"It remains pretty clear, though, that a sizable share of Americans have not yet been convinced by the more progressive arguments being made about sex, gender, and identity, or about policy trade-offs related to those issues."
That's because they haven't been arguments, they've been proclamations. The time for the public discussion you want would have been BEFORE the proclamations. It's too late now.
You know that meme about how if you ask a dumb person how they'd feel if they didn't have breakfast this morning, they say "But I did have breakfast." I think one reason it's been hard to have any argument is that most anti-trans activists are on that level of reasoning.
Many of the arguments about trans rights that I find really convincing are hypothetical scenarios designed to help a cis person understand how it feels to be trans. For example, what if a mad scientist transplanted your brain into a body of the opposite sex? Or would you still use gendered pronouns if you were uploaded into a computer. The response I usually get to those arguments is "that's absurd" or "that's impossible." In other words, their response is usually "but I did have breakfast."
When dealing with such cretins, you can understand the temptation to just stop arguing and make proclamation instead. I'm not saying it was right or wise, but it was understandable.
In all fairness, concluding that your opponents are cretins because they don't find your examples convincing, and deciding that makes it okay to proceed without consensus, is a huge part of the current political divide, not just on this issue but on many issues, and on both sides of the political chasm.
I'm not saying that they are cretins because they don't find my examples convincing. If they understood my argument, but weren't convinced by it, I could fully respect that. What I find frustrating is that they do not seem to understand my argument and do not seem to be making a good faith cognitive effort to do so.
Also, like I said, I find the urge to proceed without consensus understandable, but don't agree with it. It's important to get people on your side and important to accept that sometimes people can't be persuaded.
...And their proclamations are lies. Trans women are men. Human rights ARE a pie (they want men to have women's rights, which means that women lose their rights to single sex accommodations) Puberty blockers are not reversible, and every country who formerly destroyed the health and fertility of children is now furiously reversing course. Detransitioners do exist and are in the neighbourhood of 30% (that's according to WPATH) and not the 1% trans rights activists claim. This lie takes down every other lie, which all rely on the absurd idea that a person can be born in the wrong body, and this magic feeling that one is the opposite sex and should be treated as a sacred truth.
The reasoned arguments were being made back then, too. Antagonists chose to fixate on “proclamations” and pretend that’s all it was, because it made (and makes) the pushback easier and look reasonable in a certain light.
I should think the point is obvious. Making reasoned arguments ("back then" or now) is what one does in pursuit of consensus, not a pro forma display before imposing a policy without consensus. If the reasoned arguments "back then" didn't produce consensus (and they did not, for whatever reason), that is not a defense for treating the issue as settled anyway.
Like, I don’t understand why this is hard for you. You said, “there weren’t arguments, there were proclamations.” My point of contention is that there were also arguments *in addition* to proclamations, but people who were already motivated to ignore the arguments chose to fixate on proclamations, and to use this as an excuse for why they wouldn’t hear the arguments. I’m not even going to agree with the claim that the “proclamations” were all that counterproductive, either, though, because I’ve noticed that when one excuse isn’t available, the same bad-faith actors will just invent a different one.
Consensus and democracy are the terms when the relevant information (arguments) are disseminated and engaged a roughly equal amount by everybody. Debate is one formalized method of airing the arguments.
What we’ve had on this issue hasn’t been that. The reasoned arguments are there, and are available, but the majority of talking heads do not engage with them or give them air time. We don’t have a good faith debate, we have a “discourse” instead, and in that discourse the worst takes from one side are deliberately amplified and given attention disproportionate to both their popularity *and* the quality of the arguments, because it’s always easier to break down a strawman.
I am not treating the issue as settled, I am disagreeing with the diagnosis from the other side that there were never any good arguments from ours (and that, therefore, the rational perspective is settled in favor of the regressive side).
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
Dave your facts are skewed. Trans people are pretty much equally split between transmaculinee people and transfeminine people.
The majority of women are not worried about trans people being in shared spaces. They don't need your protection. There is absolutely no statistical evidence showing that any individual in a shared space is at a higher risk, except for trans people forced to use sex assigned at birth shared spaces.
In regards to your first question, I mean they should meet the criteria for gender dysphoria as defined by the DSM and other psychological standards.
In terms of biology, hormones and surgery cannot change what sexual genotype someone has. They do have some pretty significant effects on sexual phenotype. A transwoman who has had hormone and surgical treatments is phenotypically pretty similar to a sterile cis woman. Again, I fully agree that their genotype is unchanged.
However, is anyone actually disputing that last point? Most transpeople I know say that they are women and men in spite of their genotypes, not because of it. To make an analogy, imagine being told that someone you know has adopted a child, and replying that it doesn't matter if they are legally declared to be the child's parent, there is no way to rewrite a child's DNA so they share it with their adoptive parents. Such an argument seems absurd and confused. Adoptive parents are parents in spite of their genotypes, not because of them.
well, i don’t know how i got here on substack, but here i am:
i’m a trans woman. i have no problem answering whatever questions you have about my mindset, my transition, my hopes and dreams for a shared and prosperous future on this planet, or any other conversation you want to have about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
HOWEVER, my existence is not an issue or an ideology up for debate nor a question that can be polled. my existence is a fact. it is also a fact that i am not a threat to anyone. i’m an artist, a professional chaplain, a parent, a cat lover, and an active participant in the civil life of my community.
now, what impact these facts have on you is not within my jurisdiction. but, regardless, in no way should anyone, in a free society governed by enlightenment principles, have the authority to force my existence into hiding (or forced into non-existence) because of your personal beliefs (i.e. ideology) about the fact of my existence. whenever minority populations can be forced into hiding or non-existence by their government and/or their neighbor’s beliefs, it’s a pretty good sign that the health of that society is in sharp decline.
The “good faith questioning” is never truly good faith. This comment section is already full of bigotry. It just feels like they want to dissect us as a problem to solve/fix rather than treat us like humans.
For the record I'm just an extremely average woman who works in an office and is engaged to her fiancé. It's an incredibly average normal life; I just happen to be a trans woman. ☺️
I think that people that are actually paying attention know exactly why the gender ideology crowd backed out of a debate. Their arguments are thought ending cliches. Should men (trans identified males or TIMS) be allowed in women's changing rooms? Their answer is Trans Women are women! Should gender non-conforming children be allowed to go through puberty? Trans rights are human rights! Thats ALL they have and neither is true. Trans people have all of the rights that anyone else has. What they want is for men to have women rights. People politely agree that trans women are women, but nobody actually believes it, especially when they bring all of the male pattern behaviours into every context, whether it is violently threatening women defending their rights to private spaces, and acting out their womanhood as a fetish and nothing else. Women are completely fed up with this. We are tired of being told a straight man is a lesbian and we are genital fascists if she doesn't want them in our beds. We are tired of being emotional support animals for men who want to steal our aspirations, podiums and playing time in sports. But most of all, we are tired of men not giving a single shit about this because women's rights are completely disposable if a man wants to pretend to be a woman.
By the way, Jamie Reed is no longer married to a transman. Her husband is now her wife because she famously detransitioned after her mental and physical health deteriorated as a result of of her F to M transition.
The rhetoric you are using seems far more question-begging and thought terminating than trans rhetoric I have seen. In particular, you can't seem to stop framing it as allowing men into women's places even though whether or not they are men at all is kind of the whole thing up for dispute!
I think a good many people truly and sincerely believe that trans women are women. That's why they are fine with them in women's restrooms, changing rooms,etc. They believe that trans women are women and therefore do not contaminate women's spaces with their presence. (I might suggest we go even further and simply stop believing that men do it either). They truly believe that transwomen are women, and therefore their gaze is not inherently degrading or objectifying. (Again, while that's a step in the right direction, doesn't it make even more sense to stop believing that the male gaze is inherently degrading and objectifying?)
I'm going to break with some of the more extreme pro-trans people here and say that I expect a male who identifies as a woman to fulfill more criteria than say the words. Like, they need to display signs of gender dysphoria. I am perfectly willing to say that pro-trans activists who disagree with me on this have gone too far and need to be reigned in.
As to your assertion that most/all people who claim to believe transwomen are women don't really believe it and have been emotionally blackmailed into it, that's unfalsifiable. You earlier criticize the idea that all trans people have to do is say the words on the grounds that it is unfalsifiable (if I am understanding your implication correctly). You cant have it both ways.
This is a disability issue. It has nothing to do with "LGBTQIA+," let alone "Queer."
A person genuinely suffering from a brain-body mismatch (due to a neurological or hormonal anomaly) deserves the same decency, compassion and access to medical treatment (if need be) as anyone with a deformity or disability. (As for "intersex"? Some people are born with eight toes.) And bullying or harming the disabled is an atrocity in its own right.
All the rest is cosplay. None of it requires that we redefine “male” and “female,” or adopt terms like “cis” and “trans.
“Like they need to display signs of gender dysphoria”; given that words do in fact must have meaning, what exactly do you mean by this phrase?
I will say that no matter what you meant by this phrase, whatever your personal criteria may be, or that of “pro trans activists”, no medical or surgical or linguistic intervention will ever make a male a female.
Agree with every word you write here. I am particularly furious that it is gay activists who have given total precedence to the desires and feelings of male transsexuals (and transvestites) and have dismissed the rights and wishes of women: these are the same gay men who benefited from the hard work of left-wing feminist allies in previous decades, when we worked to overturn homophobic laws and change society's 'attitudes, so that gay men have equal rights and dignified lives. We had empathy for them, but they appear to have none for women.
You're misreading gay males -- or, if not, you're trashing us for being ourselves.
Despite the dubious "LGBTQ+" designation touted by self-serving "advocacy" organizations, gay males shouldn't be assumed to be on-board with "trans." But then again, it shouldn't be assumed that we're feminists, either.
I experience some stereotypically "feminine" emotions. Reconciling such feelings with respect for my male body has been absolutely crucial to my self-acceptance as a gay male. "Feminine" as I might sometimes feel, I'm not a woman -- and I'm not about to cut off my dick to spite my crotch.
Indeed, among gay males, drag is about repudiating and ridiculing the very concept of "gender" -- not “affirming” it.
So much for "gender identity," and for the supposed collusion of gay males.
Meanwhile, I first realized that I was gay when I recognized that it was the answer to my grandfather when he asked, "Why ain't you interested in goyls?"
"Left-wing feminist allies"? Thanks but no thanks; I never signed up to become beholden to such folks. Stay off of my cloud, and (since I don't find them attractive, or as worthy of interest as cute guys) I can easily promise to stay off theirs.
I fully support open and unbiased dialogue. However, my understanding is that Jamie Reed recently had reawakened of her faith and that her spouse was detransitioning and involved in lawsuits about that. If this is correct, please correct me if I'm wrong, then that person does not seem to have a voice that is willing or able to speak authentically. Thank you.
Why can't people have an honest conversation about this? What actually happened is that some young adults identify as trans of their own free will, and some adults help them obtain the medical treatment they want. You can reasonably argue that the young adults are mistaken in their belief that they are trans. You can reasonably argue that the adults that help them haven't done a good enough job of making sure the young adults really are trans and really need the treatment beforehand. Those are both reasonable concerns.
What isn't reasonable is pretending that a bunch of kids were minding their own business when some adults came along and started performing hormone treatments and surgeries on them against their will. That's stupid. No reasonable person could believe that's anything close to true.
The reason such a view is popular is that it allows anti-trans activists to portray themselves as noble protectors of children, rather than cruel and thoughtless oppressors of them. It also lets them portray trans identities as an external contamination spread by adults, rather than something that just naturally shows up in some small minority of children for some unknown reason.
Yes, "trans" people exist. They're just not what they crack themselves up to be.
A person genuinely suffering from a brain-body mismatch (due to a neurological or hormonal anomaly) deserves the same decency, compassion and access to medical treatment (if need be) as anyone with a deformity or disability. (As for "intersex"? Some people are born with eight toes.) And bullying or harming the disabled is an atrocity in its own right.
(FWIW, I experience some stereotypically "feminine" emotions. Recociling such feelings with respect for my male body has been absolutely crucial to my self-acceptance as a gay male.)
All the rest is cosplay. None of it requires that we redefine “male” and “female,” or adopt terms like “cis” and “trans.”
In other words, this is a disability issue. It has nothing to do with "LGBTQIA+," let alone "Queer."
So, indeed -- let's have an honest conversation about this, and about how we construe these issues -- for ourselves, and when presenting them to our kids.
The thesis of this article is wrong because it is based upon data beginning in 2017. If surveys about transgenderism existed at the beginning of the Obama era, much less the Reagan or LBJ eras, I'm sure it would show the same dominant trend as other issues (with the notable difference of the backslide in the last several years when the left created a backlash).
But this "issue" is not one of liberality or even "permissiveness." It's about denying material reality and also *literally* physically harming children (as opposed to the "literal violence" of not using sex-inaccurate pronouns) and young adults, especially future gays and lesbians and those with neuro-disabilities like autism.
As many gender-critical leaders like Lisa Selin Davis and Jamie Reed have said, this isn't a left-right thing, so while it does (or doesn't) overlap with those particular political labels, it's more about realizing that fewer people - regardless of political orientation - are OK with flat-out pretending the emperor has no clothes.
In researching the instances described in this article, I have found much of the data outdated and many of the details left out. Please continue with caution. This writing is likely quite biased.
My question is how many of these socially liberal people were willing to give up those things to stop the transes? Then again the right wingers all like those things too, whether openly like Trump or barely covertly like the dudes at CPAC crashing Grindr & how we all know that many of their daughters, wives and mistresses will all be able to get safe abortions.
Nobody going to acknowledge how “porn” changed, in content, format and ubiquity? It’s an industry built on the child sexual abuse of the traumatized boys consuming it.
Frankly, I'd like to see if public attitudes will similarly evolve in a more progressive direction on child sex dolls/robots over time or whether this issue will end up being similar to the trans issue.
Wait, what? When did the child sex robot thing come up? (Sheesh I'm so maxed out on crazy sci-fi stuff in real life) For the record I don't care if stuff like that is legal, whether it helps prevent pedos from abuse or encourages them.
I mean I don't know what effect it would have on the pedos but it isn't harmful so I don't care so long as people don't tell me that's what they do on the weekend.
Maybe eventually in the future it will also make child sex robots.
Moralfags in various Western countries have recently criminalized the importation, sale, and possession of such dolls. Frankly, I really hope that the US Supreme Court will strike down these bans here in the US, though I fear that they will Cuck.
We can already do that right now. But the problem is that the moralfags want to criminalize these things, and already succeeded in some/many US states, so that people who order child sex dolls/robots because they want to have a satisfactory harm-free sex life and can’t achieve this by having sex with other adults are now going to be deprived of this option, and instead either be compelled to get castrated or else try getting these dolls anyway and get a criminal record for themselves. Stupid, stupid moralfags! Did criminalizing sodomy in the past teach them absolutely nothing?
It would be extra ironic & hypocritical if the same people believe in harm reduction in other issues like drugs and sex work/ prostitution. I can see that.
It’s also illogical to believe that homosexuality is sinful but that we need to accept it anyway (as some religious Jews and Christians do nowadays) because homosexuality is innate and it would be cruel to compel gays to get castrated turn out and reject applying similar logic to virtuous pedophiles in regards to child sex dolls/robots (as in, that virtuous pedophiles should get castrated instead of using such dolls/robots and watching cartoon/animated child porn).
Certainly, but we can't blame the activists for trying. They failed. In the process, the hard nut of the opposition was identified - it's women. I don't think women are likely to change their minds about private spaces and women-only sports, and this is why it failed and will remain intractable.
"It remains pretty clear, though, that a sizable share of Americans have not yet been convinced by the more progressive arguments being made about sex, gender, and identity, or about policy trade-offs related to those issues."
That's because they haven't been arguments, they've been proclamations. The time for the public discussion you want would have been BEFORE the proclamations. It's too late now.
You know that meme about how if you ask a dumb person how they'd feel if they didn't have breakfast this morning, they say "But I did have breakfast." I think one reason it's been hard to have any argument is that most anti-trans activists are on that level of reasoning.
Many of the arguments about trans rights that I find really convincing are hypothetical scenarios designed to help a cis person understand how it feels to be trans. For example, what if a mad scientist transplanted your brain into a body of the opposite sex? Or would you still use gendered pronouns if you were uploaded into a computer. The response I usually get to those arguments is "that's absurd" or "that's impossible." In other words, their response is usually "but I did have breakfast."
When dealing with such cretins, you can understand the temptation to just stop arguing and make proclamation instead. I'm not saying it was right or wise, but it was understandable.
In all fairness, concluding that your opponents are cretins because they don't find your examples convincing, and deciding that makes it okay to proceed without consensus, is a huge part of the current political divide, not just on this issue but on many issues, and on both sides of the political chasm.
I'm not saying that they are cretins because they don't find my examples convincing. If they understood my argument, but weren't convinced by it, I could fully respect that. What I find frustrating is that they do not seem to understand my argument and do not seem to be making a good faith cognitive effort to do so.
Also, like I said, I find the urge to proceed without consensus understandable, but don't agree with it. It's important to get people on your side and important to accept that sometimes people can't be persuaded.
...And their proclamations are lies. Trans women are men. Human rights ARE a pie (they want men to have women's rights, which means that women lose their rights to single sex accommodations) Puberty blockers are not reversible, and every country who formerly destroyed the health and fertility of children is now furiously reversing course. Detransitioners do exist and are in the neighbourhood of 30% (that's according to WPATH) and not the 1% trans rights activists claim. This lie takes down every other lie, which all rely on the absurd idea that a person can be born in the wrong body, and this magic feeling that one is the opposite sex and should be treated as a sacred truth.
The reasoned arguments were being made back then, too. Antagonists chose to fixate on “proclamations” and pretend that’s all it was, because it made (and makes) the pushback easier and look reasonable in a certain light.
https://open.substack.com/pub/exasperatedalien/p/liberals-are-not-responsible-for?r=b70l0&utm_medium=ios
In what kind of democracy does an argument's failure to gain consensus confer the right to impose it?
I don’t understand the question (it’s obviously rhetorical, but what’s the rhetoric driving at?), nor the reason for the question.
I should think the point is obvious. Making reasoned arguments ("back then" or now) is what one does in pursuit of consensus, not a pro forma display before imposing a policy without consensus. If the reasoned arguments "back then" didn't produce consensus (and they did not, for whatever reason), that is not a defense for treating the issue as settled anyway.
Like, I don’t understand why this is hard for you. You said, “there weren’t arguments, there were proclamations.” My point of contention is that there were also arguments *in addition* to proclamations, but people who were already motivated to ignore the arguments chose to fixate on proclamations, and to use this as an excuse for why they wouldn’t hear the arguments. I’m not even going to agree with the claim that the “proclamations” were all that counterproductive, either, though, because I’ve noticed that when one excuse isn’t available, the same bad-faith actors will just invent a different one.
I gave the reason already.
Consensus and democracy are the terms when the relevant information (arguments) are disseminated and engaged a roughly equal amount by everybody. Debate is one formalized method of airing the arguments.
What we’ve had on this issue hasn’t been that. The reasoned arguments are there, and are available, but the majority of talking heads do not engage with them or give them air time. We don’t have a good faith debate, we have a “discourse” instead, and in that discourse the worst takes from one side are deliberately amplified and given attention disproportionate to both their popularity *and* the quality of the arguments, because it’s always easier to break down a strawman.
I am not treating the issue as settled, I am disagreeing with the diagnosis from the other side that there were never any good arguments from ours (and that, therefore, the rational perspective is settled in favor of the regressive side).
As you like.
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
Dave your facts are skewed. Trans people are pretty much equally split between transmaculinee people and transfeminine people.
The majority of women are not worried about trans people being in shared spaces. They don't need your protection. There is absolutely no statistical evidence showing that any individual in a shared space is at a higher risk, except for trans people forced to use sex assigned at birth shared spaces.
In regards to your first question, I mean they should meet the criteria for gender dysphoria as defined by the DSM and other psychological standards.
In terms of biology, hormones and surgery cannot change what sexual genotype someone has. They do have some pretty significant effects on sexual phenotype. A transwoman who has had hormone and surgical treatments is phenotypically pretty similar to a sterile cis woman. Again, I fully agree that their genotype is unchanged.
However, is anyone actually disputing that last point? Most transpeople I know say that they are women and men in spite of their genotypes, not because of it. To make an analogy, imagine being told that someone you know has adopted a child, and replying that it doesn't matter if they are legally declared to be the child's parent, there is no way to rewrite a child's DNA so they share it with their adoptive parents. Such an argument seems absurd and confused. Adoptive parents are parents in spite of their genotypes, not because of them.
well, i don’t know how i got here on substack, but here i am:
i’m a trans woman. i have no problem answering whatever questions you have about my mindset, my transition, my hopes and dreams for a shared and prosperous future on this planet, or any other conversation you want to have about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
HOWEVER, my existence is not an issue or an ideology up for debate nor a question that can be polled. my existence is a fact. it is also a fact that i am not a threat to anyone. i’m an artist, a professional chaplain, a parent, a cat lover, and an active participant in the civil life of my community.
now, what impact these facts have on you is not within my jurisdiction. but, regardless, in no way should anyone, in a free society governed by enlightenment principles, have the authority to force my existence into hiding (or forced into non-existence) because of your personal beliefs (i.e. ideology) about the fact of my existence. whenever minority populations can be forced into hiding or non-existence by their government and/or their neighbor’s beliefs, it’s a pretty good sign that the health of that society is in sharp decline.
so…
The “good faith questioning” is never truly good faith. This comment section is already full of bigotry. It just feels like they want to dissect us as a problem to solve/fix rather than treat us like humans.
For the record I'm just an extremely average woman who works in an office and is engaged to her fiancé. It's an incredibly average normal life; I just happen to be a trans woman. ☺️
I think that people that are actually paying attention know exactly why the gender ideology crowd backed out of a debate. Their arguments are thought ending cliches. Should men (trans identified males or TIMS) be allowed in women's changing rooms? Their answer is Trans Women are women! Should gender non-conforming children be allowed to go through puberty? Trans rights are human rights! Thats ALL they have and neither is true. Trans people have all of the rights that anyone else has. What they want is for men to have women rights. People politely agree that trans women are women, but nobody actually believes it, especially when they bring all of the male pattern behaviours into every context, whether it is violently threatening women defending their rights to private spaces, and acting out their womanhood as a fetish and nothing else. Women are completely fed up with this. We are tired of being told a straight man is a lesbian and we are genital fascists if she doesn't want them in our beds. We are tired of being emotional support animals for men who want to steal our aspirations, podiums and playing time in sports. But most of all, we are tired of men not giving a single shit about this because women's rights are completely disposable if a man wants to pretend to be a woman.
By the way, Jamie Reed is no longer married to a transman. Her husband is now her wife because she famously detransitioned after her mental and physical health deteriorated as a result of of her F to M transition.
The rhetoric you are using seems far more question-begging and thought terminating than trans rhetoric I have seen. In particular, you can't seem to stop framing it as allowing men into women's places even though whether or not they are men at all is kind of the whole thing up for dispute!
I think a good many people truly and sincerely believe that trans women are women. That's why they are fine with them in women's restrooms, changing rooms,etc. They believe that trans women are women and therefore do not contaminate women's spaces with their presence. (I might suggest we go even further and simply stop believing that men do it either). They truly believe that transwomen are women, and therefore their gaze is not inherently degrading or objectifying. (Again, while that's a step in the right direction, doesn't it make even more sense to stop believing that the male gaze is inherently degrading and objectifying?)
You think a “good many people” believe that being a woman is just a matter of saying it?
After all, there’s absolutely no criteria for any male who “identifies” as a woman— it’s just whether they say the words.
No, a “good many people” do not actually believe that men are actually women on their say so; they have been emotionally blackmailed into saying it.
This has always been a language game.
I'm going to break with some of the more extreme pro-trans people here and say that I expect a male who identifies as a woman to fulfill more criteria than say the words. Like, they need to display signs of gender dysphoria. I am perfectly willing to say that pro-trans activists who disagree with me on this have gone too far and need to be reigned in.
As to your assertion that most/all people who claim to believe transwomen are women don't really believe it and have been emotionally blackmailed into it, that's unfalsifiable. You earlier criticize the idea that all trans people have to do is say the words on the grounds that it is unfalsifiable (if I am understanding your implication correctly). You cant have it both ways.
This is a disability issue. It has nothing to do with "LGBTQIA+," let alone "Queer."
A person genuinely suffering from a brain-body mismatch (due to a neurological or hormonal anomaly) deserves the same decency, compassion and access to medical treatment (if need be) as anyone with a deformity or disability. (As for "intersex"? Some people are born with eight toes.) And bullying or harming the disabled is an atrocity in its own right.
All the rest is cosplay. None of it requires that we redefine “male” and “female,” or adopt terms like “cis” and “trans.
“Like they need to display signs of gender dysphoria”; given that words do in fact must have meaning, what exactly do you mean by this phrase?
I will say that no matter what you meant by this phrase, whatever your personal criteria may be, or that of “pro trans activists”, no medical or surgical or linguistic intervention will ever make a male a female.
Ever.
Agree with every word you write here. I am particularly furious that it is gay activists who have given total precedence to the desires and feelings of male transsexuals (and transvestites) and have dismissed the rights and wishes of women: these are the same gay men who benefited from the hard work of left-wing feminist allies in previous decades, when we worked to overturn homophobic laws and change society's 'attitudes, so that gay men have equal rights and dignified lives. We had empathy for them, but they appear to have none for women.
You're misreading gay males -- or, if not, you're trashing us for being ourselves.
Despite the dubious "LGBTQ+" designation touted by self-serving "advocacy" organizations, gay males shouldn't be assumed to be on-board with "trans." But then again, it shouldn't be assumed that we're feminists, either.
I experience some stereotypically "feminine" emotions. Reconciling such feelings with respect for my male body has been absolutely crucial to my self-acceptance as a gay male. "Feminine" as I might sometimes feel, I'm not a woman -- and I'm not about to cut off my dick to spite my crotch.
Indeed, among gay males, drag is about repudiating and ridiculing the very concept of "gender" -- not “affirming” it.
So much for "gender identity," and for the supposed collusion of gay males.
Meanwhile, I first realized that I was gay when I recognized that it was the answer to my grandfather when he asked, "Why ain't you interested in goyls?"
"Left-wing feminist allies"? Thanks but no thanks; I never signed up to become beholden to such folks. Stay off of my cloud, and (since I don't find them attractive, or as worthy of interest as cute guys) I can easily promise to stay off theirs.
“Cut off my dick to spite my crotch” 😂
I fully support open and unbiased dialogue. However, my understanding is that Jamie Reed recently had reawakened of her faith and that her spouse was detransitioning and involved in lawsuits about that. If this is correct, please correct me if I'm wrong, then that person does not seem to have a voice that is willing or able to speak authentically. Thank you.
Because policing speech and stealing children to trans them was never ‘liberal’ to begin with.
Why can't people have an honest conversation about this? What actually happened is that some young adults identify as trans of their own free will, and some adults help them obtain the medical treatment they want. You can reasonably argue that the young adults are mistaken in their belief that they are trans. You can reasonably argue that the adults that help them haven't done a good enough job of making sure the young adults really are trans and really need the treatment beforehand. Those are both reasonable concerns.
What isn't reasonable is pretending that a bunch of kids were minding their own business when some adults came along and started performing hormone treatments and surgeries on them against their will. That's stupid. No reasonable person could believe that's anything close to true.
The reason such a view is popular is that it allows anti-trans activists to portray themselves as noble protectors of children, rather than cruel and thoughtless oppressors of them. It also lets them portray trans identities as an external contamination spread by adults, rather than something that just naturally shows up in some small minority of children for some unknown reason.
Yes, "trans" people exist. They're just not what they crack themselves up to be.
A person genuinely suffering from a brain-body mismatch (due to a neurological or hormonal anomaly) deserves the same decency, compassion and access to medical treatment (if need be) as anyone with a deformity or disability. (As for "intersex"? Some people are born with eight toes.) And bullying or harming the disabled is an atrocity in its own right.
(FWIW, I experience some stereotypically "feminine" emotions. Recociling such feelings with respect for my male body has been absolutely crucial to my self-acceptance as a gay male.)
All the rest is cosplay. None of it requires that we redefine “male” and “female,” or adopt terms like “cis” and “trans.”
In other words, this is a disability issue. It has nothing to do with "LGBTQIA+," let alone "Queer."
So, indeed -- let's have an honest conversation about this, and about how we construe these issues -- for ourselves, and when presenting them to our kids.
The thesis of this article is wrong because it is based upon data beginning in 2017. If surveys about transgenderism existed at the beginning of the Obama era, much less the Reagan or LBJ eras, I'm sure it would show the same dominant trend as other issues (with the notable difference of the backslide in the last several years when the left created a backlash).
But this "issue" is not one of liberality or even "permissiveness." It's about denying material reality and also *literally* physically harming children (as opposed to the "literal violence" of not using sex-inaccurate pronouns) and young adults, especially future gays and lesbians and those with neuro-disabilities like autism.
As many gender-critical leaders like Lisa Selin Davis and Jamie Reed have said, this isn't a left-right thing, so while it does (or doesn't) overlap with those particular political labels, it's more about realizing that fewer people - regardless of political orientation - are OK with flat-out pretending the emperor has no clothes.
But were the nineties really anti-gay though???
We need to find the right trans people to be leaders. Nobody should be a leader just because they're trans.
In researching the instances described in this article, I have found much of the data outdated and many of the details left out. Please continue with caution. This writing is likely quite biased.
My question is how many of these socially liberal people were willing to give up those things to stop the transes? Then again the right wingers all like those things too, whether openly like Trump or barely covertly like the dudes at CPAC crashing Grindr & how we all know that many of their daughters, wives and mistresses will all be able to get safe abortions.
Nobody going to acknowledge how “porn” changed, in content, format and ubiquity? It’s an industry built on the child sexual abuse of the traumatized boys consuming it.
Frankly, I'd like to see if public attitudes will similarly evolve in a more progressive direction on child sex dolls/robots over time or whether this issue will end up being similar to the trans issue.
Wait, what? When did the child sex robot thing come up? (Sheesh I'm so maxed out on crazy sci-fi stuff in real life) For the record I don't care if stuff like that is legal, whether it helps prevent pedos from abuse or encourages them.
I mean I don't know what effect it would have on the pedos but it isn't harmful so I don't care so long as people don't tell me that's what they do on the weekend.
There's a Japanese company called Trottla that makes child sex dolls:
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/news/2016/01/15/child-sex-doll--trottla--cdc--florina-altshiler
Maybe eventually in the future it will also make child sex robots.
Moralfags in various Western countries have recently criminalized the importation, sale, and possession of such dolls. Frankly, I really hope that the US Supreme Court will strike down these bans here in the US, though I fear that they will Cuck.
Clearly two camps will exist
Yes, like on every issue. The crucial question, however, will be which camp will be growing and which camp will be shrinking.
I mean, at least we should be able to speak and think our minds.
We can already do that right now. But the problem is that the moralfags want to criminalize these things, and already succeeded in some/many US states, so that people who order child sex dolls/robots because they want to have a satisfactory harm-free sex life and can’t achieve this by having sex with other adults are now going to be deprived of this option, and instead either be compelled to get castrated or else try getting these dolls anyway and get a criminal record for themselves. Stupid, stupid moralfags! Did criminalizing sodomy in the past teach them absolutely nothing?
It would be extra ironic & hypocritical if the same people believe in harm reduction in other issues like drugs and sex work/ prostitution. I can see that.
It’s also illogical to believe that homosexuality is sinful but that we need to accept it anyway (as some religious Jews and Christians do nowadays) because homosexuality is innate and it would be cruel to compel gays to get castrated turn out and reject applying similar logic to virtuous pedophiles in regards to child sex dolls/robots (as in, that virtuous pedophiles should get castrated instead of using such dolls/robots and watching cartoon/animated child porn).
Certainly, but we can't blame the activists for trying. They failed. In the process, the hard nut of the opposition was identified - it's women. I don't think women are likely to change their minds about private spaces and women-only sports, and this is why it failed and will remain intractable.