Roe v Wade

[pineapple stu]

Anyway, what really gets me - more than anything else - about the trans topic is the, admittedly small, number of parents who force their will onto their young pre-pubescent kids.

Definitely. That's a movement that'll have blood on its hands in years to come unfortunately. The whole area of puberty blockers in particular is quite concerning. And then you've Charlize Theron, whose three-year-old (adopted) son said "I'm not a boy" and Theron said "Right so; I'll raise you as a girl", which is just daft. You don't indulge three-year-olds like that, on any topic. A three-year-old could say "I'm a horsey!" but you don't send them to live in a field and feed them hay.

[sbgawa]

Definitely. That's a movement that'll have blood on its hands in years to come unfortunately. The whole area of puberty blockers in particular is quite concerning. And then you've Charlize Theron, whose three-year-old (adopted) son said "I'm not a boy" and Theron said "Right so; I'll raise you as a girl", which is just daft. You don't indulge three-year-olds like that, on any topic. A three-year-old could say "I'm a horsey!" but you don't send them to live in a field and feed them hay.

Love it

[ontheotherhand]

I think mark (inadvertently) flags an important factor, which SkStu mentioned earlier - social media. It's probably worthy of its own thread tbh (cos this post is going to veer off-topic...)

It's clearly not the only factor of course - the abortion referendum in 83 was fairly fractious and there was no social media then. Abortion is pretty much always going to be an emotive subject.

But social media does seem to be able to have a big impact on people's views (as mark has shown) I can't remember where I read this, but there was a survey of maybe 100 people attending a flat earth induction (or something like that) and every one of them got their interest in flat earth from YouTube. There was a study last year which said covid denial/anti-vax views could be linked to 12 influential people through social media. There's an article on Forbes about the link between social media and misinformation too. And National Geographic ran a feature a while back on what it called an attack on science, along the same lines.

It feels like these sort of nutty things - you can add in climate change denial, using your pronouns, alternative medicine, and so on - have been growing in recent years, whereas you would like to have thought increased information would decrease their prevalence instead. Some are harmless as they're clearly stupid (flat earth); others are potentially very dangerous (covid denial/anti-vax)

On a related note, I got the 50th anniversary Apollo 11 boxset there a couple of years ago and one thing it includes is a BBC debate from shortly after on the philosophical and social implications for mankind arising from travelling to another world. It's amazing how respectful the debate is, and how much it benefits from that (albeit it's a social debate rather than a political one, so it'll always be less charged)

Or you can take the infamous Life of Brian debate in 1979 between John Cleese, Michael Palin, Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark - the latter two argue in a more "modern style" (for want of a better word - personal attacks without making any real valid points - while the Pythons (and moderator Tim Rice) try engage in a genuine discussion. It's notable that the audience sees this almost straight away and sides with the Pythons. There's a very good background article on Wikipedia about the debate - for example "Cleese said [in 2013] that it left him bored and he realised that there was no attempt at a proper discussion, and no attempt to find any common ground."

I don't watch a huge amount of TV debates (or TV in general), but I don't think debates these days come close to this standard very often. I do think social media - 140 characters, block who you don't like, dismiss people as racist/right-wing/liberals/transphobes/TERFs instead of making a point, and so on - really does play into that.

And if that's the case, this sort of stuff is only going to grow in the coming years unfortunately, and not just in the US.

As I say, it can't be the only factor, but I think it is a big one.

I have no idea what you're talking about stu. Healthy, rational debate is alive and well in America.

[pineapple stu]

Good Lord...

[ontheotherhand]

That debate is also the reason why the States shouldn't always be allowed to control their own destiny......some of the creatures that get into power at the State level are horrendous altogether.

[dahamsta]

... some stuff ...

As much as I enjoy going through posts line by line, it's been a long day and I'm shagged out, so I'll keep this short. It's mostly a rebuttal, but not meant to be aggressive. Note that I have up-close and personal experience with this. I'm not going to go into detail on this right now beyond stating that it's not me, but it was someone close to me.

Non-trans people using pronouns are self-obsessed tossers. Nuff said.

I have no problem with male/female gender self-identification. Obviously there will be errors, and idiots, but if someone wants to live their life as a different gender, and it doesn't have an adverse affect on other people (excepting intolerance), I have no problem with that. Surgery is irrelevant, not least because it's ridiculously difficult to access publicly, ridiculously expensive privately, and extremely taxing both mentally and physically either way. And it should be noted that if those hurdles were lowered, it would make it much easier to sort the wheat from the chaff. It would also stop a lot of people from killing themselves.

Next, it's important to note that sex and gender are indeed not the same thing, and you're conflating them to a certain extent when you say that a sex change doesn't change your sex. And I'd add that, for you, it should be irrelevant. It's not really any of your business. You can probably rebut this by saying it isn't any of your business what that stupid American famous-for-being-famous woman did to her ass, and you're still entitled to comment on it, but I think that's different. I can't really put my finger on why it's different though, so I'll just shut up about that now.

On sport, I don't think trans people should compete with their chosen gender and I don't even think I should need to explain why in any detail. It's simply not fair and there isn't really a way to make it fair yet. End of story. I think most rational trans people would probably agree if it weren't for the fundamentalists shouting about it. They need to rein them in.

I think non-m/f genders are mostly nonsense. I could probably accept a "neutral" gender, because some people are almost certainly kind of in the middle, in much the same way some people just don't care about sex, but that's about my limit. My only experience of non-binary people is very limited, but I don't think I've ever come across one that wasn't clearly self-obsessed and doing it for karma. I don't care about them and I don't want to hear their pronouns.

And finally, it is absolutely possible to diagnose "transgenderism", in the form of gender dysphoria. I'm sure some people are misdiagnosed, and it's a fact that 1-3 per cent of trans people regret transitioning, or actually transition back. But it's a tiny number in the grand scheme of things, nearly a rounding error. The vast majority are happy with their transition, and feel much more comfortable in themselves.

[pineapple stu]

I'll keep this short. It's mostly a rebuttal, but not meant to be aggressive.

I don't think it is mostly a rebuttal, is it? We seem to agree everywhere except for gender self-identification from my reading. Granted, that's probably the biggest section, but still, a reasonable amount of common ground.

I think a couple of things I'd note though - I don't think it is possible to objectively diagnose gender dysphoria. The NHS in England was in court not long ago effectively as a result of this - it's been accused of making diagnoses far too easily, which is ultimately what a former client took them to court over. A fairly critical formal internal review, which was upheld in court, found its own staff said they were under pressure of being labelled transphobic if they didn't agree with diagnoses - one-third of staff had raised significant concerns around diagnoses, which led to the report and also to a fairly high staff resignation rate. This article on the Guardian (which usually buys into this sort of stuff) is a concerning read, suggesting (among other things) that more staff may have had similar concerns but were worried about voicing them.

I don't think that sits in with the idea that this is objectively diagnosable. That wouldn't be unique in medical terms - you can't diagnose whiplash as far as I'm aware, for example, and you could probably say the same for any sick cert for "stress" - and so it doesn't disprove its existence for sure. But I think my point remains that the inability to properly diagnose this is a big complicating factor.

People diagnosed with gender dysphoria are also a lot more likely to be on the autism spectrum and I'm not sure if that link has been explored sufficiently (see National Geographic Jan 2017, a fairly uncritical and ascientific issue on the topic, or also the Guardian report linked, which says "He [the report's author] worries that too much emphasis is placed on gender and not enough on sexuality – “the children are often gay” – and he continues to be anxious about co-morbidities such as anorexia, autism and history of trauma in its patients. “Some of the children are depressed. It’s said that it’s their gender that is the cause of this, but how do we know? And why don’t we try to treat that first?”")

I'd also be careful about saying that access to surgery (while I agree it would sort the wheat from the chaff, as you say) would "stop a lot of people from killing themselves". I think the suicide rate for people who have had such surgery has been shown to be still significantly above average, albeit that I'm not sure if it's reduced from what it would have been without surgery.

You also said that your post wasn't intended to be aggressive, and certainly I didn't feel that it was. I also don't claim to be completely right on this (and I know you're not suggesting that I am), so in these cases I think this sort of discussion can be quite useful - all the more so if it could be held in the greater public spectrum without people being dismissed as transphobic bigots or whatever other terms of abuse float about on this topic.

[ontheotherhand]

I'd agree with most of that dahamsta although it's an area I've been wary of wading into much as I just don't have the experience and it's pretty easy to find sources that could lead you down a multitude of paths, some fairly grim.

On sport I think we are all on firmer ground or should be. If trans people weren't winning gold medals in their chosen gender nobody would likely care but they are so it's become a flashpoint. It should be stopped for the sake of trans people everywhere. As with everything used in politics these days it's too easy to rile people up over edge cases which are too rare to be driving policy or opinion in the way they do. See "murdering babies v murdering women" above.

If 2% of all people are transgender then the elite athlete cohort is tiny. The use of hormone levels to determine which gender someone can compete with needs to be looked at. It seems to have been a reasonable attempt to draw a line but a more defined one probably needs to be drawn i.e. you compete with your original gender or not at all. Any elite athlete who needs to transition should be ok with that. If your identity as an athlete outweighs your gender identity I'd question your motivation a bit. Maybe that's unfair but that's life. Everyone makes sacrifices to pursue different goals.

But i'm ignorant enough and open to correction on any of that.

[seanfhear]

I think that after the considerable amount of time that abortion has been legal ( in the USA and the UK for example ) ~ ~ And that abortion has turned out to be much more widespread and sometimes much later along in the pregnancies ~ ~ Then is it a good idea to let Democracy have another look at this issue.

[ontheotherhand]

I think that after the considerable amount of time that abortion has been legal ( in the USA and the UK for example ) ~ ~ And that abortion has turned out to be much more widespread and sometimes much later along in the pregnancies ~ ~ Then is it a good idea to let Democracy have another look at this issue.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...-in-the-u-s-2/

I'm not sure that the fact that abortions happen is a sound reason to review their legality Sean but while reported abortions do seem to have gone up after 1973 but they are now back down at around the same number according to the two agencies who track them.

Late stage abortions are ridiculously rare Sean unless you have some data or sources to show otherwise?

I think it would be grand to put it to a vote as the majority of people want access to them to be safe and legal. But that's not going to happen in the US at least.

[Real ale Madrid]

Non-trans people using pronouns are self-obsessed tossers. Nuff said.

But in large platforms or organizations be they work / sporting / Social media or whatever if only trans people identify their pro-nouns then that itself is a form of differentiation and the purpose of identification is promote inclusivity imo. Its a small gesture that on name badges / e-mail signatures etc. that everybody display their pro-nouns and I see it as a good thing generally.

I know on-one knows me personally on here but I have an unusual name - for years I got a good laugh out of a hospital letter or whatever if it was to refer to me as Ms. instead of Mr. as my name was difficult to assign! Recently on reflection I have wondered had I been someone struggling with my identification would I have found that so funny. Its a very small thing but it did made me think.

Anyway - people who give out about pro-nous are the very definition of snowflakes imo - would you be bothered like.

[pineapple stu]

I think things like "It's a small gesture", "It's to promote inclusivity", "It's anti-discriminatory" or "People who complain about them are snowflakes" are usually vacuous arguments which really discourage a proper and open discussion on a very controversial topic (for the various reasons noted above) to be honest.

Often there's an undertone of "Amn't I great for doing this?" more than anything else.

And when you have someone working in the NHS department on gender identity openly questioning whether they're even trying to treat the right thing, and openly noting the lack of critical analysis (or the presence of confirmation bias) that can go into diagnosing gender dysphoria, then you can see there's even an argument that unquestioning acceptance of pronouns (eg putting them in your e-mail as a small gesture and to promote inclusivity) or putting this across as something that can only be a great thing for people can actually be doing more harm than good.

[Real ale Madrid]

I think things like "It's a small gesture", "It's to promote inclusivity", "It's anti-discriminatory" or "People who complain about them are snowflakes" are usually vacuous arguments which really discourage a proper and open discussion on a very controversial topic (for the various reasons noted above) to be honest.
.

You’ve not addressed the point at all while dismissing it as vacuous. Fair enough if you don’t agree that Pro-nouns should only be present for example on name badges of trans people etc. but at least tell us why and address the issue of inclusivity. Have you canvassed Trans people on the issue for example?

Often there's an undertone of "Amn't I great for doing this?" more than anything else.
.

Certainly – but that works for both sides of the argument tbf – Amn’t I great to question everything!

And when you have someone working in the NHS department on gender identity openly questioning whether they're even trying to treat the right thing, and openly noting the lack of critical analysis (or the presence of confirmation bias) that can go into diagnosing gender dysphoria, then you can see there's even an argument that unquestioning acceptance of pronouns (eg putting them in your e-mail as a small gesture and to promote inclusivity) or putting this across as something that can only be a great thing for people can actually be doing more harm than good.

I don’t know what you are referring to here. For the life of me I can’t see how it would do more harm than good anyway. I’m struggling to see any harm in it at all. Again – would you be bothered like.

[pineapple stu]

You’ve not addressed the point at all while dismissing it as vacuous. Fair enough if you don’t agree that Pro-nouns should only be present for example on name badges of trans people etc. but at least tell us why and address the issue of inclusivity. Have you canvassed Trans people on the issue for example?

I'm not sure why I need to address the issue of inclusivity to be honest. I don't need to be inclusive about everything that someone believes about themselves. You might be anti-vax, for example, but I don't need to be inclusive of that - in fact, organisations spent a lot of time lately working out how best to exclude such views (until the State sorted the problem and said unvaccinated people wouldn't be able to fly out of the country and so on). "Inclusivity" shouldn't mean bypassing important rational debates.

I don’t know what you are referring to here. For the life of me I can’t see how it would do more harm than good anyway. I’m struggling to see any harm in it at all.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and suggest that you haven't read my earlier post which linked the Guardian article on the report a senior psychiatrist in the NHS' gender identity department drew up, where a number of serious concerns were flagged. That also follows on from the discussion on the suggestive power of social media and how that may inflate trans numbers given its lack of objective diagnosability.

Can I ask that you go back and read those before you dismiss my posts by saying "I don't know what you're referring to here" or suggesting all I'm doing is saying "Amn’t I great to question everything!"?

[Real ale Madrid]

I'm not sure why I need to address the issue of inclusivity to be honest. I don't need to be inclusive about everything that someone believes about themselves. You might be anti-vax, for example, but I don't need to be inclusive of that - in fact, organisations spent a lot of time lately working out how best to exclude such views (until the State sorted the problem and said unvaccinated people wouldn't be able to fly out of the country and so on). "Inclusivity" shouldn't mean bypassing important rational debates.

I'm not sure you can ignore the issue of inclusivity when it comes to pronouns. I know you think you'll never ever misgender someone because "evolution thought me otherwise" and I'm super dooper at identifying people but it does happen and it is harmful. Ignoring it doesn't seem rational to me. But go ahead and bypass what YOU feel is irrelevant and discuss what YOU feel is relevant.

or suggesting all I'm doing is saying "Amn’t I great to question everything!"?

I never said that. You suggested that some people who use Pronouns carry an undertone to their actions. I responded by agreeing and saying the same goes for people who like to question everything just for the sake of it - there is a similar undertone there imo.

[pineapple stu]

Can I again ask you to read the points I've made earlier in thread (and to which I've directed you) before you start answering what you think my point is?

Thanks.

[Real ale Madrid]

Can I again ask you to read the points I've made earlier in thread (and to which I've directed you) before you start answering what you think my point is?

Thanks.

I've read the thread.

[pineapple stu]

Then how come you're not able to refer to it, but instead call people snowflakes, insist I address things that don't need to be addressed, or make silly sarcastic comments which don't actually have a point?

Putting your pronouns in your email is silly in part because in an email I'm talking to you, which bypasses pronouns. I'm also trying to avoid labelling people as virtue signallers, but as I've just lost that battle, I think many people who do it do so because of how inclusive it makes them feel. That's the wrong reason to do anything.

But more than that, I think it trivialises what seems quite a complicated issue (as per the Guardian article you continue to ignore) where we're not even certain if the people being treated by the NHS for gender dysphoria are actually suffering from it, or depression or autism or even social media obsession. It seems rather unfair to effectively suppress proper debate on this topic (like you're trying to do by effectively taking as your starting point that gender dysphoria is always real), or to ignore the suggestion - by a leading psychiatrist working in this area - that actually it could often be a symptom of something else. There's still a high suicide rate for post-op trans people, which kind of ties in with the suggestion made that we might be treating the wrong thing. That would make it not a good thing to push people towards by trivialising the idea of adopting different pronouns and everything'll be great

And again, I don't have to be inclusive of everything a person thinks about themselves, as per the example I gave (and which again you ignored), so I'm not buying into mindless acceptance because "inclusion".

Over to you now to make a contribution without just labelling me as a snowflake or ignoring the various arguments I've taken the time to lay out in the thread. You don't have to agree with me, but you should be able to give a proper argument to back your position up. And you haven't even tried yet.

[dahamsta]

I think a couple of things I'd note though - I don't think it is possible to objectively diagnose gender dysphoria.

You could say that about a lot of mental illnesses; and yes, that means that I don't subscribe to the view that it isn't a form of mental illness. Being trans usually causes dysphoria, dysphoria is a mental illness (in my view at least), therefore it's mental illness. I'm sure I'd be lambasted for that view by hardcore trans activists, but I don't care. Otherwise what is transitioning, in whatever form that takes? It's a cure!

Anyway, misdiagnosis is a problem in all fields, some fields are relatively new or contentious, and some like psychopathy are both contentious and possible to "trick" if you're.... psychopathic. I'm not 100% sure that the person in my life that suffered from dysphoria isn't actually suffering from some other mental illness, but then I'm not a psychologist. But here's the thing: they are. So there's really nothing I can do but accept their word and hope for the best.

(It's worth noting that a lot of people in psychology went into the field because they had mental issues themselves. I'd regard that as a problem.)

But I think my point remains that the inability to properly diagnose this is a big complicating factor.

I think we just have to set a balance between people's word and diagnosis, and psychologists need to work on probabilities rather than certainties. We work on probabilities in loads of fields, including other fields of medicine, it's absolutely workable.

People diagnosed with gender dysphoria are also a lot more likely to be on the autism spectrum

You could probably say that about a huge number of people with (other) mental illness. I'm probably on the spectrum, although I've never been diagnosed. I wish I had been diagnosed at an early age and helped to develop the mechanisms I use to deal with it (basically just calendars and reminders) then, but thems the breaks.

I'd also be careful about saying that access to surgery (while I agree it would sort the wheat from the chaff, as you say) would "stop a lot of people from killing themselves". I think the suicide rate for people who have had such surgery has been shown to be still significantly above average, albeit that I'm not sure if it's reduced from what it would have been without surgery.

I haven't heard that, but it goes against the numbers I mentioned in my previous post (1-2.5% regret or go back). I think it IS a given that people that don't get some form of treatment in a timely fashion do kill themselves, so that's the one I'd concern myself with.

I appreciate your commentary, and I'm not really qualified to be citing statistics. All I can say is that I've been close to this, and it was clearly a nightmare for the person involved (and me!), and they say now that, basically, it "worked". And because of that, I've followed the subject. But I'm no expert.

[pineapple stu]

I don't think we're too far apart on our views in fairness adam.

I'm not entirely comfortable with simply taking a person's view on things - if they identify as black, do we accept that as well? What about people who identify as disabled? Are we really helping by accepting what they say as real or should we (not necessarily you specifically; I don't expect you to grill the person you know till they're "fixed") be looking for a better way of addressing these issues? Is it really a cure?

On the suicide rates I mentioned, here's a sample Swedish study from 2011 which has in its conclusion -

Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.

Like yourself, I'm not an expert and I can only presume the study is as legit as it seems, but there's others around (here's one from the US flagging a mortality rate twice as high as normal, based off private insurance data)

I think though we can agree it's complicated, which is why I dislike the way it's being trivialised (glorified, almost) in the name of inclusion. And I'd be fairly sure that there's plenty of cases which are social media-driven in the same way that social media has been shown to drive belief in flat earth and anti-vax beliefs, and what do you do about those? Are they real because the person believes it? How do they know what gender dysphoria is?