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A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

economist.com

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Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#641

Post by fao_ »

brundolf wrote: post #537
btilly wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is hard to say. In a world full of discrimination against trans folks, who knows how many people who would prefer being trans have failed to be identified? But the topic is much bigger than that. You see, the ideology being pushed says that everyone who has gender dysphoria should be assumed to be trans. But a LOT of teenagers, particularly girls, go through a period of gender dysphoria when they hit puberty. Wh…

This is a wonderfully nuanced thread on the subject from a trans woman in her thirties: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1385411504669790208.html Edit: I just noticed the original poster already converted this into a longform post, so the "reader app" version isn't really necessary https://liminalwarmth.com/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things-m...

It's also important noting, semi-related to your post, that nobody is pushing for trans-surgeries for teenagers -- they are pushing for puberty blockers. What this means is that puberty is medically halted until the teenager is a legal age, when they will be able to decide which puberty they want.

This avoids a lot of dysphoria-provoking secondary sexual characteristics from progressing, and also avoids accidentally "transing" a cisgender teenager.

Nobody hesitates to give puberty blockers to cisgender teenagers, for other medical reasons. I knew a young girl who had to have puberty blockers because she had a precocious puberty and it was literally destroying her young body -- she was not old enough physically or mentally to be able to deal with it.

However, for whatever reason, there is a huge backlash against giving it to transgender teenagers, despite it representing the best and ultimate choice in self-determination -- "Take these for a few years and then when you are 18 you can decide which puberty you want to go through". It leaves room for the individual to decide. If the person decides against it before then, they can stop and puberty immediately resumes as normal.

When the suicide rates are as high as they are for transgender people, and there is the option of halting the things causing the suicidal feelings, the dysphoria, all of the physical and emotional and societal pain. Halting an onslaught of pain that is utterly soul destroying, and just giving them more time to make a choice and more of an informed decision, how can there be any empathically-cogent argument against that?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#642

Post by oceanplexian »

dougmwne wrote: post #462
TimTheTinker wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird to me that sexuality and identity are so intertwined. Why should someone "come out" as anything? (I know a lot of people "come out" as various things in a mere bid for attention... I'll leave that issue aside.) If I knew someone casually for a while who never talked about his/her sexuality, but one day they said "I never said this before, but I'm a heterosexual", I'd certainly feel awkward about it. Why di…

It's only weird to you because you are almost certainly straight, cis and male. Let me explain. All of society is structured around your identity. Like the fish, you can't even see the water because you have always been in it. I'm unlikely to help you see the water, but let me at least try. If you meet a friend, he might comment he saw a movie with his new girlfriend. He shows you a photo on his phone and you say she…

I don't think you deserve to be downvoted but I don't believe having a conversation about heterosexual relationships is somehow free of consequences. Even if I had a conversation about a partner who is straight, people are going to make snap judgements about the their appearance, what they do for work, what religion they belong to (Be prepared to be judged if it is the wrong one!) etc.

Many children have been disowned by their parents because they fell in love with someone from the wrong family. There is no shortage of thousand year old stories and plays describing this exact situation. So, the idea that "Like the fish, you can't even see the water because you have always been in it." doesn't really resonate with me. That doesn't mean our society is free from discrimination and unfair treatment, but painting people with a broad brush serves to alienate those who might be your allies, and is ironically the very thing you are advocating against.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#643

Post by cryptica »

My view on gender is the same as anything else. We should accept the cards we're dealt and focus on our strengths.

Nobody is making you focus on your problems, you can choose what to focus on. If you were born as the wrong gender, why would you focus on that? You will probably never win that battle. You can never be satisfied because you will never have what most other people have. You should try to focus on other things where you actually have a reasonable chance of success; of feeling satisfied.

Most people are deepy dissatisfied with certain aspects of themselves and if you ignore these things long enough and focus on other things intensely, eventually, after a decade or two you may stop caring about your complexes completely.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#644

Post by UnpossibleJim »

chc wrote: post #575
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.diabetesresearch.org/diabetes-statistics#:~:text... . I don't know from blind people, but in America, there are anywhere from 10.2 to 17.5% of the population that are diabetic. While not pursued by hate groups, they are actively preyed by pharmaceutical companies and politicians who don't let insulins go generic - one of the few medicines that can't. Yes there is complaint about the medical system in Amer…

I sympathize with your overall point and agree that it's shameful how America treats diabetics like an ATM, but I think you're very far off-target if you envy the way transgender people are treated. Lots of anti-transgender people do just fine in our society. A person who actively fought against trans rights in California is currently the Vice President of the United States (though she has gotten much quieter on tran…

I'm not envious of the way transgender people are treated, and if I came across sounding that way I do apologize. My tone was for the disproportion of attention, not of action. In truth, very little action will be taken for good for the transgender population or health disorders. That isn't how these things play out, unfortunately. As a society, we only know the stick and not the carrot. While I sympathize with the sentiment that there are several openly anti-trans members of Congress, nearly all of Congress is anti-Medical Reform in action, if not in voice. My point is a scale of difference, which was brought up at the start of this thread. I really do appreciate the struggle that the trans community has to go through, and I am not deaf to their cries (and, though somehow this makes me a worse person to some who would hear it, I do know people who are trans). But if we are going to look at things on a societal scale, how can we ignore the statistical numbers of the societal woes and population impacts?

As for insurance, you might be shocked at what insurance doesn't cover for diabetics. They don't just "cut a check" for everything. I can't tell you how many times my doctor and I have to get on the phone to argue with them for literal months to get things covered. For things to keep me alive. Not to feel right in my skin. Not to keep thoughts of suicide away. To keep bare minimal physical biological function going.

As for Kamala Harris, she has a whole lot to be displeased about. Prison labor, drug prosecution, questionable school bussing policies, anti trans right policies. Yeah, I'm not a fan.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#645

Post by handoflixue »

whateveracct wrote: post #318
caeril wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a large segment of the population that feels actively threatened by trans rights. The two primary components are: 1. Parents and sexual violence victims concerned about the non-falsifiability of trans-identification and the related concerns of sexual predators claiming an identity they don't actually have to gain access to private spaces of women and girls. 2. Feminists (TERFs) who believe being a woman is a…

> Feminists (TERFs) One note: Nobody self-identifies as a TERF. Or at least not originally (I'm sure in Internet ire people do it ironically by now.) It's mostly a label used to crush nuanced conversation.

No one self-identifies as an asshole or a bigot, but there sure still are a lot of them out there. I'd hardly say that the only use of those labels is to "crush nuanced conversation" - people just aren't inclined to take ideas seriously when they emerge from people they fundamentally disagree with. Telling a democrat that something is a "republican" idea will produce the same result, and vice-versa.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#646

Post by pas »

worik wrote: post #464
motohagiography wrote: post #147

One shouldn't expect courage from The Economist, but it's always wise to bet on their prudence. I don't read The Economist for facts or details so much as to get a sense of what topics a current establishment can no longer afford to ignore. The details are secondary to the neccessity that a writer, a sub-editor, and a senior editor with tremendous personal stake in maintaining access to the circles that define establ…

The Economist has been talking about this for many years.

Could you link something worth reading from them on this?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#647

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

scubbo wrote: post #530
btilly wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made a claim about ideology. You made a claim about medical professionals. That is not particularly relevant to what I claimed. I stand by my claim. The online echo chambers that children, including my own, seek out very much push the ideology that any claim to be male, female, non-binary or whatever must be accepted at face value. And that the person who is making the claim should have the right to any treatment t…

> any claim to be male, female, non-binary or whatever must be accepted at face value. And that the person who is making the claim should have the right to any treatment that they wish, up to and including surgery. I can understand some caution around the latter part of this quote, given how traumatic, invasive, and costly surgery can be. It is a defensible and reasonable position that there should be _some_ barrier-…

> But how can anyone _possibly_ deny the first part? How could anyone contradict an individual who states their own gender - on what grounds can you claim to know how someone feels about themselves better than they themself do?

A lot of us remember similar mistakes from their own teenage years. I had a short phase where I thought I was gay, because my classmates were starting to date girls but I had a close guy friend and wasn't very interested in girls. Then I looked it up, found some resources clearly explaining that's not what being gay is, and walked away more secure in my identity. If someone had told me that I couldn't be wrong, because nobody knows how I feel better than I do, I would probably have come out and then been confused and insecure for years.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#648

Post by cmh89 »

phodge wrote: post #631
drenvuk wrote: post #268

Can someone please tell me how important this topic based on the amount of news time and eyeballs it attracts relative to the number of people that it affects? The numbers I can find for US citizens is: 0.6% or 1,988,696 out 331,449,281 of people total for the entirety of the US in 2021. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Unite... In the UK where the featured article took place the latest poll I…

In Australia and most other developed countries now, this ideology is heavily promoted to children, encouraging them to believe they are trans. They are connected with websites that promote the ideology, and then connected with a trans specialist who helps prescribe puberty blockers without parental knowledge. If you are a parent who believes that children should be taught to love their own bodies as they grow rather…

This post has a very noticeable lack of citations and vague terms like "huge" which make it very likely that you are speaking from personal bias rather than any kind of expertise.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#649

Post by Wowfunhappy »

fxtentacle wrote: post #616
scubbo wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any claim to be male, female, non-binary or whatever must be accepted at face value. And that the person who is making the claim should have the right to any treatment that they wish, up to and including surgery. I can understand some caution around the latter part of this quote, given how traumatic, invasive, and costly surgery can be. It is a defensible and reasonable position that there should be _some_ barrier-…

My I can imagine thousands of reasons why teenagers would lie, and maybe they'll come up with new pronouns just to annoy you. Because that's what kids do, they constantly test the limits of acceptable behavior and the limits of your patience. That said, I agree with you that people can choose what gender they feel like and others should accept it as an opinion. But trying to force others to change their behavior to a…

> Do you believe a horny teenage guy would be willing to lie and say he identifies as female, if that means he gets to see all of his female classmates naked?

No, I don't. Living out that type of switch for any length of time is an enormous investment, which will change the way your peers view you forever. It is worthwhile if you're actually trans, but anyone else would be so much better off just browsing the internet.

That said, I also think single-gender spaces are in need of an re-think. Same-sex locker rooms inherently assume that people of the same gender can't be attracted to one another, which is simply not the case. So what's the point?

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#650

Post by munk-a »

kenjackson wrote: post #489
drenvuk wrote: post #268

Can someone please tell me how important this topic based on the amount of news time and eyeballs it attracts relative to the number of people that it affects? The numbers I can find for US citizens is: 0.6% or 1,988,696 out 331,449,281 of people total for the entirety of the US in 2021. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Unite... In the UK where the featured article took place the latest poll I…

> Personally I don't think this is very important compared to other topics. There are more blind people than trans people. There are more people with Alzheimer's than trans people. There are more people in the US who have lost a limb than trans people. It's not impactful in terms of the number of people, but its a civil rights issue for those on the left. And for those on the right its just one more group trying to c…

Honestly though the question around sports fairness is less a problem raised by trans people and more just an existing issue exposed. Female and male bodies work differently on average but there are a good number of women more fit and physically capable than 99% of men - gender is not an independent variable in physical fitness but I do wonder if there's really much of a reason to keep insisting that the genders be separated into exclusive leagues.
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