It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#641

Post by 8bitsrule » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 8:26 AM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #594

fleddr wrote: post #535

The times we live in, utterly bizarre. Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. It would still happen but in moderation, for which I'll use the stereotype "village idiot". A village idiot is isolated for having off-base ideas and behavior, hence bad ideas don't take root. Now it's as if all the village idiots of the world had a meeting and started to ru…

I know it doesn't feel that way right now, but there is probably no time in history where racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, religious hatred, slavery, etc. were less normalized than right now. These things are sadly all too common, there's lots of work to do, and we must not be complacent about past successes. But when I was a kid, homosexuality was illegal. Twenty years ago gay fear and stupid women were typical…

Well said.

In a time when people didn't question their gender, many of them might have felt themselves to be alone in their feelings. They not only learned to suppress their feelings (to avoid ridicule or worse), they were unable to understand them because literature was oppressed. Much self-isolation, even tragedy ensued. In many "less civilized cultures" these differences were not an excuse for abuse, but were recognized, even exalted ... until the colonizers came along with their 'truths'.

Exploring, understanding and accepting ourselves is an important step, for -all- of us, not just the typicals. "To thine own self be true..."

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#642

Post by vinegarden » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 8:47 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #637

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please do not repeat this right-wing talking point. Please do not make this a partisan issue. Some of us have been following the sexually regressive trend of calling our children's bodies defective and broken because they don't match the viewers' sexual stereotypes for quite a while now, and there was pretty widespread consensus across political and religious ideologies that our kids didn't need surgery to be okay.…

This is a gishgallop of modern pedophilia-associating talking points from the first sentence onward. ("sexually regressive trend of calling our children's bodies defective and broken because they don't match the viewers' sexual stereotypes" WHAT??) There's just so much that is horrifically wrong and sounds like a FOX News watcher's sweaty fantasy of what they think transgenderism is. It absolutely is a partisan issue…

> It absolutely is a partisan issue

There is nothing inherently partisan about disagreeing with the ideology of gender identity and its effects on law and policy.

In particular, opposition to this in the UK has been spearheaded by left-wing, grassroots feminist groups. This was in reaction to the right-wing Conservative government's proposals to allow people to change their legal sex by self-declaration, rather than the current system of requiring a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and approval from a panel of people with legal and medical qualifications.

See https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/women-are-vital-part... for more detail.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#643

Post by int_19h » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 9:14 AM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #632

faeriechangling wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve absolutely met people especially with limited language skills who get confused and frustrated by all these complicated concepts they’re expected to understand to simply not be accused of being hateful. Not to be too Orwellian, but I’ve often wondered why nobody say, talks about removing gendered pronouns altogether in formal speech instead of adding 50 new ones for instance. People seem to only talk about adding…

> I’ve often wondered why nobody say, talks about removing gendered pronouns altogether in formal speech instead of adding 50 new ones for instance. 'They' instead of 'he/she' is one of the things people actually use, and it's exactly dropping the gendered pronoun in favor of an existing neutral pronoun. It's strictly simpler and smaller language. My teenage kids use this construction a lot and I'm getting used to it…

It is, but some people specifically insist on "he" and "she" and will get offended if you use "they". In one such case, when I asked why "they" is inappropriate since it is by definition inclusive of all genders, the question itself was declared highly offensive and "erasing".

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#644

Post by MrVandemar » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 9:26 AM UTC

stubish wrote: post #624

robotresearcher wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it doesn't feel that way right now, but there is probably no time in history where racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, religious hatred, slavery, etc. were less normalized than right now. These things are sadly all too common, there's lots of work to do, and we must not be complacent about past successes. But when I was a kid, homosexuality was illegal. Twenty years ago gay fear and stupid women were typical…

Do you have any evidence that the denormalization of racism etc. is because of social media? Or that social media even helped? The ongoing fight to change the things you cite all predate social media by decades or more. Even with the Arab Spring, was social media helpful or just the tool used to coordinate? Would it have happened anyway without Twitter being there as a means to broadcast? A common criticism I have he…

I don't think OP is arguing that social media is leading to the denormalisation of racism; I think OP is noting that, whatever other madness we are dealing with in this day and age, there are some issues in the past that were crazy, abusive, exploitative and damaging, and that they have gotten much, much better over time.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#645

Post by anenefan » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 9:39 AM UTC

midoridensha wrote: post #620

anenefan wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit off topic but it might be an idea to move away from men's nipples [1] as an example of redundant evolution. It's true to say often an evolution trait has no obvious reason, possibly the reason no longer exists. Most every community have a tangle of a belief system outside of anything religious. Moving away from more obvious isms, I grew up surrounded by fierce ageism especially in regard to the dating set. As y…

Men's nipples are probably useful for the same reason many electronic products have various things on their circuit boards that aren't used: on those products, it's cheaper to manufacture a single circuit board to cover multiple variations of the product, and just attach the components needed for that particular model, leaving the rest unused. Genetically, it's probably easier for men and women to just share the same…

I understand but it was less fun to go down the shared male / female development path of why men end up with nipples :) The fact that men can lactate under unusual conditions has made me rethink using the idiom "as useless at tits on a bull" ... but I'm fairly sure that a bull would not let a hungry baby calf nuzzle long enough for it to find the bulls nipples.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#646

Post by LawTalkingGuy » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 9:45 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #637

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please do not repeat this right-wing talking point. Please do not make this a partisan issue. Some of us have been following the sexually regressive trend of calling our children's bodies defective and broken because they don't match the viewers' sexual stereotypes for quite a while now, and there was pretty widespread consensus across political and religious ideologies that our kids didn't need surgery to be okay.…

This is a gishgallop of modern pedophilia-associating talking points from the first sentence onward. ("sexually regressive trend of calling our children's bodies defective and broken because they don't match the viewers' sexual stereotypes" WHAT??) There's just so much that is horrifically wrong and sounds like a FOX News watcher's sweaty fantasy of what they think transgenderism is. It absolutely is a partisan issue…

> It absolutely is a partisan issue

As a culture war topic on twitter, maybe. But as a parenting issue, no.

> this transphobia

Facts aren't phobia.

> Transgenderism is testable, evaluatable, and has little to do with gender stereotypes like a boy playing with dolls

Which test? Is it medical and objective or based on self-reported feelings? Would you accept the answer if your government wanted to test and label you with it? Should Iran use it?

The trans community can't even decide if trans is a medical or mental condition or lifestyle choice. There certainly isn't a test for it or we'd have answers to those questions. If you insist there's a test that means you think trans is a condition which would make you a transmedicalist, or 'truscum' as they're called.

> A boy can absolutely wear a dress to elementary school without a teacher starting talk of transition.

No, counsellors and teachers speak of recognizing "cross-sex behaviors" in students. You can hear them in their own words in their tiktok videos.

Recently a friend's daughter has been "socially transitioned" at school. The teachers noticed she wasn't being feminine enough (our and her words, as we discuss it) and suggested she may be happier as a male so they gave her a new name and access to clothes while at school and most critically, told her not to tell her parents. Thankfully she had been told this is a red flag and did not comply.

> All transgender counselling starts with pre-existing condition consideration. As a trans friend of mine said "The first thing my transition counsellor asked me to do was quit my job. We needed to make sure I wasn't just depressed because I hated my job so much"

Ouch, that's bad counseling. Asking patients to make major upheavals just sets them up for failure. The proper aim is to give them tools to achieve their goals without disruption and a therapist should only recommend immediate large changes if a patient is in imminent risk.

Also, I know more personally that proper counseling is not always applied. My friend's daughter had legitimate reasons to be depressed but says that the counsellor they had her see did not examine any of them or ask about abuse and only discussed gender.

> Is my claim about low rates of transition regret incorrect, or is it that my comparison is exceptionally misleading? Which is it?

It's both. The studies you refer to do not actually show that the numbers are low because they fail to properly follow the transitioners, AND your comparison to knee surgery was misleading because you've cherrypicked one of the most regretted surgeries.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#647

Post by mnsc » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 9:55 AM UTC

vinegarden wrote: post #429

mnsc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since there is a school of thought that gender to a great extent is socially learned behaviour the idea that you by learning more about gender transgression would "create" a desire that "I would be more comfortable in 'that gender' over there" is not far-fetched although I'm not aware of any research. The issue is mostly by those who pathologize that state of not being comfortable in ones "gender assigned at birth",…

Your comment reminds me of a very interesting interview with Dr Az Hakeem, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who set up group therapy sessions for gender dysphoric patients: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ycqNoareUT6Y6s85LrJSF He would include in these groups people at all stages in their transitions, so those considering transitioning further could be informed and challenged by those who had gone the whole way w…

I will pass on your podcast because I found this:

https://thepinknews.com/2022/05/22/conversion-therapy-trans-...

First.

Hakeem [...] describes himself as a “gender critical psychiatrist”

Then the "sell"

Hakeem offers “specialist psychotherapy for gender dysphoria”, and says that he “does not try and persuade or dissuade anyone from pursuing physical sex interventions such as hormones or surgery but his role is to provide a neutral exploration space to think about sex and gender”.

Then the reality

“He made it clear from the very start that he was sceptical of my gender and expressed doubt that it could differ to [my] sex,”

So a great example of someone pathologizing trans people and not taking them seriously. I hope that was what you wanted to shed light on! Thanks!

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#648

Post by LawTalkingGuy » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 10:07 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #638

beckon69 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciated this thoughtful response (rebuttal) to OP. I agree with your concept of "back in the 00s you'd never have a teacher scold a child for using wrong-sex clothes/toys because we'd largely gotten rid of the concept". This dovetails into one of the paradox's of the trans-adjacent ideology that I haven't been able to square in my own head, which is that transitioning genders is predicated on strong gender norm…

I'm OP, and I did not appreciate this rebuttal, and consider it alarmist and terrible. I responded here if you want to take a look: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33891710 To your point, though, there is an explanation there too. The word is complex and full of many intersecting axis of considerations. For example - it can be logically consistent to be both pro renewable energy investment of all kinds, but also…

> our world is definitely still deeply GENDERED. There are people who believe it shouldn't be, and are working to buck those trends (and those people, generally, receive equally as much backlash as those transgender).

Some things are pointlessly gendered, like pink/blue, or puffy sleeves, but others absolutely have a purpose, like single-sex spaces.

> Transgender people - by and large - like most people - aren't looking to tear down the binary gender norms in our society - they're just seeking to exist in society as the other gender.

The problem is that trying to tear down GENDER norms by living as the other SEX. You're interfering with other people's spaces to culture-jam the patriarchy and they need those spaces for safety, but you're also conflating the stereotypes of a sex with the sex itself.

> we have people who are suffering today, and who we have statistical evidence that there is a solution for what ails them.

Most or all of that evidence is as flawed as the detransitioners study. Everyone is afraid to do any actual research in this area. That said there's ample evidence in every other area of mental health that says you should not affirm falsehood.

> Why deny them this?

They're denied nothing up until their gender presentation interferes with someone else's sex-based rights. Dress how you will, live how you will.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#649

Post by bobcattz » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 10:17 AM UTC

Proprietary software that rewrites brains hum interesting you dont need need science to tell you what going on you only need to meditate and ask the universe.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#650

Post by matsemann » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 10:23 AM UTC

dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote: post #552

fleddr wrote: post #535

The times we live in, utterly bizarre. Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. It would still happen but in moderation, for which I'll use the stereotype "village idiot". A village idiot is isolated for having off-base ideas and behavior, hence bad ideas don't take root. Now it's as if all the village idiots of the world had a meeting and started to ru…

Not only that, but if you tell the village idiot they're being an idiot you become a villageidiotiophobe. People are afraid to set boundaries for fear of getting cancel cultured or harassed by a woke tolerance mob. All disagreement is now "toxic behavior" on social media channels. Arguing over perspectives is now sometimes branded with the extreme label of gaslighting. Day by day our Overton window continues to shift…

Ironically I feel your beliefs about this stem from whatever bubble you yourself are in. No normal person goes around afraid of being "attacked by a woke mob". This is some stories you've been told, and blindly believe, from the other side.