Gender identity: Crazy/delusional?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Dinosaur, Feb 27, 2017.

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  1. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    How does that differ from freedom from gender dysphoria? It doesn't, because neither can be guaranteed in a free society, since they'd both be positive rights that would infringe on the rights of others to enforce (namely their free speech rights).
    And what do you imagine those to be? Do they get their way contrary to the norms of the society? There's plenty they don't get their way on.
    Seems you're dodging the question. Just like no one denies that the religious believe in god, no one denies that some people truly think they are transgendered. But asking society to accept their beliefs, by calling them their preferred pronouns and letting them use their preferred bathrooms, is the same ask asking society to believe that god exists.

    Who do you imagine is actively interfering with transgenders transitioning or acting how they wish?
    LOL! I already said:
    "...if you can pass as your chosen gender, no one will think twice about you using your chosen bathroom. And if you can't pass as your chosen gender, it's only an issue if you are prone to flashing your junk around. But we can't simply let anyone use any bathroom solely on subjective self-reported gender without enabling potential predators to exploit it."
    I was asked how do you determine gender, not how do you police bathrooms, so this is a transparent straw man.
     
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  3. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    I'm already free from gender dysphoria. I know what I am; you don't tell me.

    The difference is in the absolute rock-bottom essential that religious want to impose their rules on everybody, while other people's gender doesn't impinge on me in any way.
    Infringe on the rights of others... to enforce what? Who said you ever had a right to enforce your standards on other people ? Your right to hate speech is already limited. And your right to free speech is being exercised at this very minute.
    Tax-free wealth and property, freedom from regulation that all other institutions and corporations must follow, holidays from work, great big buildings and parking lots that pay no property tax but are serviced by the city and used only once a week, license to found their own schools and even to ban library books and text books from public schools.
    They established many of the norms of society, including the framing of some damn intrusive laws regarding people's private lives. They used to have even more power than they do now.
    Of course they want all the old power back.
    What is it you are asked to do? You never once, not in your entire life, have to address a transgendered person at all. You don't have to believe anything at all. Or do anything. Or give up anything. Or say anything.
    Leave them alone. That's it. Not hard.

    So, how do you determine gender?
    DNA
    How do you determine DNA?

    Nobody can pass until the test has been performed.
    I asked on whom, when and how the test is to be done and paid for.
    Plus, don't you think it's overstepping your rights of enforcement to demand that anyone pass a test of any kind to meet with your approval to take a piss?
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2017
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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  7. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Can't follow a simple analogy, I see. Just because you may be fine being told which pronouns to use doesn't mean you are free, should such things be codified in hate speech laws (as is happening in Canada).
    Again, what rules do religions impose on everyone? Or is this just your vague boogeyman?

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    Where is the right to hate speech limited in US law? See, you're already so far down the slippery slope that you imagine you're already there in reality.

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    Yeah, you're going to have to cite some sources for some of these assertions. Cities service their properties? They can ban books from public libraries?
    Again, what "intrusive laws regarding people's private lives"? They establish norms because the same people are a majority of the society.
    There's your boogeyman again.

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    You're naive if you think examples elsewhere don't bear out that this leads to hate speech laws which erode freedom of speech.
    Obtuse much? Pass...as in appear to be to such an extent that no one would question it.

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    You can keep asking questions about a straw man argument I never made all you like. That doesn't obligate me to entertain them.
     
  8. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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  9. Bells Staff Member

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    How do you think we placate gender dysphoria?

    Do you think we should be forcing people to be what they are not?

    What is it with conservatives and bathrooms?

    How do you intend to test transgender people to make sure they "pass" as their gender?

    And why do you think they are choosing their gender?

    As studies show, it is not something that is within their control, nor something they are choosing. Or do you believe that people choose a different gender just for kicks and face constant abuse and discrimination because it's so much fun?

    Having used public restrooms, I have never, ever, seen a transgender woman act inappropriately or 'flash their junk'. Have you, when you used the women's bathroom? How many reported incidents have there been of men purporting to be transgender to molest kids in the women's bathrooms? Have these crimes involving sexual predators pretending to be transgender to abuse children become so numerous that it is now such an issue as requiring gender tests to use a public bathroom? You say that allowing transgender to use the bathroom they identify with is enabling potential predators to exploit it. This has only become an issue in the last couple of years. Has this actually happened? Because from my end, I see no evidence of what you are arguing. None at all.

    Predators aren't pretending to be transgender to molest kids, Syne. Predators are working as school teachers, priests, doctors, nurses, and pretty much every profession that brings them into contact with kids.

    What you failed to note is that the studies provided actually looked at how they identified themselves. These changes are occurring in the brain from childhood. New technology in scanning is expected to show these changes in children aged from around 3 years of age. And this is based on how these children identify themselves as. Perhaps you should read what is provided to see the studies that were done with transgender children. You know, just for argument's sake that I don't have to cover it again and again..

    And your argument seems to be leaning towards treating children to try to train their brains to somehow or other treat transgender children. It doesn't actually work that way.

    One famous case saw a boy suffer a horrendous accident during his circumcision when he was a baby. His parents raised him as a girl, he had a sex change as a toddler and was given hormone treatments from childhood. All of his experiences from that moment on were 'female'. He never identified himself as female and always felt he was male. You cannot teach or force gender. You cannot train the brain to identify any particular gender.

    No Syne. They aren't confused.

    The scans done on children who identify as the other sex are not confused. Their brains respond to and recognise themselves as the other sex.

    That cannot be corrected.

    You can't teach a person to be a different sex biologically.

    And you ask about the biological responses in their brains, despite my linking studies about this in children in my previous post? Really Syne, clicking on a link is that hard?

    And corrected? How do you propose that occur? We have seen how these correction treatments destroy lives, Syne. To suggest that gender identity be corrected is just ghastly, cruel and sick.

    Actually no, those scans and studies were conducted on children.
     
  10. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    Regardless of the degree rigor applied in the field, sociology is the best tool we currently have available to analyze social dynamics. Do you have a better alternative?

    Mysticism is an element of all religions, and mystical association with one’s goals in the only world we know is unrealistic.

    Of course we’re cherry picking. We’re not focusing on the perceived rationalities of the two groups, only some perceived irrationalities, and Christian knowledge of an existence beyond our own is one of those irrationalities.

    Changing their DNA isn’t their immediate, or necessarily their ultimate goal, but reaching an approximation of who they want to be and acknowledged as is. If someone wants to physically and behaviorally take on the attributes of another gender, and wants to be acknowledged as such, what’s the harm in the accommodation?

    When individuals complete their transitions, and are able to live and be treated as they desire, they have succeeded in reality. Are they genetically fully a desired gender? No. Are they functionally a desired gender? In many ways yes. Will there be a point in the foreseeable future when that transition could be complete? Most likely yes.

    All of our inclinations are the result of some form of conditioning, why would I expect different in this case?
     
  11. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Capracus said: What would you suggest as a standard for gender identification?
    Syne replied: DNA.
    Jeeves asked:
    On whom is the test done? Everyone, or just the people who declare themselves other than as they appear?
    When is the testing to be done? Before each proposed bathroom visit, or just one time, and the subjects get a visible tattoo, for next time the question of their gender identity arises?
    Do you need a court order each time someone is subjected to testing, or will a single executive order cover all contingencies?
    How is the DNA testing program funded?
    What's the expected wait-time for results?

    Syne replied with a lot of bogus nonsense comparing people's personal gender identities with religious beliefs.
    Another difference: gods are imaginary and very public; sex is real and relatively private.
    You don't have to talk to or about either group. You choose to.
     
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    It's very strange. Small government conservatives want gun rights, less government regulation, repeal of "meddlesome" laws - but they need the government to tell people which bathroom to use.
     
  13. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Didn't say it was mysterious, but it does show the exceptions to your notion that DNA shows clear binary definitions.
     
  14. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Scientifically, according to objective measure, or pandering to subjective feelings?

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    It's simple English. If you can pass as a man, you look like a man to the degree that NO ONE would question it...just like it has always been. If you genuinely look like your chosen sex, you use the bathroom of that sex and no one objects...because no one would think to.
    Who said it was "within their control" or "something they are choosing"?

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    Mental illness is not a choice, is, by definition, beyond the sufferer's control, and usually does subject the sufferer to some bad external reactions. Now you can debate whether it's a mental illness, but you're intellectually dishonest if you persist in the straw man that it's a choice.
    Read what you're responding to again. Did I say anyone flashes their junk or that there have been instances of predators exploiting it?

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    And who said "predators" was limited to pedophiles? Have you ever been followed by a creepy guy? Have you ever tried to lose one by going in the women's room? Have you ever used a public shower, like at a gym? Would you really worry about other women taking surreptitious pictures with a phone? What about a man who identifies as a woman that day (and is straight)?
    Your hopes for new technology are not relevant unless they one day come to fruition, and until they do, you cannot make assertions about the brains of children that go beyond simple neuralplasticity. I've read everything you've offered, only without the bias you obviously apply.
    LOL! Thank you for making the case for my argument. Of course you cannot teach a genetic male to be female. That does nothing to make your argument.

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    Wait, you just got done saying, "New technology in scanning is expected to show these changes in children aged from around 3 years of age." If you already have these results, where are they?

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    If you're talking about scans of adolescence, you're talking about evident of neuralplasticity.

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    Again, where? Please quote and link the relevant passage. Things like "A 2010 study of 121 transgender people found that 38 per cent realised they had gender variance by age 5." doesn't mean that they were scanned as children. You seem to be conflating your biased hopes with the actually findings, and even contrary to you own, earlier assertion that "New technology in scanning is expected to show these changes in children aged from around 3 years of age."
    And? He asked about a "standard", not ad hoc identification. You simply twisted that into your straw man that the "standard" should somehow be the ad hoc method. That's like saying a typical measurement should always use the exemplar rather than a ruler or approximation. It's your straw man that is nonsense.

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    Carrying DNA due to microchimerism doesn't affect the DNA of the whole organism, much less convert its native DNA.

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    They actually want it left to the states or local municipalities. That way California, et al., can be as crazy as it likes, and leave sane people to their own devices.
    You cannot enforce acknowledgment without coercion...violating existing rights.
    Transition does not guarantee they will be "treated as they desire" (nothing does...for anyone), which probably accounts for their disproportionate suicide rate.
    Really? What evidence leads you to believe we will one day be able to change a person's whole DNA from one sex to the other? Wishful thinking?

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    Oh, I don't know, evolutionary psychology.

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  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    When genetics is taken into consideration, the boundary between the sexes becomes even blurrier. Scientists have identified many of the genes involved in the main forms of DSD, and have uncovered variations in these genes that have subtle effects on a person's anatomical or physiological sex. What's more, new technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that almost everyone is, to varying degrees, a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that might not match that of the rest of their body. Some studies even suggest that the sex of each cell drives its behaviour, through a complicated network of molecular interactions. “I think there's much greater diversity within male or female, and there is certainly an area of overlap where some people can't easily define themselves within the binary structure,” says John Achermann, who studies sex development and endocrinology at University College London's Institute of Child Health.

    ----------------------

    So science tells us that gender is a spectrum, due to a variety of factors in how genes are expressed, which is more complex than just the genes themselves.


    Look like a man according to your society's subjective definitions of what it means to look like a man. This is hardly universal or objective. The Native Americans and the Japanese as well as many other cultures acknowledged that there have always been more than two genders.
     
  16. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Any conclusive studies, or just ones that "suggest" what you're looking to confirm?

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    Opinion ("I think there's much greater diversity within male or female...") taken as fact is an appeal to authority, rather than science.
    And epigenetics ("how genes are expressed") can change due to behavior and environment. In that respect, they mirror neuralplasticity.
    Who said anything about it being "universal or objective" or applying in "other cultures"?
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That would be a violation of the law, that I've seen.
    Anyone talking about US law.
     
  18. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

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    /sarcasm on Since you are obviously asking in good faith out of genuine interest, /sarcasm off here are a few links for you to peruse:

    Challenging Gender Identity: Biologists Say Gender Expands Across A Spectrum, Rather Than Simply Boy And Girl
    http://www.medicaldaily.com/challen...-gender-expands-across-spectrum-rather-323956

    Between the (Gender) Lines: the Science of Transgender Identity
    http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/

    How Science Is Helping Us Understand Gender
    http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/01/how-science-helps-us-understand-gender-identity/

    Neuroscience Proves What We’ve Known All Along: Gender Exists on a Spectrum
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ravishly/neuroscience-proves-what-_b_6494820.html
     
  19. Bells Staff Member

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    My feelings aren't hurt by transgender using bathrooms, Syne. That's your issue. And it is the conservative's feelings that they demand be placated by demanding that transgender women not be allowed to use the women's bathroom and making up scenarios about paedophiles while failing to actually provide evidence for any of their claims or scenarios. That one's on you and your feelings. An objective measure would look at the biology of transgender, and then look at the evidence and the risk assessment. Thus far, you and others who believe like you have completely and utterly failed to provide any evidence to support your claims of paedophiles pretending to be transgender men to sexually assault young girls in public bathrooms being so prevalent that transgender women must be barred from the women's bathroom. Instead, we get the panicked response and desperate handwaving based on 'what if'.

    You are the one who brought up DNA, remember? You are the one who brought up using bathrooms, remember? When confronted with science, you try and change the subject and keep demanding links that were already provided.. Case in point:

    Perhaps you should have read past the first four paragraphs of what I linked previously. Because here is what it says in the article, that you clearly did not read, despite my linking it and you kept saying was not there.. Had you read what was linked, you'd have found:

    In a study published in 2014, psychologist Sarah M. Burke of VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam and biologist Julie Bakker of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience used functional MRI to examine how 39 prepubertal and 41 adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria responded to androstadienone, an odorous steroid with pheromonelike properties that is known to cause a different response in the hypothalamus of men versus women. They found that the adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria responded much like peers of their experienced gender. The results were less clear with the prepubertal children.

    This kind of study is important, says Baudewijntje Kreukels, an expert on gender dysphoria at VU University Medical Center, “because sex differences in responding to odors cannot be influenced by training or environment.” The same can be said of another 2014 experiment by Burke and her colleagues. They measured the responses of boys and girls with gender dysphoria to echo like sounds produced by the inner ear in response to a clicking noise. Boys with gender dysphoria responded more like typical females, who have a stronger response to these sounds. But girls with gender dysphoria also responded like typical females.

    Overall the weight of these studies and others points strongly toward a biological basis for gender dysphoria. But given the variety of transgender people and the variation in the brains of men and women generally, it will be a long time, if ever, before a doctor can do a brain scan on a child and say, “Yes, this child is trans.”

    In my previous post, I linked to studies where they discussed testing children and new imaging technology is expected to be able to see these differences in children that are below 5 years of age.

    So can you please explain why you keep demanding evidence, despite said evidence having been provided repeatedly?

    Are you suggesting that this is only based on looks?

    The bathroom laws are clear. You must use the bathroom that the sex you were born with corresponds to. Looks don't come into it. This means that transgender men, who were born with female sex organs, are required by law to use the women's bathroom. They don't want to use the women's bathrooms because they are not women. But the law demands that they use the women's bathroom. And now we have you saying that if you look like a man, no one will question a man using the men's room. Legally, those men are not allowed to use the men's room and are required by law to use the women's bathroom. For example, meet James:

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    James is transgender. James is legally not allowed to use the men's room and the law stipulates that because he was born "female", he must use the women's bathroom. This is Michael:

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    Michael is a transgender male. The law demands that he uses the women's bathroom.

    The law does not take appearance into account or consideration.

    You are arguing that it is a choice.
    And read what I was responding to.
    Are these not your words?

    And I also addressed your comments about predators exploiting it. Why are you trying to misrepresent what I said and what I was responding to?

    Oh you mean that hasn't been the prevailing argument of conservatives?
    Yes.
    No.
    Our public showers, even at the gym, have doors.. Perhaps you should try that sometimes..
    And I would worry about anyone taking photos of others in public showers, regardless of their gender.

    And yet, the studies show differently.

    Except you fail to note what was actually important in that story.. Your "lol" aside, something I notice people do when they don't have a leg to stand on.. The reason he could not identify as female was because biologically, in his brain, he was always male. Which kind of puts your neuralplasticity argument away, doesn't it? His experiences of being brought up as a female, failed to turn him female. His brain was always male. Just as transgender brains show that they are biologically the opposite sex.

    What this means is that no, you cannot teach or force children who are transgender, to not be transgender, such as when you started going on about children being confused all the time and how society should not 'placate' them. They will be what their brain identifies them as being.

    Understand now?

    Reading and comprehension is an issue for you, isn't it?

    Read what I said again.. And then read the links I provided.
     
  20. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    [Capracus said: What would you suggest as a standard for gender identification?
    Syne replied: DNA.]
    Standard or ad hoc: please to define the difference which turns my follow-up questions to straw.

    I didn't think it was remotely similar.
    But now you're going to use a ruler? On what part of the straw man.... Uh, never mind. On what part of the straw woman?
     
  21. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Suspected homosexual ... suspected woman ... suspected man↱.

    Honestly, other people's obsessions with other people's genitals has just gotten ridiculous. Let me guess, let me guess, let me guess ... that's not you. That is, you aren't obsessed with other people's genitals, but you support other people's right to enforce their obsession with other people's genitals because, hey, if they can't force other people to satisfy them, then they are endangered and violated and their rights have been taken away.

    Or is that actually you? Are you actually that obsessed with other people's genitals?

    I will note that I find it striking how much misandry I hear coming from conservative quarters. For instance, here's a depressing conundrum: You know that bit where women complain about how men "objectify" them? Well, imagine a heterosexual-identifying man dating and having sex with another man; they call it an affirmation of their heterosexuality. See, it ain't gay if he ain't all fancy-nancy queer; and it turns out they say it ain't gay if he's just a sex toy. And when I read the first report, I was pretty much gobsmacked↗; the bit about living dildos↱ still defies my capacity to take seriously. I mean, I get how it works, but this is a caricature; it is supposed to be a joke. It's kind of like the he who smelt it dealt it joke. These are the same quarters in which some of our most desperate homophobia festers and breeds. Literally, it would seem. I mean, I guess we kind of know, now, why so many people think The Gay is contagious. Or, y'know ... it's not contagious, and they were just more queer than unqueer to begin with. Still, in all of this, what was that about living dildos? Because, yeah, if "dick" ever becomes the masculine equivalent of the pejorative "bitch", it will be at the insistence of manly, masculine pansexuals desperately trying to pass. If I want to suck on a dildo, I can. Finding an actual penis that is safe to suck on is a bit tougher; one of these things ain't happening tonight, and the other isn't really worth it and tastes funny, anyway. "Living dildo". Pfft. These oversexed brutes haven't a clue what they're on about. The irony would be if they start claimng prison effect, but I digress. The point is that here I find people very worried about maintaining a proper identity complex denigrating that identity. This is interesting; these men are denigrating men.

    At any rate, please forgive my digression about the objectification and denigration of masculinity and manhood. What were we on about? Oh, yes: Suspected of being a man.

    When we hear men complain about how society treats them like criminal suspects just because they're men, remember that it's not really the feminists, but the traditionalists who do so. Inspecting a suspected man. Right up there with avoiding the suspected homosexual. Yeah. Traditional mores. I'd say, "Who'd'a thunk?" except, well, the underlying proposition is pretty sound; people have known about this for a while, but it has to do with men and women, and it generally views empowered human frailty as more empowered than subject human frailty, which means traditionalits would rather not talk about it.

    So we don't. Except every once in a while it comes up.

    Suspected of being a man.

    Can't blame the feminists or liberals or queers for that one. Traditionalists went and did that to their men—and everyone else's, too, thank 'em none—all on their own.

    So ... is there a ten code for "suspected male"? How would a police officer call for backup? 10-69 is taken ... well, "received". Oh ... 10-94.

    Drag racing.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Nicholson, Eric. "Self-Appointed Bathroom Cop Catches Dallas Woman Using Women's Restroom". Dallas Observer. 29 April 2016. DallasObserver.com. 16 March 2017. http://bit.ly/1TrOXs3

    Singal, Jesse. "How Straight Men Who Have Sex With Men Explain Their Encounters". Science of Us. 14 February 2017. NYMag.com. 16 March 2017. http://sciof.us/2ll89Br
     
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Yep. Apparently in conservative states, small-government conservatives demand that the government tell them which bathroom to use. But in "crazy" California, the government leaves that up to people to figure out on their own.

    (Up next - North Carolina passes the "wipe your ass three times before you leave the stall" law, because otherwise there would be chaos.)
     
  23. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    You forgot to two amendment additions which states

    which hand to use and

    the limitations on how many sheets you can take off the roll depending on the ply

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