What's Makes A Man/Woman?

[ScaredIndie]

Well to answer op and not the train wreck that followed, I think men and women are divided into groups by generalities and or common biological factors neither of these groupings (being as broad as they are) are necessarily applicable to an individual and anyone trying to mesh fully with these generalizations is going to find a lot of contradictions and misery.

Don't try to be anything but the best version of who you happen to be, what ever that means to you.

 

[renegade7]

Except when they aren't. The problem with this biological argument is that it can't account for counter-examples. For instance, if women evolved to nurture children, then why do fewer women than men want children: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/actually-men-have-always-wanted-children-more-than-women/article23681771/?arc404=true and furthermore, why do so many women lack interest in having children at all, and why is interest in having children so dependent on social factors like education and wealth? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_childlessness#Statistics_and_research.

Evolution is about the survival of the species not the individual.

Right, and?

If 80% of the population reproduce(though I believe it's 50-60% for men) than that is an exceptionally high success rate.

Modern humans, unlike animals, do not face practical barriers to reproduction in the modern world. If you really wanted to reproduce it would be very easy to do so, and it's becoming easier with each passing year. So why is the number of individuals interested in reproducing steadily decreasing?

As for only 50-60% of men having children, I'm having trouble finding those statistics.

Humans are hardwired to act in ways that are evolutionary advantageous to them and even if individuals don't 'succeed'(either voluntarily or involuntarily) than that hardly threatens the population.

Indeed they are, but evolution is more complicated than "produce as many offspring as possible" especially with animals like humans that require vast amount of time and resources to reproduce and in which reproduction carries significant risks. It turns out that we do not naturally desire to reproduce as part of a mechanism to keep us from wasting resources by mating with potentially inferior partners. So the evolutionary trick is that that inhibition gets turned off by sufficient sexual arousal, which in nature would ideally indicate that you're with a suitable mate. http://theconversation.com/maternal-instinct-and-biology-evolution-ensures-we-want-sex-not-babies-46622

With this perspective in mind, it's pretty easy to see the actual reason why men are more likely to want children: the cost of reproduction is lower for males than for females.

 

[RedRockRun]

I don't know. Would you consider an average 1/5 chance to attempt to kill yourself trouble (Haas et al., 2014) Also yes, they do need to be cured of it because it's a biological disorder. You speak of a hostile community, but I consider the most harmful people to be those who enable the delusions of people who say that they are the opposite gender when, as I first stated, there are studies available to the public which conclude that no matter what transgender people do and what kind of environment they are in, the suicide rates remain fairly constant on average. In other words, a transgender person brought up in an accepting family with accepting friends who has gender reassignment and hormone therapy will still have around a 1/5 chance of attempting suicide (Haas et al., 2014).

I dunno, I figure a lifetime of other people saying "it doesn't matter what the science says, you're still delusional and need to be cured" might have something to do with that.

Also, risking assault andtime you need to use the restroom. Can't imagine how psychologically taxing that it.

Refer to study I linked which says that people who don't experience harassment still have a higher probability of having mental disorders. Read my post.

 

[Trunkage]

I remember seeing a study that for men its only like 20%. Also, it was suggested from that study, that monogamy is far more beneficial for males as it lets more males find a partner, where before most didn't (at least to procreate)

I hope I'm not stepping on any toes but it's well known women are the choosier sex. Marriage could indeed traditionally be considered a social construct for more men to reproduce than the 20% that (attractive and fertile) women desire. I think intuitively people know things are a certain way even if they can't pinpoint the exact reasons. Evolutionary speaking it makes sense women are choosier as they have a nine month gestation period whereas a man has no such consequence. Humans are mostly selected on immune system as this provides the highest survival rate for offspring(espescially when these systems adapted during the pleistocene) so attraction is based on the outward signs and behavioral traits of genetic fitness and healthy immunology. Since women pay a heavier price when they invest wrongly it makes sense that they are pickier in their mating strategy.

As with all things to do with this, tends to needs to be added. i.e. woman tends to be chooiser. (This could cover the whole thread not just your point. Personally, I think this leads to more arguments than what is actually said.)
Another point that not disagreeing with you: Marriage, before Roman times, made sure not many men could procreate. Usually wealthy and powerful people had way more than the average. But what do you do with these men that aren't procreating? One thing could be send to war, since they naturally a bit more aggressive than females. While I'm not one to deny that there are physical difference between the sexes, I would note that social constructs have reinforced natural attributes. I think Non-monogamous marriage reinforces aggression and killing as a male trait, especially when you think about the heroes from an army would have been given women to marry.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

That being said, I believe that it should be treated as a mental illness and not normalized, as the studies I have read suggest high rates of suicidality in transgender people regardless of background or personal experience. In other words, suicide rates are not mitigated by gender reassignment and hormone therapy.

It is a mystery to me why mental health is still a taboo subject in this day and age of legal gay marriage - more so when it's seen as socially acceptable for children to undergo gender reassignment.

OP, I suggest you go to Psychology Today and look for a therapist who has experience helping people with gender dysphoria and later, a psychologist who can administer a psychological evaluation to determine a diagnosis which will aid a psychiatrist in prescribing medication.

The statistics show that you have at least a 1/5 chance of attempting suicide, and though I don't know you, I do not wish to see you add to that statistic.

You also don't know what you're talking about. After all, the studies that are there have also said gender reassignment and HRT is effective treatment of gender dysphoria to trans people that want it. More conclusively, it is the social implications when one comes out that heighten their instances of suicidal ideation. In the same way the suicide rate spikes during periods of high familial rejection.

But then again, no one would say being gay makes you inherently suicidal. It might have something to do with an abusive parent or colleagues, or social rejection from former friends...

For starters, 90% of depression cannot be appropriately treated with medication. It requires a plethora of psychological services depending on the underlying triggers or cause. Such as PTSD in soldiers, you can't throw drugs at them to make them better. Hence why the cost of rehabilitating soldiers spirals.

Drugs are inevitably cheaper than paying psychologists to run through CBT or IPT. Moreover, many of the triggers for high suicide rates amongst soldiers involves things like banks foreclosing on homes while on duty, break up of marriages, returning to towns with little psychological resources to implement. After all, 70% of soldiers came from poorer, smaller towns and cities like in the MidWest.

Not from large urban communities.

But then again, no one would say being a soldier makes you inherently suicidal.

People who run your argument seem to neglect social rejection and isolation have reportedly caused suicide since time immemorial, and by pretending like the problem has specifically to do with trans people inherently it's almost as if people can dust their hands off from pretending socialor environmental triggers for depression do not exist.

After all, 90% of depression cases is environmental and social in origin. Those 90% of depression sufferers, if left untreated (simply throwing drugs at them), have a high rate of suicide as well. If you are one of those non-melancholia depression sufferers (and you overwhelmingly are likely to be), your doctor simply throwing drugs at you isn't helping you.

That's not to say drugs can't ease the problem, but for the grand majority of depression sufferers drugs alone is a crutch without systematic behaviour review. Rather you start feeling as if it is the status quo. That it can't be treated, but in truth they aren't providing appropriate services to treat the problem to begin with.

Speaking from personal experience, the only time I wanted to kill myself as a trans person was when I was thrown out on the street at 16 for coming out to my parents. Not since then when I found myself employment, and since lead a charmed life of financial and academic success. Of course, my example of a charmed existence is not the status quo of your average person, much less trans people. Who are overwhelmingly more likely to suffer crippling poverty and social rejection.

And if you speak to any trans person somewhere. When you come out and start transitioning is rife with discord. You lose friends, you lose contact with family, and you lose employment ... youget treated like garbage in hospitals, and yes even in Australia and other places of the supposedly enlightened West... not just the U.S. Being trans doesn't make for an easy life, and the statistics show that regardless of where you are. There is also plenty of conclusive studies to show things like financial stress have a significant statistical correlation to depression and suicide.

I can attest to that well enough. After all, being trans and yet not once having suffered depression and suicidal ideation barring one event in life.

That says a lot, don't you think? Miraculously that cleared up when I had a job, and people were telling me I was good at it. When I could build a savings pool. Use that to further invest, go into academia... it's amazing what social inclusion and economic security can do to improve one's sense of empowerment and belief that one can thrive.

Now one can write that off as me simply being amazing, but a more honest interrogation of events is a combination of luck, the right support at the right time, and the right people I could call friends and associates. Something many times less 'lucky' than if I wasn't trans.

(edit)You're talking about a group of people who are over three times more likely to be living under the poverty line in the U.S. And they're people from a multiplicity of socioeconomic levels to begin with. Given such an outrageous degree of iniquity and hardship, do you honestly expect it to be merely a case of financial stress or no real stressors at all?

Or is it fundamentally more likely that the level of iniquity suffered by trans people is directly relevant to the degree of their likely exposure of multiple forms of iniquity in interpersonal relations in general?

After all, I came from a wealthy parental background ... still wanted to kill myself when people threw me out on the street. How exactly do you think that will be written up if I became a statistic? I'msure someone like you would pretend that me in those statistics is 'evidence' that trans people are somehow inherently suicidal despite their apparent socioeconomic background.

Regardless of the realities of looking at the lives of trans people and the reasons they commit suicide.

Rich people get depressed and sometimes want to commit suicide, it's just that they can usually afford decent therapists so that they don't do so.

That means fuck all when you can't be open with why you're depressed, nor if you do so face social and familial rejection for it. After all, once again, most forms of depressive disorders have environmental and social issues that reinforce low moods. You having to hide being trans because of social and familial rejection both confounds treatment for depression, moreover the erosion ofsupport structures if you do come out has a similar effect on reinforcing cyclical depressive events.

After all, I wasn't mentally unwell for being trans ... I was unwell because I was depressed that my family and friends responded poorly to me coming out. Hence why it's gender dysphoria. It doesn't makethe argument you will alwaysbe dysphoric. Some trans people will be, others won't be, but in both situations HRT and gender affirming surgery can be incredibly effective treatment when sought by the person in question.

HRT and gender affirming surgery alone cannot cure depression. Because that is more akin to the psychosocial effects of having gender dysphoria.

Just like how you don't blame the surgery you do get not also treating the subsequent golden staph infection because of the surgery.

It's two separate issues requiring two separate solutions, and one of those may never be realised due to the parties involved. But that doesn't make the assumption the initial surgery wasn't worth it. It might of saved someone's life even if the infection later on takes it.

After all, we have evidence of the positive outcomes when treatment is performed ethically... in terms of relative success of HRT and gender affirming surgery for the grand bulk of receivers who want it in treating gender dysphoria, it's actually one of the downright best complicated treatment regimens available in medicine for the treatment of any complex issue.

Treating a headache with paracetemol is statistically more likely of providing poorer outcomes for the patient. I don't see right-wingers denouncing Tylenol.

So it's beyond the skeptics' disapproval of it as a treatment regimen, but then again no surgery or medication will stop people being awful to someone for being trans.

It's like blaming innocent black people for being outside, and thus 9 times more likely of being shot by a cop. Clearly the problem is that they'refree and outside in the first place? Or maybe there should simply be less racist cops?

 

[RedRockRun]

The greatest philosophers of history have debated that same question for years. I am well aware that everything psychological is biological. But pointing to the word, "biology" and declaring the argument closed is disingenuous.

The difference being that things like philosophy exist to fill in the gaps in anticipation of empirical, scientifically proven data. If you want to talk about being disingenuous, why not read the source I linked which says that post-op transgender people actually have a statistically higher chance of attempting suicide. What's disingenuous is declaring gender dysphoria to be normal and blaming society for the high suicide rates without once looking into studies that examine that correlation.

I have major depression and have contemplated suicide more than once in my 30+ years on this earth.

Join the club. MDD, two attempts in 29 years. I am just surprised that you would refer to symptoms of depression as, "Bad feelings," when feelings are but the expression of chemical imbalances.

Repeating 1/5 ad nauseum does not an argument make.

Declaring my point wrong does not an argument invalidate.

You're looking at the statistics, but there's a lot of context and environmental factors that you seem to just handwave away

Are you talking about the context and environmental factors in the study I keep referring back to. I refer to the 1/5 chance of suicidality because that is, in the context of that study, the lowest number they were able to find. The probabilities exceed 50% when considering environmental factors such as harassment, nonacceptance by family, economic shortcomings, ethnicity, etc. but the point of the 1/5 statistic is that it represents a best case average scenario. In lieu of these environmental factors that add to the statistics the numbers still move toward a 1/5 average chance of suicidality which is nearly double the national average of the US.

because numbers look kind of scary.

Ad hominem.

Your arguments are the same as people who sought to "cure" homosexuality.

Tu quoque, Straw man.

That doesn't make you a bad person, you're just mistaken.

Mistaken according to the straw man argument you so deftly burned down. Also this is neither here nor there. I am talking about gender dysphoria and not homosexuality. If you would like to talk about homosexuality then do so in another thread.

Think about this. Do you really want to pursue this logic? Do you want to be using the same arguments as the people who believe they can torture gay people into being straight? I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that you don't.

Loaded question. Also I resent your comparison of the medical and scientific world to religious homosexual torture camps.

I've spent a lot of time with mental health professionals. I know bullshit armchair diagnoses when I see them.

Anecdotal. I've spent a long time with mental health professionals as well. What exactly is the bullshit armchair diagnosis here? Don't argue with me. Read my sources and attack them. I came to the beliefs I currently hold by reading such studies, so if you have a bone to pick with my opinions then play your sources against mine.

No, most of the public think closer to what you do: that sex and gender are the exact same thing, written in stone and rigidly binary with absolutely no exceptions.

Sex and gender are words. Words change meaning overtime. If you'd like to debate etymology, then I'm down for that too. In short though, I don't put my trust in definitions that can be changed du jour i.e. goal posts that can be moved. If your argument boils down to semantics over sex and gender describing different things then I want numbers to back up such an assertion. Show me peer-reviewed studies which indicate that either gender or sex is something one can naturally evolve as one's identity while the other is biological.

An odd nit to pick.

What's odd about taking issue with you saying that gender dysphoria just happens, offering nothing more?

"What's the flu?" "It's just something that happens."
"What's gravity?" "It's just something that happens."
"What's the bystander effect?" "It's just something that happens."

You say it's an odd nitpick, but it's the most important thing at the core of this argument. What's the cause of gender dysphoria? How does it occur? What is its biological basis, and how does it manifest itself? I'm not trying to be pithy; I would honestly love to know why some people believe that they are of the opposite gender?

That's not actually how statistics work. They also do not establish causality. You need qualitative research for that.

Special pleading.
No qualitative research? The study examines numerous environmental factors, arriving at the numbers by comparing different qualities i.e. underlying causes.

And of course you don't touch the sources I provided.

 

[stroopwafel]

Modern humans, unlike animals, do not face practical barriers to reproduction in the modern world. If you really wanted to reproduce it would be very easy to do so, and it's becoming easier with each passing year. So why is the number of individuals interested in reproducing steadily decreasing?

Problem is it's not. It's true that in the developed world birth rates have decreased due to individualization and social/economic pressures but in general overpopulation is actually a severe problem. Infant survival rate is way higher than it was in earlier times and people also no longer have to fear epidemics obliterating 30% of the population. Nature actually counts for way higher loss rates than modern humans hence overpopulation. So even while in the developed world people might have fewer children you can be pretty much sure populations are replenished due to low infant morbidity. Both the quality of life and the heavy taxation on the eco system would improve with less mouths to feed. So in today's world people having less or no children is actually beneficial to the human population.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I don't know. Would you consider an average 1/5 chance to attempt to kill yourself trouble (Haas et al., 2014) Also yes, they do need to be cured of it because it's a biological disorder. You speak of a hostile community, but I consider the most harmful people to be those who enable the delusions of people who say that they are the opposite gender when, as I first stated, there are studies available to the public which conclude that no matter what transgender people do and what kind of environment they are in, the suicide rates remain fairly constant on average. In other words, a transgender person brought up in an accepting family with accepting friends who has gender reassignment and hormone therapy will still have around a 1/5 chance of attempting suicide (Haas et al., 2014).

I dunno, I figure a lifetime of other people saying "it doesn't matter what the science says, you're still delusional and need to be cured" might have something to do with that.

Also, risking assault andtime you need to use the restroom. Can't imagine how psychologically taxing that it.

Refer to study I linked which says that people who don't experience harassment still have a higher probability of having mental disorders. Read my post.

Hey, you first.

Unless the study you linked was taken in a fictional society.

 

[Terminal Blue]

The difference being that things like philosophy exist to fill in the gaps in anticipation of empirical, scientifically proven data.

Hahaha.. no.

Things like philosophy exist to determine, among other things, why "empirically evidenced data" is more useful or valid than other data, and under what circumstances it can be used to form reasonable conclusions.

I am just surprised that you would refer to symptoms of depression as, "Bad feelings," when feelings are but the expression of chemical imbalances.

That's a weak and reductive account of depression, though. In fact, the symptoms of clinical depression cannot be traced to chemical imbalances at all, since all that's required for diagnosis are recurring and persistent patterns of negative thoughts and feelings which do not disappear over time. If these were solely the result of chemical imbalances, then only drug treatments would be effective (which isn't true), those treatments would be universally effective (which isn't true) and cognitive factors would have no impact on depressive symptoms (which isn't true).

There's a complex interplay between neurochemical, cognitive and environmental factors in the case of depression which is often very particular to the individual, which is why people respond very differently to the same treatment.

Are you talking about the context and environmental factors in the study I keep referring back to. I refer to the 1/5 chance of suicidality because that is, in the context of that study, the lowest number they were able to find. The probabilities exceed 50% when considering environmental factors such as harassment, nonacceptance by family, economic shortcomings, ethnicity, etc. but the point of the 1/5 statistic is that it represents a best case average scenario.

Right, but it's a best case scenario by the frame of reference set out in the study, which may not be adequate to account for the full range of environmental factors.

For example, you are serving as an environmental factor right now. You are sitting there as a cisgendered person who essentially has no direct experience or basis on which to form an opinion, lecturing people on which of their experiences constitute a mental illness. Absurd, isn't it. No person outside of that little bubble of self-reinforcing cognitive bias which allows you to see your experience as the "normal" yardstick by which others should be judged would possibly think this was a reasonable way to behave, and yet here you are. Clearly you think it is normal, and you're not alone either. Many, many cis people share your opinion. This thread contains countless evidence of that.

No trans person lives in a society in which they are accepted. They will always be surrounded by people like you, people who are not engaging in "harassment" by any legal definition but who have this bizarre, dare I say pathological compulsion to pass judgement on the authenticity of other people's lives regardless of their lack of any meaningful observation or basis on which to make a comparison.

And yeah, I can already here the plaintive cry of "..but I read a study! I'm not just an ignorant transphobe, I have real opinions." Cool, you still formed an independent analysis based on your personal interpretation of that study's meaning, and interpretation you haven't even bothered to cross reference with the qualitative observations of a single person who actually has experience of what you're talking about. Great work there.

I am talking about gender dysphoria and not homosexuality.

Why aren't you talking about homosexuality?

Homosexuality is also associated for higher than normal rates of suicidality. Homosexuality has also historically been defined as a mental illness. Today, we understand that higher than normal suicide rates among gays and lesbians are linked both to higher instances of immediate stressors like family rejection, homelessness or violence, but also to "minority stress". Social exclusion, marginalisation and stigmatization leading to poor self-esteem, isolation and a lack of appropriate emotional support. Why would trans people, who are even more marginalized to the point where you consider it entirely normal to publicly denounce us as mentally ill, be less prone to minority stress than gays and lesbians?

Sex and gender are words. Words change meaning overtime.

Words describe things. Words change meaning because there is a need to adequately explain observations or experiences for which the old meanings are inadequate, or because the theoretical background has moved on in response to new knowledge or new observations.

The sex/gender distinction has been around, in some form, for a very long time. It's certainly been around longer than the concept of biological sex as we understand it today (people were writing about masculine men and feminine women in the 17th century, because it's incredibly obvious that the ideas about what men or women should wear or how they should speak or behave are not magically determined by their genitals - or, to avoid anachronism, by their levels of vital heat). The first attempt to produce a metric scale of gender expression took place before the second world war. Gender identity came to be recognized as distinct from gender expression in the 70s because psychologists needed a more detailed vocabulary to describe the (actually incredibly obvious) difference between external expression and internal identification.

Like, if you do not need a specialized or technical vocabulary to talk about these concepts, then you really have not given them much thought. Pretending you've read a study when, at best, you've just skimmed it for numbers and slapped on a conclusion which makes sense to you, doesn't change that.

 

[QuiteEnjoyed2016]

I am going to attempt to crowdsource my existential crisis.

If you don't know, I recently accepted that I was transgender. Right now, I am figuring out I am just simply gender nonconforming or I am a woman in a man's body.

A question came to me recently that I do not have an answer to. What's the difference between a man and a woman? Besides, their physical differences. Is there anything really different between the genders? The only differences I can think of are just social construct that society just places on both genders.

So, please help me. I am genuinely curious what other people opinions about the differences of each gender. Maybe this will help me.

I am not sure to be honest. I'd make sure to consult some suitably trained counselling, it sounds like a challenging time. I'd be careful before undertaking any surgical treatment, there are growing number of cases where reversal has been required. The suggestion seems to be the that the rush to be accepting has pushed some people into the think they have an desire that is not actually there; not to suggest that it applicable to you in anyway.

Not that universities will allow you to study this phenomenon!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-41385299

 

[Terminal Blue]

Not that universities will allow you to study this phenomenon!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-41385299

They will.

There are so many things wrong with that research proposal and the way it's been reported as "political correctness gone mad" is absurd (and signals how out of touch journalists are with the basics of academia).

For one, the guy is doing a masters degree, in other words a one year full time degree with a few months of that time dedicated to a piece of research. By contrast, a piece of PhD research usually takes 3 years of continuous full time work.

Secondly, it's an incredibly ethically challenging area because of the vulnerability of research subjects. An MSc candidate does not have the time (or probably the experience) to properly account for those ethical problems, particularly when it's not even clear that the researcher can find subjects willing to talk to them.

Universities will bat for research which is actually significant. This is not one of those, it's some random conservative Jungian with a glorified counselling job and no actual research experience trying to push a transparent political agenda in hopes of advancing their own career through manufactured controversy at the expense of their institution and its reputation. The institution has an obligation to protect itself in those cases.

This research would not have changed the world. It would not have advanced the scope of human knowledge, at absolute best it would have been a proof of concept for an actually useful piece of PhD level research later, more likely it would have just been a hastily cobbled together mess with perhaps a couple of interviews at most and a bunch of really shoddy analysis to try and make it seem more relevant than it actually is.

 

[QuiteEnjoyed2016]

Not that universities will allow you to study this phenomenon!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-41385299

They will.

There are so many things wrong with that research proposal and the way it's been reported as "political correctness gone mad" is absurd (and signals how out of touch journalists are with the basics of academia).

For one, the guy is doing a masters degree, in other words a one year full time degree with a few months of that time dedicated to a piece of research. By contrast, a piece of PhD research usually takes 3 years of continuous full time work.

Secondly, it's an incredibly ethically challenging area because of the vulnerability of research subjects. An MSc candidate does not have the time (or probably the experience) to properly account for those ethical problems, particularly when it's not even clear that the researcher can find subjects willing to talk to them.

Universities will bat for research which is actually significant. This is not one of those, it's some random Jungian with a glorified counselling job and no actual research experience trying to push a transparent political agenda in hopes of advancing their own career through manufactured controversy at the expense of their institution and its reputation. The institution has an obligation to protect itself in those cases.

This research would not have changed the world. It would not have advanced the scope of human knowledge, at absolute best it would have been a proof of concept for an actually useful piece of PhD level research later, more likely it would have just been a hastily cobbled together mess trying to draw society-wide conclusions from a couple of interviews with individuals.

Yes, I guess if you ignore the blatant political bias of the university's decision and the craven deference to the Twitter sphere, accuse journalists of "not understanding" for reporting it, pompously mock the researcher, claim the area is too difficult and the subject to vulnerable for any inquiry, you can probably reconcile this suppression of research with your own personal prejudices and feel convinced it's not a deeply ominous decision.

Be interesting to see how you'd react if the same chap had a study regarding the life affirmation and happiness people felt after gender reassignment blocked.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Be interesting to see how you'd react if the same chap had a study regarding the life affirmation and happiness people felt after gender reassignment blocked.

I wouldn't care.

I have an MSc myself, which means I've done masters level research. It's nothing. It's absolutely meaningless save as a means of developing skills which may be put towards a PhD, which nine times out of ten is still meaningless but which may provide the basis for a book or actual serious piece of postdoctoral research down the line, which may matter to someone, but probably won't.

Also, I haven't met James Caspian personally, but I have come up against some of his influences and "friends", and I know the kind of circles he moves in quite intimately. If you want to talk about political bias, maybe we should talk about how someone whose job is to work with trans people (ostensibly for their own benefit) can openly describe SRS as self-mutilation and engage in conspiracy theories about how medical industries promote "transgenderism".

More generally, I will agree that academia is a prejudiced environment. It's designed to be a prejudiced environment. You don't get to walk into a class on evolutionary theory and rant about Noahs ark. You don't get to walk into a class on black history and ask the "valid question" of whether black people are human beings or not. Academia is not a place in which all opinions are equal or where there is an obligation to congratulate all points of view. Sometimes people are just idiots asking stupid questions which, if they had bothered to read or engage with the knowledge that already exists, they wouldn't need to ask.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I think you are making a massive strawman here, in no sane way is the subject close to "blacks are not humanz" or bible stories. And if the university responses of "it might cause criticism on social media" or "engaging in a potentially politically incorrect piece of research carries a risk to the university." are true then I fear for the future of human advancement.

Again, all of this is based on the premise that we're talking about an actual piece of noteworthy research. We aren't. We're talking about a masters dissertation, which is not a suitable place for tackling any kind of sensitive or controversial topic. It's baby's first research project. It's a simple test of a student's basic research skills, a student who will likely be associated with an institution for only a few months. Recognising the limits of what is possible or practical within that format is actually one of the skills being tested.

I've seen institutions go to the wall to defend their researchers but the university needs to be getting something back. Postdoctoral academics are worth defending because they add prestige to their institution. PhD students are worth defending to a degree because they are investments which may later add prestige to their institution when their PhD is published. Masters students are there to learn basic research skills and become conversant in their discipline. They are not advancing knowledge, because there isn't time in a one year course to do that. There isn't time to produce a piece of research which is worth anyone's time.

Furthermore, the story is openly misrepresentative because Caspian immediately went crying to the press without waiting for an internal investigation to conclude, meaning the university couldn't comment because it was still conducting its own internal investigation. This allowed him to misrepresent the issue as being primarily about "political correctness", when actually the potential damage to the institution was only one of several issues with his research. The primary reason it was rejected was that it wasn't suitable for a masters dissertation. The second most important reason was that there were huge ethical problems which had been pointed out to Caspian but which he hadn't addressed despite changing his proposal.

1) It might save people's life.

Not really, because noone of any significance will listen to a Masters dissertation.

Also, if this guy was remotely interested in saving people's lives, he wouldn't be hanging out with the transgender equivalent of gay conversation therapy practitioners.

2) If it is done incorrectly it will be easy to point out through the methods used in tha paper.

They already did. They pointed out the problems with the proposal, and the guy went crying to the media about political correctness. Research can be misrepresented, it's misrepresented all the time and sometimes the only reason research exists is to be misrepresented. This is why universities have a responsibility to judge the appropriateness of research, especially when it's being done by very early career researchers or students without any research experience.

Just because experts in a field can spot problems with a piece of research, doesn't mean everyone can.

 

[Finis Rerum]

XX and XY chromosones. If you were born as a male then you will never be a female and vice versa, regardless of how you feel about it.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Can you find the University's official response (since I can't find anything excpet news sites reporting on the issues)? Especially if it still references things like "criticism on social media" or "political incorrectness" which should NEVER be a part of a university's goals and if they are they should be renamed "ministery of truth".

The university hasn't responded yet (and probably never will, because universities aren't in the habit of crying to the media) but the concerns about criticism on social media came from the rejection form from the ethics committee. It's not publicly available (because James Caspian hasn't made it publicly available) but again, I'm only a few degrees of separation from this guy.

He came up with a proposal which is totally, totally unsuitable for Masters level research. Resubmitted it several times with slight changes to try and get around the ethics board, and ultimately failed. Then instead of learning a lesson, he went to the media crying about how a single line in his rejection letter mentioned the risk of damage to the universities' reputation, which is a valid concern and something every ethics board has to consider.

But even if I didn't know that, I'm pretty sure everyone who has worked in a university has met someone like this. They're old, they're white, they're usually male, they're doing a degree because they think it will boost their established career or for some unknown, vanity related reason, and they have real issues respecting the "taught" part of a taught degree. They expect to be treated like serious academics and authorities within their field when they haven't earned the right to be treated like serious academics, let alone authorities within their field, and then when they make basic mistakes because (whatever they've deluded themselves) they're not serious academics they adamantly refuse to accept it was their fault, even when they were warned many times and given many, many opportunities to avoid those basic mistakes.

Everyone has to go through an ethics board. I have friends who did research in Iraq and Kurdistan who got through an ethics board. I have a friend who researched paedophilic fantasies among gay men and who got through an ethics board. I have friends working with multiple rape survivors who got through an ethics board. I've only even known one person who got rejected by an ethics board, and it's because they didn't listen to what their supervisor had already told them several times.

Oh yeah, people who are statistically more likely to commit suicide doing life changing surgeries won't consider in any way looking if someone researched if they'll regret it.

They won't check to see if a Masters student has researched it, because noone publishes Masters dissertations (except vanity publishers, but they'll publish anything if you've got the cash, it doesn't mean anyone will find it or it will end up in libraries). It can take years just to edit a PhD for publication. It's not a trivial thing.

This guy could have written some garbage about his professional experience and published it in a non peer reviewed or private journal somewhere, and it at least might have ended up searchable on the internet. But that wouldn't have the legitimacy of institutional affiliation.

Also, if the people this guy was proposing to use as research subjects are reluctant to talk to him because they're too distressed, do you not think there might be a risk of immediate harm to them through their involvement in the research? Do you think that risk is something a novice researcher with no experience and no time to seriously study research methodology for working with vulnerable subjects should be taking on?

Also besides the fact I have nothing on your word that the guy is labour style closet transphobic are you against radical feminists doing papers on gender issues?

Nope. Not if they're qualified and the research they're doing is well thought out and appropriate to their experience and available time.

But I don't think they have the right to claim the legitimacy of institutional affiliation without some degree of institutional oversight.

So instead of a minor paper no one cares about (and if it is true and well researched might have potentially follow up on it) and is likely to easiely be proven wrong we have a huge media circus about universities banning research paths, that's an improvement.

Are you suggesting that universities should make decisions based on the risk of media criticism? Should we assume that every student will go blubbing to the press about political correctness gone mad whenever an institutional decision doesn't go their way.

I mean, they could have let him go ahead and just failed him for the mess they got back at the end, but that seems unnecessarily cruel and actually quite negligent of an ethics board.

 

[09philj]

XX and XY chromosones. If you were born as a male then you will never be a female and vice versa, regardless of how you feel about it.

You do know that it's possible to have both a Y chromosome and a natural vagina, right?

 

[Mr Companion]

A man is pride, power, stoicism, independence, recklessness, lust
A woman is tenacity, wisdom, control, soul, willpower, caution, creation

I've always enjoyed being a man so I can't comment on being trans but I'd recommend picking the traits you like from either.

 

[Silvanus]

XX and XY chromosones. If you were born as a male then you will never be a female and vice versa, regardless of how you feel about it.

This isn't even true from a biological perspective, even if we put aside everything else. There is no perspective from which this is true.

It staggers me how people can speak with such certainty, and lay out a simplistic binary, even when it flies in the face of the biological science to which they are referring.

 

[09philj]

XX and XY chromosones. If you were born as a male then you will never be a female and vice versa, regardless of how you feel about it.

This isn't even true from a biological perspective, even if we put aside everything else. There is no perspective from which this is true.

It staggers me how people can speak with such certainty, and lay out a simplistic binary, even when it flies in the face of the biological science to which they are referring.

Anyone who did any kind of science experiments at school should know that what works in theory often doesn't work in practice.