If someone for some reason needs to undergo gender surgery to save their live (some weird complication with someone born a hermaphrodite that requires surgery or something along those lines for example) that's completely different to someone just doing it to feel better about themselves. If there's an actual medical cause like a diagnosis of autoimmune disease that completely changes things.

Well then to use your definitions, if drugs for physical illness are fine then what about drugs for mental illnesses? If someone can take steroids so they can better fight infections, what about taking anti-depressants so they can better fight depression? Where does that fall on your scale of okay things?

I am against treating psychology like a hard science the same way you treat immunology. There's too many unknowns and there's too much over-medication or pathologization of the regular spectrum of human behaviors like with medicating willful children. Thanks to mistaking the two for equivalent.

A lot of these things often have unknown sideffects or a shopping list worth of them. I've even heard of anti-depressants making someone more suicidal when it's the opposite thing of what they should be doing.


In the context of this topic, I think the suggested cure is worse than the disease basically, on top of causing the societal ill of forcing people to live the lie of pretending it is not. Mass delusions are not good.

Cool, but not really the parameters of what we were talking about. Do you think someone taking drugs to help deal with their depression is somehow less of a person?

That's an odd question, since I never said anyone was less of a person to begin with, so obviously the answer is no.

Actually you did. Thats why I've been posing you these questions. Your original statement determined that if you needed chemicals to be a man, you were not a man. Your assertion is, therefore, that needing drugs to be a thing means you are clearly not that thing. That is the crux of the argument you are putting forward. And yet when I start testing that argument, you start finding it distasteful. Somewhat telling, no?

People don't take anti-depressants to be "more of a person" like how people take testosterone to be "more like a man". That's an ass-pull if I've ever seen one lol. Unlike with being a man which has measured traits, being a person is not a scientifically defined thing that you can add or remove things from. It's a philosophical definition, completely divorced from these issues.

To me, self-aware consciousness is what makes someone a person. (yes I'm all for robot rights in my scifi stories )

Honestly I'd say "being a man" is far more a nebulous question than being a person, especially given your simple definition of being a person. I'm going to have to point out that you say there's measured traits but don't actually list any.

It is within the parameters of being a person to be delusional about some things and our job as a society is to point that out and fix it, not to go along with it. It doesn't make you less of a person to need help. Nobody's an island.

But what exactly makes trans folk delusional as opposed to the people needing help you say it is society's job to then help?

You are going on as though it's established that people who take psych meds are taking them to be "more of a person" which is something that has yet to be established, something which I certainly never claimed. They're taking them to function better but a person is a person irrespective of their capacity to function. .You don't stop being a person if you're too sad all of a sudden. That implication sounds completely insane to me. How sad you are is irrelevant to whether you're a person or not, completely

The way to help, according to my estimate, is to first correctly identify the problem first and foremost. Using testosterone as a way to help them is incorrect, hence, isn't actual help. You can disagree with what constitutes help without being against helping someone.

Your example of the medically impotent person is basically the exception that proved the rule, I'm fine with saying everyone except such cases is the one who I'm deeming unseemly. (same as the hermaphrodite gender surgery being actually useful example I provided earlier)

Why is it "unseemly" to have sex when in later life? I just don't really get that.

It seems to me you may as well argue old people shouldn't want to go on hikes if they've got a dicky knee or play pool if their eyesight degrades, despite either being treatable, because they should just grow old gracefully.

It's not unseemly to do anything you still can do, I'm talking about refusing to accept that this stage of your life is over, that's unseemly. If a 90 year old can still function as well as a kid, that's awesome. Medicating your way into something you can't do and pretending you can do it when you really can't though, that's unseemly.

Going on hikes at an old age is awesome, being carried on a pagoda up a mountain and pretending you went on a hike when you tell the story to your friends is unseemly.

You keep saying things that almost sound like you get it, then you make analogies like this, and at this point I think you just want to find an excuse to dislike trans people.

What burden is it on you if trans people are happy?

I don't like or dislike any entire groups of people. I assure you, I can think someone's delusional and still like them plenty due to other traits they can possess that offset that one negative. It depends on the person.


In any case, being happy is fine and all but when society is forced to say something that most people don't truly think is true but they have to say it to not come off as offensive and get fired from their jobs, that's a bad direction. Your happiness shouldn't hinge on overall society accepting you. Nobody should have control of society to the degree where it can compel it to accept them. Your happiness is also going to be more lasting if it is less dependent on factors outside of your control, and trust me, you can't control society tightly enough to prevent the ugly over-compensation when the pendulum swings the other way, so in fact trying to see where I'm coming from and finding happiness from an inward source and not from an external one makes the most sense here.

Most effective at doing what though?

Improving quality of life, by most measures that have been tested.

I think you completely missed where I was going with this. A prosthetic arm is not an arm, it's a prosthetic arm. It may be way cooler than a regular arm (look at Sekiro, that thing seems to have no motion restrictions at all and also can shoot fire!) but it's never gonna be an arm. Depending on your level of technology or how sci-fi you go about it, it may be better or worse than an arm, but it'll always ultimately be something external to the being that it is attached to. A tool, not a part of them like their normal arm. This is why people with prosthetics still feel phantom pain despite having a new arm now, they still fill the sensation of their missing arm. If your theory was correct there'd be no missing arm to feel the pain of after attaching the prosthetic.

I don't see how this is meaningful to the debate at all. Something being introduced later to an organism-- be it a prosthetic, or a transplanted organ-- does not somehow delegitimise it.

It performs the function it is intended to, and feels right to the user. Ditto a transplanted organ. To quibble that its not a "true" arm-- as if one's state at birth is somehow sacred-- seems meaningless.

Similarly, just cause you took testosterone, you're not magically a man all of a sudden, you just have a mech arm that makes you function like you feel that you should. I'm cool with being accepting about that, I just don't want to deceptively pretend that that's usual or common or that it's the same with the common vernacular usage of "being a man".

Why on earth is "usual or common" relevant?

Testosterone does not "magically" do anything; it amends body morphology to be more in line with the individual's sense of self. It's the gender identity people are asking others to respect, not a chemical.

It's not illegitimate, it's just different, and its own thing. You can't say it's not different just as much as you can't say it's illegitimate.

I respect the gender identity already, which is why I asked why does a man need to take testosterone, cause I'm one and I've never felt the need. I'm literally treating them like any other dude who one day up and decided to take testosterone, pointing out how that's weird since he's already a dude.

If you want to claim that being a gender identity is all about how you feel, my advice here is that instead of taking harmful or otherwise unnatural medical treatments that you don't need to be healthy, you work on your mentality and accepting yourself. You really don't need to look in any specific way if you're self-confident about who you are enough. Pretending that these treatments will make you more of a man when it's all about how you feel anyhow is also irrational. Either it's about how you feel or it's about your physical makeup. If it's just your physical makeup then you should feel like a girl if your body's a girl's already, right? And if it's not about your physical makeup, then why bother altering it at great expense and despite the potential health risks?

 

[Saelune]

Your example of the medically impotent person is basically the exception that proved the rule, I'm fine with saying everyone except such cases is the one who I'm deeming unseemly. (same as the hermaphrodite gender surgery being actually useful example I provided earlier)

Why is it "unseemly" to have sex when in later life? I just don't really get that.

It seems to me you may as well argue old people shouldn't want to go on hikes if they've got a dicky knee or play pool if their eyesight degrades, despite either being treatable, because they should just grow old gracefully.

It's not unseemly to do anything you still can do, I'm talking about refusing to accept that this stage of your life is over, that's unseemly. If a 90 year old can still function as well as a kid, that's awesome. Medicating your way into something you can't do and pretending you can do it when you really can't though, that's unseemly.

Going on hikes at an old age is awesome, being carried on a pagoda up a mountain and pretending you went on a hike when you tell the story to your friends is unseemly.

You keep saying things that almost sound like you get it, then you make analogies like this, and at this point I think you just want to find an excuse to dislike trans people.

What burden is it on you if trans people are happy?

I don't like or dislike any entire groups of people. I assure you, I can think someone's delusional and still like them plenty due to other traits they can possess that offset that one negative. It depends on the person.


In any case, being happy is fine and all but when society is forced to say something that most people don't truly think is true but they have to say it to not come off as offensive and get fired from their jobs, that's a bad direction. Your happiness shouldn't hinge on overall society accepting you. Nobody should have control of society to the degree where it can compel it to accept them. Your happiness is also going to be more lasting if it is less dependent on factors outside of your control, and trust me, you can't control society tightly enough to prevent the ugly over-compensation when the pendulum swings the other way, so in fact trying to see where I'm coming from and finding happiness from an inward source and not from an external one makes the most sense here.

Whats your definition of 'entire groups of people'? Cause I hate all rapists, every single one. And its not really a matter of like or dislike when you're advocating against people's happiness. Being friendly means little when you oppose their happiness.

Being an asshole should be a fire-able offence. There is more than misgendering that qualifies someone as a jerk. I think knowingly calling someone the wrong name even after they correct you a million times is a dick move. Not even calling 'Amy' Arnold, but calling Jeff 'John' when his name isnt John.

Lets stop pretending society actually gives a fuck about LGBT people to the point of firing people left and right for abusing LGBT people, cause guess what! You're more likely to be fired for BEING LGBT than for disrespecting LGBT people.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Your example of the medically impotent person is basically the exception that proved the rule, I'm fine with saying everyone except such cases is the one who I'm deeming unseemly. (same as the hermaphrodite gender surgery being actually useful example I provided earlier)

Why is it "unseemly" to have sex when in later life? I just don't really get that.

It seems to me you may as well argue old people shouldn't want to go on hikes if they've got a dicky knee or play pool if their eyesight degrades, despite either being treatable, because they should just grow old gracefully.

It's not unseemly to do anything you still can do, I'm talking about refusing to accept that this stage of your life is over, that's unseemly. If a 90 year old can still function as well as a kid, that's awesome. Medicating your way into something you can't do and pretending you can do it when you really can't though, that's unseemly.

Going on hikes at an old age is awesome, being carried on a pagoda up a mountain and pretending you went on a hike when you tell the story to your friends is unseemly.

You keep saying things that almost sound like you get it, then you make analogies like this, and at this point I think you just want to find an excuse to dislike trans people.

What burden is it on you if trans people are happy?

I don't like or dislike any entire groups of people. I assure you, I can think someone's delusional and still like them plenty due to other traits they can possess that offset that one negative. It depends on the person.


In any case, being happy is fine and all but when society is forced to say something that most people don't truly think is true but they have to say it to not come off as offensive and get fired from their jobs, that's a bad direction. Your happiness shouldn't hinge on overall society accepting you. Nobody should have control of society to the degree where it can compel it to accept them. Your happiness is also going to be more lasting if it is less dependent on factors outside of your control, and trust me, you can't control society tightly enough to prevent the ugly over-compensation when the pendulum swings the other way, so in fact trying to see where I'm coming from and finding happiness from an inward source and not from an external one makes the most sense here.

Whats your definition of 'entire groups of people'? Cause I hate all rapists, every single one. And its not really a matter of like or dislike when you're advocating against people's happiness. Being friendly means little when you oppose their happiness.

Being an asshole should be a fire-able offence. There is more than misgendering that qualifies someone as a jerk. I think knowingly calling someone the wrong name even after they correct you a million times is a dick move. Not even calling 'Amy' Arnold, but calling Jeff 'John' when his name isnt John.

Lets stop pretending society actually gives a fuck about LGBT people to the point of firing people left and right for abusing LGBT people, cause guess what! You're more likely to be fired for BEING LGBT than for disrespecting LGBT people.

I generally don't group people but what I was referring to there was in the sense of group identity politics. I prefer to see people as individuals. Also as for hating criminals, I'm of the "every saint had a past, every sinner has a future" mentality so I don't hate anyone.


Being an asshole in some sort of customer service job or a field that relies on word of mouth or popularity? Sure, that's fireable. But if you're an astronaut or a brain surgeon or something and you are the best person for a job that people's lives depend on, hellll no. That's anti-progress and retards humanity as a whole when you waste such talent because of the feelings of much less useful people. Also in some jobs being an asshole is a benefit. In wrestling there's the "heel" fighter whose job is to be unlikable and offensive to give people someone to cheer against.

And you'd be surprised at what some people have gotten fired over lol. Either way, I'm not saying firing someone for being in that group is ok either. Both are wrong.